Shoot Like a Pro

I hate to admit it, but given the choice between reading or looking at a magazine I’ll always pick the pretty pictures. I’m a junky for blogs with amazing photography; food that looks so good you could eat it, a sunset so incredible it makes the hairs on your neck stand up on end.

So to learn my aperture from my shutter speed and the importance of ISO, I attended Topshop’s summer school in collaboration with Olympus Pen.

Photographer Cleveland Aaron and fashion blogger/blogger Victoria of In The Frow were on hand to offer us their expertise. The challenge? To execute a killer flat lay.

Cleveland highlighted the importance of light and thinking of your camera a bit like your eyes. If you go into bright light you need to squint, likewise your camera will do the same so you need to play around with the aperture and shutter speed to prevent this.

Victoria’s top tip – “it’s all about the composition, you need to put items closer together than you think, they might look right to your eye, but when photographed they look really far apart.”

After nearly an hour of playing around with my Olympus Pen, the photos on this post are the result. Handily, the camera has wi-fi and so I was able to transfer them straight to my phone and then post them here for you to see.

Over the next few weeks you can let me know if my photography improves.