Flatlay is basically a picture taken from the bird’s eye or top view of items that form a theme. The bird’s eye viewpoint of a flatlay gives an impression of the items laying flat on the ground to the viewer. Basically remove the depth from a picture and you are left with a flatlay. Flatlays have become the new ‘in’ thing on Instagram and are a classic way to showcase your favorite objects and current addictions in a way that is aesthetically pleasing!
Porta pretium turpis lectus risus dis venenatis eros sem. Magnis natoque felis conubia nonummy tellus eleifend litora rutrum lectus etiam porta curabitur. Donec quis sapien sit amet enim semper ultricies. In non malesuada lectus.
Types of flatlays:
Flatlays can be categorized into two types – one centered around a mood and another centered around an object
Centered around a mood: Here the focus is on the mood of the photo, the story you are saying through the photo. For example, the photo below is centered around the mood of enjoying a delicious treat rather than one specific subject.
Centered around an object: Here the focus is on a central object that you want to highlight! For example, in the photo below the main subject is the book and the entire photo is styled around it.
5 Tips to Master Instagram Flatlays:
Personally for me, flatlays are my favorite kind of photos for Instagram. Getting that perfect flatlay photo isn’t hard, but it can be tricky. Over the past 2 years, I have experimented with shooting a variety of flatlays and here are some tips I ‘ve picked up along the way. Also, I have a free 7-day email-course called Mastering Instagram photos which teaches you how to capture stunning Instagram photos using your iPhone. So make sure to enroll in the course for free by clicking below:
1. What is the story you are going to tell?
In my opinion, a concept is the secret behind a good flatlay. Sure you can throw in random items that look good together to form a flatlay, but if there is no concept or meaning behind the creation – its not going to be as impactful as it should be. Your concept can be anything from a simple “what’s on my desk” to “my trip to france“, but there needs to be a solid concept.
2. Choose soft lighting:
The lighting is one of the crucial components of getting a flatlay right. Since a flatlay photo is 2-dimensional, its best to avoid shadows in your photos. And for this reason, you want to use soft, diffused natural light for shooting flatlays. When the sun is overhead around noon, it causes sharp shadows in your photos which can be unflattering, specially in flatlays. So make sure to shoot during early morning or early evening when the sun is still low in the sky.
3. Choose a plain background:
When it comes to backgrounds for flatlays, less is more. Choose a plain white background for your flatlays so it brings out the contrast in the objects that are creating the flatlay. You can get a white foam board from your craft store or use a white wooden board as your background
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.
Albert Einstein
Summary
A little inspiration never hurt anyone. Creating flatlays requires a lot of creativity and incase you find yourself looking for some creative kicks, here are some accounts that do great flatlays:
Jeffery Adolor is a web developer and a Techie, interested in writing and deploying web application and leveraging on computer languages to help solve computational problems and help promote businesses, also a vibrant digital marketer and strategist, active and leveraging on available Platform to help promote businesses through social media and search engines