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Chelsea: "How do you take pictures? They look so vibrant and professional."

Um, okay. So this, I have two answers. The one is, some of my photos are professionally taken. One of— in my business, one of the things that I invest in on a regular basis is that I shoot with a photographer twice a month. So if you're seeing like pictures of me, it's probably been taken by my photographer. If you're taking, you know, seeing pictures of me styling something, that's been taken by my photographer in most cases. Um, but other than that, and I'm happy— I'm so excited to be able to share these resources with you. Other than that, I take all of the photo—like any photos that are done with my clients, I'm taking them. Um, if they're photos of the henna itself, I'm taking them. If you're seeing, um, even sometimes photos of myself, I may be taking them. Um, and it's— you just might not know it.

So the way that I get the pictures so vibrant is that I use— one, I definitely spend time editing my photos but then also I've invested in just a couple of tools that I'm happy to tell you about that aren't super expensive either, that help me to make sure that I can get content and get photos taken regularly.

The first is a tripod. I have, oh, probably six different tripods that I use. They're very cheap. They're literally, like, they're super inexpensive. In fact, I'll show you, look, right now you guys are sitting on one variation of that tripod. I have, um, I have tripods that are on stands. Some of them are small, just hard tabletops. Some of them are very tall that I think that will go up to five feet tall. Um, but—so I have different tripods depending on where I'm going to be working. So when I'm taking video, like many times you'll see me post videos of myself working. Those videos are taken from a tripod that I have sitting next to me. And normally I'll have multiple, um, even I have a tripod that I take with me to bookings so that I can get pictures of my work as I'm working or get videos of my work as I'm working. You can use a clicker. The clickers are very inexpensive. It's a really tiny device. You can find it on Amazon for, like, $3 or $4. And you just—it attaches to your phone by way of Bluetooth and you can just click that and it will turn your camera—like, indicate for your camera to turn on to record video or it will snap the picture for you.

So you can be working and have, you know, the clicker in your hand and the camera just kind of facing you on the tripod and as you're working, you just click that camera, uh, click that button in your hand and the camera will snap pictures for you. So once you've got all of these collections of photos, right, you've got your clicker and you've got your tripod. So that you can start taking photos because guys, we really want to have photos of ourselves working. People love to see you working. People love to see you working. Um, but don't challenge yourself like, "Well, if I'm working how am I going to get the photos?" Set up the tripod. If you have an old camera phone or if you have whatever, you can just use your own phone that you're— I mean you're not on the phone while you're working, right? Attach it to the tripod. Put it in position and snap pictures, snap video while you're going.

But then after I've got that content, then I use an app that's called VSCO to edit my photos. I love VSCO. I'm obsessed. Like, I'm obsessed. It's a VSCO the letters, right? Um, and recently I talked about it on the podcast. So if you didn't listen to the podcast about the apps that I recommend, I give you five apps that are really, really good. Make sure that you listen. I'll post the link in the comments, okay?

Um, but the VSCO app gives you the opportunity to do all sorts of different things with your photos. So I can adjust the lighting. I know this hennapreneur asked specifically, how do I get the photos that look so vibrant? I can adjust the lighting. I can adjust the contrast. I can adjust the saturation to make sure that that photo really pops and looks vibrant and it doesn't look dim and dull which is a big deal, especially when you are wanting, you know, you want to have that Instagram feed that's nice and bright and clean. You can make those changes with simple editing. Um, I'm not a crazy fan of using the editing options that are, like, inside of what's it called? Uh, Instagram or even I've used other apps as well. VSCO is hands down the best option for me. And so I love it and I recommend it.

Um, but, another thing too is with lighting specifically, if you have the opportunity to pick up just a little clip, a ring light, a little, it's like this. It's a little selfie ring light. It clips to your phone. You can clip that onto your phone and so that as you're taking photos and as you're taking that video, you have better lighting. The better lighting your photo starts with, the easier it is going to be for you to edit it later. So that's what I've got for you. Okay.