Hey everyone!

It's me, Alex, and everyone's favourite bird...

Archie.

Everyone asks me on Instagram "how do you take a good photo??"

I get asked this every day, 10, 20 times in my DM's, people are like "how are you taking

these pictures???

How???"

Like it's some sort of witchcraft.

It's not guys, I mean, yes I do have a fancy camera but I don't take all my photos with

a fancy camera.

I take a lot of my photos with my mobile phone (((what are you dooie ooie???)))

"What are you dooie ooie" says Archie...

I use my phone for a lot of my photos, and today i'm just going to show you some quick

and easy tips on how to take an Instagram photo from drab to fab.

Making this video has made me realise that I am in desparate need of a vlogging camera,

because it is very very very difficult holding up 5 kilos on a little tiny stick.

It is very hard and very heavy and i'm quaking.. and shaking... and I hate it.

I must apologise in advance for the state of my bedroom, it is an absolute pigsty.

I might be cute and kawaii on camera but in real life I live like a derelict, and I never

clean.

Ever.

So I tried to polish things up as quickly as I could before filming.

This is in no way at all a wardrobe tour, it's just a very quick me gathering cute things

to take photos with, so don't get your hopes up because you're not going to see too much

because it's way too messy and i'm sorry.

Don't look!

Don't look, it's too messy.

Ooh, what are you doing?

I'm just going to gather some ingredients for a beautiful photo.

Now i'm sure that a lot of you that are watching this probably have a few pink things laying

around.

Maybe you don't have much, but i'm sure you have something, right?

Maybe you've got some cute pink makeup or..

I don't know, pink clothes.

Anything!

If it's cute, we want to take photos of it and we want to post it on Instagram.

These are Alex's top 10 tips on how to take a beautiful photo for Instagram.

I have my mess of a makeup desk here and i'm just going to pick out a couple of key ingredients.

So the first thing that we're going to use to take pictures....

My kawaii senses are tingling.

What do we want?

This.

Not that....

THIS!

Japanese makeup.

Cute Tony Moly panda thing.

Some cute...

I don't know.. what are you...

Hello, you are "petite bunny glossy bar".

Yep, you'll do.

Sailor Moon eyeliner.

Cute.

I have some cute blending sponges that I haven't used yet, so that'll do.

That's... hmm.. actually... no.

Oops!

Bye bye.

This... oh no, it's dirty!

Here, this, that's cute.

Yep.

OOH, there's a bird feather on it!

That's very cute.

Blushes...

Chuck that in there.

What about some of this EOS lipbalm.

Cute, cute, cute, one more just for safe measure.

Cute.

What else do we want?

Um...

I know.

How about we do Pusheen!

How about we do you, because you're really really cute.

We'll add him, and we'll add.. hmmm..

Ooh, waterbottle!

Yaaas.

Very cute.

Yes.

When ever I do my flat lays, I try to have a nice assortment of things that people can

look at and admire from a distance, so i'm going to use makeup, I think I might do a

phone case, I might do a cute purse, i'm doing the Pusheen mugs..

Um..

I feel like a key to a good photo is to create a lot of interest, you know, create some cute

little exciting things.

Not just makeup, I mean yes, you can do just makeup in a picture but I like to do things

that everyone will find interesting.

Maybe not everyone is interested in makeup, but everyone is interested in Pusheen, am

I right?

I've got my little drawer.. oh don't look!

Don't look!

It's too messy.

Um... cute... purse.. purse.. purse..

I know i've got one in here.

Uhhh.

Where are you?

Oh, here.

Hidden under here.

These are cute.

Sparkles!

Now, alright guys, i'm going to give you three seconds to work out what the common factor

is in all of these things that i'm gathering.

Ok, just take a look.

Actually, you don't meet the common factor so you're going.

That might be a good hint.

What is the common factor?

It's the colour palette!

That's right, i'm going with pink, blue, purple and white.

That is my colour palette for this particular photo and I highly highly recommend that when

ever you take a photo for Instagram, you stick to a colour palette.

Choose your theme and stick with it - none of this nonsense with different colours here

and there (unless your theme is rainbow, in which case that is perfectly fine.)

That's all of our things, so we're going to gather it up and then i'm going to show you

a backdrop to use.

Alright guys, I am notorious for collecting blankets and the reason that I do that is

because I can buy blankets in many many different pastel shades and I use them as backdrops.

None of this fancy pants photographic backdrop nonsense.

Blankets are fine!

Fuzzy blankets, fluffy blankets, woven blankets, scratchy blankets, I don't care what sort

of blanket.

If it is a blanket with a cute colour, buy it!

Some of these I bought from Target, some of them are from the baby section in Target,

really the paler the better.

If it's pale blue, pale pink, pale yellow, I don't care.

Just buy a bunch of them and use them as backdrops.

I have a white fluffy blanket - i'm just going to shoot on my bed because I have a window

there and a bed here so there's a lot of nice light.

Yes, that's right friends, (((peekaboo!!!)))

You need good lighting to take a photo.

It doesn't matter what sort of camera you use, whether you're using an iPhone X or you're

using your ex boyfriends cracked iPhone 5 (yes, that's right, I live with my ex boyfriend,

deal with it).

Or you're using an iPhone 7, or you're using an android, it doesn't matter.

You can use a phone and take a good photo, as long as you have good light.

We're going to arrange all of our cute little things.

We're going to get our three purses, and lay them like that.

That's totally fine.

I don't even need to do anything else to that.

That looks nice.

Let's get this.. and we're going to put that.. there for now.

I'm sure that the order of this (((weeeoooweee good boy!!!)

Yes Archie, you're a good boy, I know.

I'm sure that the order of this is going to change, but for now we're going to talk our

lip balms..

Now, here's a pro tip for you guys.

Always shoot in uneven numbers!

I have 4 EOS lip balms here and i'm only going to use three, because 3 photographs a lot

nicer than 4, did you know?

One, two and that one, because that one isn't quite the right blue.

I'm going to put one two three.

Blushes!

Now remember what I said, photograph in uneven numbers.

I only have two blushes there, so instead of using three blushes (which is overkill)

i'm just going to use one.

So let's go with that one.

That's fine.

And then we'll use our blending brush, blending... boop... what ever you call that.

And then we'll use these!

Yes.

And Pusheen!

Yep.

And Pusheen.

Alright, that's all of our stuff.

You don't need to use exactly the same sort of things, just along the same line, you know..

some interesting things.

You might want to use a cup..

OH!

That's right, I said I was going to use a phone case.

Here.

Hmm..

Unicorn..

No.

Now those are for my giveaway, I still have to post them!

Sorry Bayleigh and Pookie Slime.

Pastel, pastel, that one!

That's cute.

Yes, that's fine.

Time to do some rearranging.

So i'm happy with those sitting where they are, because they're catching the light really

nicely.

I'm going to take Pusheen and put him somewhere where he doesn't get a reflection on his face.

There!

Yes.

And, you know what's cute?

Maybe we'll make it look like the lip balms are spilling out of the Pusheen mug.

Yep, that's cute.

I'm very sorry about Archie's commentary in the background.

So Pusheen is a generous God and he's spilling out lip balms for us.

This!

Now, I try not to put pink next to pink, I like to break up the colours a little bit.

So i'm going to put that over here, because there's no pink over here.

There's blue, there's no pink.

So there goes the pink.

This cute little powder can go there.

Phone case...

Now, you've gotta be a bit careful when you're placing these sort of items because (((AAAAA)))

Archie!

Alright, that's it, come on.

Come and join us.

Come join us friend.

Look!

Do you want to be in the picture?

Wow!

Ok.

You know what?

I don't think this needs the phone case.

We're going to take that out, because to me, it was a cute idea but I feel like that's

too boxy, and that's boxy..

You know, like that's a rectangle and that's a rectangle, so i'm going to get rid of that.

Where do I want to put that...

You know what?

Don't need that either.

Ok, we'll just put Pusheen like this, and that's it!

We're ready to take our photo.

So i'm going to use a phone, like I said.

I'm going to use a very old iPhone 5 with a cracked screen, which belongs to my ex boyfriend

Sam who Daniel and I live with, but that's a story for another day.

So we're going to use this old piece of crap and we're going to take a photo of all of

this stuff!

So i'm just going to get a laptop and set it up with screen recording, so you can see

what i'm doing.

I'm going to get my laptop.

Please watch Archie for me!

It's an Archie interlude, Archie interlude, it's an Archie interlude!

Half time with Archie!!!

Archie, you've messed up my flat lay.

No!

Give it back!

That was fine where it was.

Ok, i'm going to take the photo from directly above, trying to get everything in the shot,

just tapping for focus.

Hitting "take".

Now i'm using the square camera.

Ok!

That's really all I need to do.

That's it!

I'm going to import the photo in to Instagram...

Now, I took a few..

Oh crap, my phone cord is in literally all of them.

Ok, I think that's going to be the best one.

EDIT!

This is the fun part.

ADJUST.

I'm just going to spin it around and I might bring it in a little bit tighter.

Archie don't pull that out!

I need that!

No no no!

Oh you are so naughty.

My camera just died...