As artists, it can be tricky to get that perfect picture after a permanent makeup tattoo session. The skin may be red, swollen, angry, bruised, textured and simply just doesn’t photograph well. But don’t worry, we’ve also struggled and have developed our own little tricks to work around those common issues. 

LIGHTING IS KEY

Lighting is the most important factor to getting that perfect picture. Not only will lighting make your picture eye-catching, it also sets the mood and tone. A light, vibrant and clear image will be much more powerful than a dim, grainy and shadowed picture. If you do not own a ring light, we highly suggest you invest in one. We use ring lights of all different sizes in the studio, a stand works best for client images and filming and a mini-phone clip light for those up-close shots.

DON’T BE AFRAID TO GET CLOSE

Whether you’re getting shots of your finished work or someone is getting clips of you, don’t be afraid to get in there! People love to get a closer look of the work you’ve produced or behind the scenes. Don’t hesitate to get in your client's face or millimeters away from your work. It’s better to get that up-close shot at the moment rather than zooming into a photo later and distorting the quality. 

TRY DIFFERENT ANGLES

Get on the right, get on the left, stand over your client if you have to, and do whatever you can to get that angle! Move your body positioning and camera to see what looks the best and what doesn’t work. A bad angle can completely distort your beautiful work, and make something look lopsided or uneven, and be careful of the angle. 

DIRECT YOUR CLIENT

You are behind the camera and you know the vision of your shots, so direct your clients on what you want them to do. Sit still, smile, blink, look here, look there, let them know what you need. We have a few markers on the ceiling of where we want our clients to look up or we might move a pointer around for them to follow. Place them in different backgrounds and become the director! 

SNAP SEVERAL PHOTOS IN DIFFERENT MODES

Whether you’re taking photos on your phone or camera, try different modes and snap snap snap. We shoot all of our studio content with the iPhone 11 or 13. We will take standard photos, portrait mode, cinematic and widescreen. Those different modes will create a different view and feel, you can choose later what look you’re going for. We also never just take one photo, we will snap anywhere from 5-10 in the same spot just to make sure we have plenty of content to choose from. After just one client we may have up to 100 images! 

We know how tricky getting a pretty picture is, so we hope these few little tips help you elevate your photo-taking skills! Good-quality pictures in such a saturated market will help you stand out from the rest.

It’s really true when they say a picture is worth a thousand words.