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Prior to the lockdown one of my favorite things to do was scout out the best locations around Kansas City and Philadelphia, depending where I was, to take photos for my blog at a later date. When I started The Mod Little Melanin four years ago (crazy right!) I frequently took photos inside of my house. But once I started comparing my blogging to other bloggers (and I’ll share in another post why you should never do that), I realized exactly what my blog was missing, scenic shots!  Most bloggers take photos in a variety of locations around their city, some even go as far as hiring photographers. But for me, a broke med student with no extra money to spend on photogs, or even good editing apps, I’ve learned to do everything on my own for the last few years. I’ve learned that blogging is trial and error until you learn what works for you. So eventually, I learned that I didn’t like shooting for my blog in my home, or even outside of my home. I learned the importance of lighting, and “golden hour” to get the best shots when shooting outside. And most importantly I learned that the backdrop of your photo can make or break your blog post.
Some bloggers take time to coordinate their outfits to their backdrops, or focus on having a particular color in all of their photos, and while that may work for them it has never worked for me. When I tried that method of blogging, or focused heavily on preserving my color theory in each photo, blogging no longer was enjoyable for me. My entire reason for starting The Mod Little Melanin was to share my joy for fashion and styling with my bloggers, and I felt I couldn’t do that when I worried about how my Instagram feed looked. Instead, my joy comes from finding vivid, colorful or scenic backgrounds to photograph my looks in front of. Philadelphia is home to hundreds of murals and my goal is to take photos in front of as many as possible. Sometimes I’ll purposely go to a specific location if I feel my outfit best coordinates with a particular mural but usually my shoots for a blog post are unplanned. Here are a five tips to get great photos for your blog at any location! 1. Find a location that isn’t crowded. Crowds make it difficult to get a good shot, and it results in a lot of photoshopping later to remove extra people. 2. Make sure your photos are taken in locations where the sunlight isn’t too harsh. If lighting is too harsh, find a wall to provide a bit of shade to cut down on harsh light. 3. Find your triangles when you pose. Posing in triangles helps to elongate your body and extremities, while providing flattering photos that you will love! Not sure what this means? Don’t worry I have a blog post coming soon to explain posing in triangles! For now, check out my Pinterest board linked in this sentence to learn how to pose in triangle! 4. Take a few candid shots. I always direct my photographer (aka whichever friend is with me that day) to continuously snap photos so that I have a few candid shots to post on Instagram later. Photos directly facing the camera are not my favorite, and I rarely smile in photos or even show my eyes without sunglasses. It’s become sort of my signature look with my blogs. 5. Shot the same outfit in a variety of locations throughout the day. Don’t just stick with one location, explore the city and snap as many as possible at a variety of locations! This helps you to create content that can be posted on your blog or Instagram weeks or even months later. Most importantly, have fun with your shots while you’re on location! I’ve found a ton of examples of unique poses to do in photos from Pinterest alone. Remember those triangles, and snap away! - Chelsea Nicole, The Mod Little Melanin
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I’ve been wearing quite a bit of loungewear during the coronavirus lockdown. Honestly, I’ve been wearing nothing but loungewear for the last two months, because if you’ve taken the time to sit around in your jeans while we’re in lockdown, you’re probably in the minority. Since we’ve likely all been wearing sweatpants, I thought today was the perfect time to show you have to dress up a pair of sweatpants from loungewear to athlesiure wear! So what exactly is athleisure wear? I personally define athleisure wear as couture-like pieces that are added to traditional athletic pieces such as sweatpants or a hoodie. However, Good Housekeeping defines athleisure wear as a hybrid of workout clothes and loungewear, which makes for versitile pieces that can go from the gym to the couch or even to the office. However you choose to define athleisure wear is up to you, but the key is to make sure your pieces look comfy while being stylish. The Queen of Athleisure Wear, Kim Kardashian-West makes athleisure wear look effortless. She frequently rocks her husband’s Yeezy clothing line of sweatpants and sweatshirts that are often in neutral color patterns such as tan, cream, khaki and black. So how exactly does Kim pull off this look? By choosing one color to create a monochrome look throughout her entire outfit, and adding a few layers on top to create a cohesive, and sleek look. She often completes her look by adding a pair of heels, or a tennis shoe, and bold accessories such as gold hoop earrings or a chunky gold necklace.  For this look, I choose to keep my styling simple by pairing coordinating athletic pieces that I purchased from Jordyn Woods’ clothing line called Secndnture , a size-inclusive, street-style inspired athletic wear line that puts fashion at the forefront of the design process. About a month ago, Secndnture had a sale when everything was 80% off, which meant it was the perfect time to snatch up athletic wear for an affordable price. I was able to score this pair of silver windbreaker sweatpants and coordinating mesh bodysuit for under $25.00.
The key to successfully styling this look was to style a monochrome, aka one color, outfit. Since these are coordinating pieces, there wasn’t much additional effort needed to finish styling this look. To finish the look, I added a pair of white chunky dad sneakers, and a pair of silver hoop earrings. With athleisure wear, you want to keep accessories to a minimum as to not overpower the look. After all, you goal is to look like you could go from the gym to the mall in one outfit. Want to see more athleisure looks? Be sure to follow me on Instagram, @themodlittlemelanin! - Chelsea Nicole. The Mod Little Melanin Last week on The Mod Little Melanin, I shared some of my favorite places to shop for designer items below retail value. This week I’ll be sharing the method I use to pay for my designer purchases, and that method is Affirm!
Affirm is a financial technology company that operates as a financial lender of installment loans for consumers to use at the point of sale to finance a purchase. Basically, they provide a loan on a virtual credit card for consumers to use to pay for their purchase. The consumer is then responsible for paying the loan back in payment installments. There is also a small interest fee attached to the loan. To date, I haven’t paid more than $20 to $30 in interest. There are a few different payment plans to pay back your loan. You can chose to pay on your loan in either three month, six month, or twelve month equal installments. I always chose the twelve month repayment option to allow myself the most time to repay the loan, and to have the lowest monthly payment. For example, if you purchase something from The Real Real for $745.00, your monthly installments can be as low as $66.00 per month. The amount of interest you pay on the loan stays the same regardless of the repayment option you select. The best part is that you can use Affirm at ANY online store, even if they don’t offer Affirm at check out! To pay at a store that doesn’t offer Affirm at checkout, simply make a purchase through the app, and select the option to use a one-time virtual card at checkout. Happy Shopping! - Chelsea Nicole, The Mod Little Melanin |
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