Tip Tuesday : 12 Couples Poses & Photo Ideas At Home

I know during these times at home it can feel like there isn’t anything all that special - date nights for a lot of us included getting out. But, since we’re all staying in I wanted to round up some photo ideas to do at home AND photos you can do yourself! All of the photos here were shot on our iPhones AND I’ve linked any “extras” you can order online if you want to up your photo game! I know some of the things that have been canceled - weddings, engagement parties, celebrations and so much more - are heart wrenching but we can still celebrate our love at home until we get to celebrate.

To take these photos you’ll need either a phone or camera! You certainly don’t need a tripod but having one does open up options for unique shots. I’ve linked the ones I use for my camera and phone below and definitely suggest at least getting one for your phone! If you don’t have one or don’t want to get one you can lean your phone on books, stools, tables or really anything else you can think of - just be careful! Your phone will break if you’re not careful so take risks wisely! Beyond those, you can also purchase a bluetooth clicker that allows you to take photos with a simple click! I love using this when we travel but its perfect at home too!

Dog Stack

Forehead Kisses

Half & Half :

Making Breakfast:

Dog Hugs :

Holding Hands :

Bed/Couch & Coffee :

Stool Shots :

Tippy Toes :

Pillow Talk:

Projector Pics:

Mirror Shots:

My 14 Top Tips for Working from Home

It is a wild time to be alive right now, period. If you are one of the humans who has the privilege to be able to shift your work or school from office to home right now, I can almost guarantee you’re figuring out this whole WFH thing isn’t quite as glam as you thought. Today I’m sharing my Top 14 Tips for Working from Home and hope you find these helpful! If there is absolutely anything I don’t cover or a situation you’re having a hard time with, drop your question below in the comments or feel free to email me and we can work together to make this WFH situation a little easier!

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Create a Routine & Try to Stick to It! - Be like Gatsby and set up a routine for your days! Now, this doesn’t have to be the exact same Monday - Friday BUT keeping things in a routine is super helpful! For example, in my perfect world where I am totally perfect, this is kinda what my schedule looks like throughout the week when I work from home!

While I am rarely perfect, having a routine helps me stay on task, stay motivated and enjoy my work! A huge tip if you can’t do the same thing every day is to focus then on time/task blocking. All this means is throughout your day/week you pick a particular day or amount of time to do one task such as answering emails, getting on calls, working on draft proposals, running reports, etc. Everyone is different based on their industry but I promise you having a routine rocks and helps get you out of funks. Now, once you’ve got something put together, try your very best to stick with it. If you have little ones, a pet, get sick or something else similar, it can make sticking to routine extra difficult. Just remember, life happens. Give yourself grace and keep in mind routines or habits take around 20 - 30 days to form. It will take time but I know you got this!

Do Something Special Every Day! - It might be another work day but ensuring you take time to do “special” things every day will help make this transition or any future transition to WFH much easier. This can be taking 15 minutes to watch your favorite Bon Appetite Video, time for meditation, making your favorite iced coffee, taking that extra time to give your at home lunch gourmet flair, a quick at-home workout sesh. Whatever your special thing is- make time for it and prioritize it like you would the work you’re doing if not more. WFH can lead to feeling stuck, lonely, bored and exhausted. These small moments end up making a huge impact in your overall day and experience of working from home.

Use Video More than Usual - It might feel funny at first but if you’re going from face to face to strictly email it can feel like a lot is getting lost in translation (and transition). Using video communication on Google or Zoom is so helpful and will make you feel WAY better about what’s going on and keep human communication more normalized! Whether for work or not, this is a great way to also keep in touch with other humans! Set a time for a big ole group chat and catch up to help getting through this time when we’re more solo!

Business Up Top and Party on the Bottom - If you’ve never worked from home you may not be familiar with this BUT basically this is the unspoken rule of WFH employees. Be cute up top and wear pjs (or no pants) on the bottom. If the UPS guy comes, you can poke your top half out and sign for a package. Your meeting on Zoom comes up? You’re ready to go and look SO professional. You get the best of both worlds with this method and honestly its an insider secret of basically every blogger and influencer on the gram who focuses on their face in stories lol.

Stay Hydrated - This is something you should do no matter where you’re working BUT at home it’s super important to stay hydrated! Be sure to add water breaks into your day and remember - a cup of coffee or caffeinated drink DOES NOT count as water! Get your H2O in - you will feel much better and thank me for it!

Get Ready - Ok I 100% do not do this every day but when I do it makes SUCH a difference. You don’t have to put pants on (ok by maybe you should) but try giving yourself a routine to shower, do your skin care, makeup (optional), hair, get dressed (kind of) and anything else that is part of your routine. Getting ready helps ensure you’re not falling victim to never taking care of yourself. It might sound off but when you WFH it’s even easier to stay in PJ’s for days straight and just work your little heart away. Like I said, I certainly don’t do this every day, in fact not wearing makeup every day has helped my skin breathe a ton - but it can help if you’re in a rut and just not feeling motivated.

If You Share a Space, Set Ground Rules - Like many people, a lot of us share our living space with other people or pets and this can make working from home especially challenging. Whether they’re your partner, best furry pal, roomie, little one or family member it is super important to set down some ground rules and communicate. If you’re on calls that require quiet time, be sure to relay when those are and maybe suggest something they can do at that time that keeps things quiet. When in doubt, always keep yourself on mute (seriously my biggest pet peeve in online meetings). Maybe you need background noise while they’re on a zoom call for class? Opt for headphones! The point is, the more you talk and communicate through this and any WFH situation with the people (or pets) you live with, the better it will be!

TAKE BREAKS! - The research has shown it for YEARS - doing one thing for extended amounts of time (studying, working, etc.) actually makes us less productive! That being said, know breaks are essential - especially at home! It is so easy to have the day fly by when you don’t have the same environment that you do at work and you end up working your shift, if not a longer one, without hardly noticing. Be sure when you’re creating your routine you add in breaks of different lengths for stretches, snacks, meals, drinking water and to get those eyes off the screen! TIP: Swear you can’t take a break from screens? Be sure to wear Blue Light Glasses!

Leave Home (Kinda) - While we can’t really leave our homes now we can remove our selves from the office or couch we’re sitting in for a quick walk around the block or your apartment floor. Just getting up to stretch, do something different and get moving can help your body and your mind stay focused. If you do this at the office, try sticking to your routine as well but at home!

Ask For What You Need! - Working from home can mean that basically everything is an IM or Email and you might find yourself needing a little extra support, access to a report or really anything. Don’t hesitate to ask for help to get what you need. If someone makes you feel bad for it, they’re the worst and just do your thing. It’s best to be in the loop and informed than not! Additionally, if you find yourself doing way more than usual (this actually happens a lot when people shift to WFH) make sure to ask for breaks, not being on meetings or whatever else needs to happen to make you successful. The initial shift is hard and that’s ok!

Keep to A Dedicated Space - I unfortunately am still trying to work on this BUT it does help a ton if you can pick a place to work and stick to it. If you have an office or guest bedroom this is an ideal space to do your work. If not, try out the kitchen or dining room table, a spot in your bedroom or (like me) the coffee table. Keeping a spot specifically for work helps a ton when it comes time to close things off for the day and start things up in the morning.

Treat Yo Self - If you have a tradition of getting coffee every morning, wearing something comfy on Fridays or dressing even nicer on Mondays, keep it up! While your working environment might be different try to keep these fun traditions alive! You might not be able to get your regular order but you can learn to make it at home. In the future this will save you money and teach you a fun new skill (that could also be employable!)

Business Like Usual - If you typically were in an office or space with others, you might have special things you do together. Maybe you grab lunch on Thursdays or each week a different person grabs coffee for the team. While we can’t be out and about right now, we can still do those things just differently. Text your work friends, Face Time on Lunch, have a virtual Coffee Time. Those bonds were and remain important, especially when you work on a team! If you don’t work with a team, this is a great time to try incorporating more people driven interaction. Slide into the DM’s with your industry role models, hit up friends and snuggle your pet a little closer.

Get Real About Distractions - Contrary to popular belief, having Netflix on 24/7 when you WFH is actually kind of hard for a lot of people. If you want to have something on in the back, go for it but be reasonable. If you find yourself watching the TV more then you do getting through your work, consider opting for music or even nothing at all. Every day will be different so give yourself grace and try different things until you find your flow! TIP: Looking for a playlist? Here are some of my favorites to focus, relax, get hype, and have background tunes.

Where to Find Inspiration When You're in a Creative Slump

Whether its all the life changes, the new projects or just the human feeling of never doing enough, creating enough, being enough, I have found myself in quite the creative slump. This whole last week I could barely muster the desire to shoot anything outside of campaigns and just wasn’t feeling that genius spark like I usually do. Since then, I’ve done some soul searching, lots of crying and talks with Cody (my literal saving grace). In all this I realized a few things. 1) slumps happens 2) make note of your places of support and inspiration 3) give yourself grace to have slumps 4) when you’re ready to overcome them, kick its butt AND take ALL the photos.

Today, I’m sharing with you how I’ve been working through this little slump by browsing inspiring places and interacting with and being inspired by my favorite people - I hope you enjoy!

Pinterest

I’m pretty sure Pinterest is slowly but surely becoming everyone’s favorite platform. Whether you’re looking to get inspired for photos or captions or find what you’ll fill your belly with tonight or the decor you want trimming your home during the holidays- Pinterest got you girl. As a long time user this has been my holy grail for inspiration of all sorts. Recently, as I’ve been learning how to use it more for SEO, outreach and so on, my relationship with it has changed. This past week I said heck it and just went to town pinning away on a private board ideas. From quotes that inspired me to think of a blog post topic or editorial photos I really want to emanate in my next shoot- I’ve started to get the creative juices flowing again.

As simple as that sounds, “I got on Pinterest and it was all ok” * swoon * I know it’s not that simple. When in doubt I look up the following things:

1. Something that brings me joy (example: holiday decorations, cookie recipes, editorial photography)

   While these things don’t always apply to what I shoot or my style, they make me happy and frankly, I think half the battle of getting out of a creative funk is proving to yourself that joy CAN be sparked again. Your creative ideas and love and jump in your heart for more CAN happen. This is kind of like muscle memory training in sports- you gotta get back on the horse.

2. People I admire’s Pins (example: Angie Richardson, Jenna Kutcher, etc.)

   Even though I might be going through a slump, my fellow creatives and role models might not be (or they are and looking to Pinterest for similar inspiration). I see what they’re pinning, try to envision what they must be working on, how creative they are and extrapolating these ideas and projects from images. It kinda makes you think- if you can create a whole photo series idea out of two pins someone you follow pinned you bet your butt you can too. It’s all about igniting that spark.

3. Previous Boards I’ve Made but haven’t visited in a while

   That sophomore year dorm board? Yep, haven’t checked her out in a while. Though this may not feel at all relevant to the current slump it does help to re-visit old ideas, thoughts and creative ideas. Though I might be trying to muster up the creative vision for a photoshoot, looking at DIY projects, prints I wanted to replicate and all the glitter a sorority house bedroom could handle is equally stimulating. A spark is a spark is a spark.

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Whatever you call these fellow human beings, they are wonderful (well, at least the ones I admire and love on as often as possible). Mostly women, these gals inspire me DAILY to not just create better and push boundaries but to be better. To do more than JUST create a pretty picture. If you don’t already follow along with these ladies, I highly suggest you do - much beautiful and meaningful content to come on your feed ASAP.

Kristle Lauren (@kristlelauren) ALWAYS uplifting and sharing the best things from local bites to beauty products. Her stories bring me joy daily.

Cora Carroll (@coraoliviacarroll) The most gorgeous of adventure and lifestyle photos with as much heart and kindness as I’ve ever seen.

Morgan Harper Nichols (@morganharpernichols) is a one stop shop for soul-filling, heart lifting kindness and grace via her words & beautiful art.