Howdy!
This year I want to show you more of myself. You know that I can do things with my feet, like mix and decorate cakes and write with my “magical” toes, but you don’t see a lot of what goes on behind the scenes. You haven’t been able to see how much work goes into this blogging lifestyle. I mean, it’s one thing to constantly talk about it but I’ve never shown you what all I really do in general.
I also wanted to write these posts for people like me that may not know how to hold a camera with their feet yet, but if you’re a blogger with some kind of a disability my advice for you is to try to do things on your own. Afterwards, do a blog post about it. Whether you’ve succeed in that goal or failed at it, at least you can tell yourself “okay, that doesn’t work. How can I fix this?” You will learn more about yourself creating that post and you might get more ideas of how to make it better!
So let’s start discussing placement. I think it’s important to talk about how you’re going to place your body to get a certain image. For an able bodied person, they can walk over and stay standing up to get a photo of something, but for us handling a camera with both their feet and sitting in a wheelchair, we’re very limited on where we want to go! However, if things are placed low to the ground, then we have an extra advantage because we don’t have to crouch down like others do.
As you’ll read in tomorrow’s post about how I hold my camera in each position. This one focuses on how I am sitting whenever I want to capture an image. I have three positions I do in my wheelchair. I also do two of these poses while sitting up in bed if I am at home, but I have done all three out in public.
The Simple Forward:
So this pose is the simple forward for a reason, because I’m just simple sitting in my chair. This is my second popular pose because it is probably the easiest out of the three and doesn’t necessarily require a lot of strength in your upper body.
There is two ways to use this pose, you can do it like how I’m showing you above, so if you are taking photos of children, animals, or anything that’s not too high up or low to the ground. I tend to do this one a lot; mostly because if you were to drop your camera it wouldn’t hurt it as much because there’s not that much of a distance between the floor and where you’re shooting!
You may not be able to see it as good in this picture but I am sitting with my feet, just an inch of two, up in the air.
Going Vertical:
I have to say, despite literally rotating your camera on it’s side, this is technically an easy pose! Well, compared to the last one, it is a lot easier! This one requires a lot of patience and in the first few times you go to hold your camera like this, you will lose your grip and drop the camera.
In a way, this is like the one I explained above, but the only difference is that you can get a good vertical shot, like say you’re doing an outfit of the day (OOTD) post, this could be a good angle because you will be able to get everything, your feet, hair, and wheelchair in general. However, as I say that I rather use the simple forward because you can get more of the background in the shot than using this way, but that’s just me!
The Downward Spiral:
Now this will be the one where holding your breath may be needed! And no, I’m not kidding!
For this position, you’re initially attempting to do the infamous flat lay photography. If you’re a blogger, you know what that means already, but if you don’t. You mainly only use this pose whenever you’re taking pictures of products, like whenever I post about nail polishes, I’m literally in this god forsaken position! However, if you’re as mischievous as I am, doing this to freak out your family and friends is an added bonus, just don’t get cocky or else you will be the one to end up on the floor too!
Anyways, you will need a lot of strength in your upper body, because whenever I use this position I tend to shake–almost shiver–in the middle of doing it. If you don’t do this a lot, (which you won’t after the first time you go for it, trust me), you will strain your neck. The muscles in my neck have never been good, especially after having my surgeries and I became depended on my headrest; what still gets me though is that I don’t use my electric wheelchair as much anymore so I don’t use a headrest and I still have issues with my neck!
A dangerous factor that you need to realize is that you could also slide right out of your wheelchair while trying to do this. So as you can see in this next photo, I have my feet raised pretty high to be able to get one notebook in the shot.
I am still learning how to place; I tend to arrange things vertical than horizontally, like a regular person would, but it also has to do with the placement of my feet too! I can’t get everything in one take while holding onto the button at the same time! To be able to even attempt a flat lay portrait, you need a lot of room so that the product(s) don’t look crowded. You also need to be able to read everything as well!
I will say that when you’re doing this pose, I’d check your seatbelt and watch how much room you have in your seat, because half the time when you are in this position you are leaning back in your chair but you have your butt on the edge. However, if you have great balance and can lift your feet up higher without tipping backwards then you won’t have to worry about being at the end of the seat.
What do you think of my positions? Could you imagine taking pictures with your feet?
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Bloglovin
Got Meghan's Blog 