Tag Archives: photo tips

How to Create a Gallery Wall

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Designing your space is a great way to tailor your home to your personal style. While designs are typically created for functionality and aesthetics in mind, designing is also an outlet for creativity. Since your walls are blank canvases, you can use them to express yourself. While paint can dramatically change your room, a picture is worth a thousand words. So what better way to tell a story than creating a gallery wall. If you are unfamiliar with the term, a gallery wall is made with pictures of all different kinds and sizes to illustrate a story. To help you better understand, here is how you can properly create a gallery wall:

Choose Your Theme

The pictures you choose can collaborate together to help tell a story. This aspect is one of the many reasons why gallery walls are so popular today. If you are someone who constantly changes the wallpaper on your phone or desktop, this is a great option for you. One picture can get old; however, multiple photos can all work together to create something extraordinary. Just be sure to find a common theme in which you would like your gallery wall to express. You can choose personal photographs of you and your loved ones, nature, shapes and designs, animals, and so many more photographs. Typically, a gallery wall should have at least nine pictures; however, fewer photographs can never hurt if your design calls for it.

Make a Template

Get your measurements of the wall you have chosen to decorate. If your wall is nine feet tall, chances are you will not be using the whole height to hang pictures. Map out the dimensions from width to height of the wall you have selected. Make this template on the floor and lay your pictures in it. You can have a simple 3×3 uniform size picture layout or get creative with dimensions, angles, picture sizes, and even wall décor. These are just several techniques to make your gallery wall even more tailored to your style.

Mark Your Hook’s Placement and Hang

Lastly, make sure you account for where the hangers or hooks are on your pictures before adding hanging devices or nails to the walls. Some pictures can have hooks or strings, while others may call for several different ways of hanging them. Be sure to mark where each hook is set before putting up your pictures.

What do you think of gallery walls? Would you put one in your home? Let us know what kind of gallery walls you like below in the comment section, and for more great ideas on home improvement and DIY projects, make sure to subscribe!

Family Photo Tips

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family_photo_tipsWhen you look back on your life, photos capture memories like nothing else. For our parents and grandparents, taking pictures was limited by the cost and effort. Now with the advent of digital photography, you can create a record of every event in your life. But are you taking the time and energy to take the best photos you can of your family and all of the important moments you want to keep?

We invite you to visit one of the Fulton Homes Pinterest boards: Family Photo Tips. We’ve collected a wealth of advice from professionals and skilled amateurs, on everything from finding poses that create interest to how to group photos on your walls and share them with other family members.

Do you have a little one or two with family too far away to see their progress as they change with every week, and sometimes it seems with every day? How about creating a series of photos using the same background with pictures taken every month to show the progress and growth? Or consider celebrating your infant’s first year of life with a special photo taken every month in appropriate garb for the season or various holidays. You can then turn those shots into a calendar for fond grandparents as a holiday gift.

Online companies will help you take your photos commemorating an important milestone in your or your family’s life to create a book that captures the moments and excitement of that time – something you can look at and enjoy long after the time is past.

Or how about commemorating your move into your new Fulton Home? Photos of the construction process, the move, and the progress of your decorating efforts can tell a story that you might want to share as part of a housewarming party.

When it comes to bringing the moment to life with photography, the only limits are your own imagination. And for more ideas and tips, we hope you will visit the Pinterest board we developed to help you make your family photos something special, at https://www.pinterest.com/fultonhomes/family-photo-tips/.

Taking Successful Family Photos

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17538445_SWhether you have family photos professionally done or take your own pictures, a few tips can make the difference between a great set of photos or a bunch of typical shots.

Here are some suggestions for making your family photos something special now and for the future.

Avoid the traditional line-up or “grip & grin” approach. Look for ways to make the photo more intriguing by using non-standard poses and groupings. Take a look at the photo above. By placing the mom and daughter to one side, the photo draws you in.

14427973_SConsider depth of field. This is something professional photographers do all the time. In the photo above, the background is completely out of focus. This allows the viewer to pay attention to the two participants without the background serving as a distraction. In the photo to the right, once again the pose is different and charming, and the background is just slightly out of focus.

Coordinate colors without going matchy-matchy. In the photo to the right, all family members are in blue but the patterns, tones and styles differ, making them look coordinated but not too pre-planned.

26609668_SUse props. In the photo to the left, dad and daughter are interacting with favorite toys and a book. This can make a big difference with babies and toddlers. Their patience can quickly fade without some good distractions. Props can also help a child – and an adult for that matter – forget the camera and act naturally.

For more ideas to make your family photos special, visit our Fulton Homes Pinterest Family Photos board. You’ll be glad you did!