so last week i did a gigantic closet
clean out and i decided to get rid of
like literally half of the clothes that
i own
so i thought this would be the perfect
opportunity to show you guys the behind
the scenes of how i take photos how i
make listings
how i ship and fulfill those orders
whether you guys are just getting rid of
a couple used pieces of clothing in your
wardrobe or you want to start a business
selling vintage or handmade clothing
i hope that this helps you guys out
so in order to make my modeling more
efficient i always start by sorting my
clothing that i'm going to shoot into
categories
so like here i have jackets then i have
a bunch of shirts
so that way i can just try on top after
top after top
and i don't have to change out my pants
or if they're jackets i know that i
could
keep like a neutral shirt and a neutral
pair of pants on and just swap
out the jackets so it minimizes our
total amount of changing
over here i have my dresses and skirts
which i also sort by length
so first i have my mini dresses then i
have midi skirts and midi dresses
and then i have maxi dresses and this is
because in order to photograph those
different lengths of clothing
i'm going to have to move the camera so
i want to minimize the amount of times i
have to move the camera as well and
reframe everything
so first i just have one set shot that
goes up to like my thigh for all of my
mini dresses
then i move the camera back and i can
shoot my midi dresses so the camera will
probably cut off around my ankle
and then i'll have to move it all the
way back and get a full body shot for my
maxi dresses honestly trying on your
clothing and modeling it
does turn into a lot of work so i really
like this system to streamline
everything when possible so here is how
i set up everything to take photos
obviously over here i have my rack of
all the clothing i'm going to shoot then
next to it i have my camera on a tripod
i always like to shoot my photos near a
big window so that i get
a lot of natural light bouncing off and
my photos look nice and glowy to get the
highest quality photos possible
i do like shooting them on my dslr i
know this is fancy so not everybody has
it
you could totally also take these on
self timer on your iphone
um let me actually show you real quick
okay what i used to do with my phone
was to grab a stool or a chair or a
tabletop whatever you have that's kind
of
waist height then you put a box or a
basket on top of it then you can place
your phone
on your little pseudo tripod and you can
kind of just adjust the angle of your
phone against this basket
to get a flattering angle on yourself
then you can obviously do self timer
take that photo take a step back strike
a pose
and there you go an extremely flattering
self-timer photo of yourself
okay anyways back to my dslr what i do
is i put it on self-timer mode
and i have it take 10 photos one every
two seconds
i find that that gives me just enough
time to strike a couple different poses
have a couple unflattering photos but
i'll still end up with
around three or four good ones that i
can use for the listing i also set my
camera aspect ratio to be a square
since all the photos on my website are
squares and if you're selling on
something like depop or poshmark
you're also always going to want your
photos to be cropped to squares anyway
so as you can see here everything is
pre-cropped to be a square which is
really nice because i can figure out my
composition
i can figure out what's in frame and i
also then later don't have to edit every
photo individually on my computer
and try to prop it manually alrighty
let's take some photos
[Music]
so for every piece of clothing i try to
get four basic angles at least
a front shot a side shot a back shot
why is this sound so sexual and a
close-up where my head is cropped out
and you can kind of see
the item of clothing in more detail and
then occasionally i'll also throw in
like a fun pose to change things up
if i have a couple extra photos left on
the self timer before it runs out
for some of these tops you just have to
like shimmy your bra straps to make it
work
because it takes way too much time to
change into the proper bra for every
single top
so you know what you can't see it in the
photos it works
as you might begin to notice here i tend
to strike very similar poses for each
piece of clothing
since the more you do this the more you
figure out what your best angles are and
it becomes almost like an automatic
motion
if it's a top like this that i would
style a certain way
i like to take one photo with just the
top plain and simple so people know what
it looks like normally then i'll like
tie it up
tuck it in tie it in a knot all of that
styling stuff so people have an idea of
like how to make it look
cute and how i would prefer to wear it
no matter what i always tilt my
shoulders and hips to add a more dynamic
feel to the photo
rather than just standing straight up
and down which can look a little bit
stiff
i also usually try to figure out a way
to occupy my hands
whether that's holding them gracefully
at my crotch like so putting one in my
playing with my hair or just kind of
flailing them about it's always an art
trying to put a turtleneck on and not
smush off your makeup
i have emerged relatively unscathed
if it's a black top like this one i
always want to make sure that i shoot it
with some colorful pants
not a black or dark gray pair because
the color of the top is gonna blend in
with the pants
and it'll be like really hard for the
customer to see where exactly the top
ends and the pants begin
and it just won't pop as much so it's
nice to have this contrast
after about half an hour all of my tops
are done and now it is time to tackle
the dresses
what's this little this is how short my
bangs are now by the way
i like i really overdid it it was bad
i'm just gonna adjust the tripod
so it fits the bottom part of my body
more
so it's a very similar process with
dresses i do a lot of poses like with my
hand on my waist
or playing with the skirt of my dress so
it kind of gives some movement to the
shot
and exaggerates the hourglass figure
that i don't really have
but let's pretend like i do sorry i need
to stop making self-critical jokes about
my body like that is such a base form of
humor
and i should encourage people to think
about their own bodies positively as
well
working on that one anyways
[Music]
i'm finally done it's 8 o'clock right
now
oh i feel like a potato
[Music]
so right now i am just importing all of
my photos onto my computer
now i used to go through each photo
individually and edit it in lightroom
but honestly it just got to be too much
work
and oftentimes if you try to put too
strong of a filter on your photo
people just get confused what color the
clothing is and accuracy is really the
most important thing when you're selling
something online
so i'm just going to import them and put
up the raw files on the internet
so i list everything on my squarespace
website which this is what the back end
looks like
but essentially the listing process is
exactly the same as if you use depop or
poshmark or any of those apps
i just choose three to five of the best
photos of the item
i include in the description the size
the brand the condition
definitely noting any flaws and then any
other kind of like quirks about the item
like maybe the sizing runs big or it
runs small or it's a sweater that's a
little bit itchy just so people know up
front what they're buying sometimes if i
am feeling a little bit extra i'll like
add a little styling tip or what type of
event something
would be good at like a picnic outfit or
a
lounging around your house having an
existential crisis outfit i don't know
those are really the only two activities
that i do
so and you're terrified somebody's gonna
stick you in a cage
maybe you're already in that cage and
build it yourself
all right it is around 8 p.m the next
day and i woke up at like 9 00 a.m today
and i've been packing orders
all day you guys ordered so much stuff
which i am so grateful for i sold out of
everything
in like a couple hours it was crazy
i just realized my sweater is button
wrong i think you guys know this about
me but i don't have like an assistant
editor basically anybody to do my [ __ ]
work for me
because i am my own [ __ ] so i am about
11 hours deep into packing orders
and we're chugging along folks i don't
know how exciting any of this is to you
guys so i thought i would just show you
like the very short version
which is essentially that i like to
segment my steps like i'm an assembly
line except it's literally just me in an
assembly line
so the first phase consists of weighing
my items on a kitchen scale and creating
the shipping labels online
so when it comes to creating your
shipping label you have three main
options
i don't know how interested you guys are
in like shipping logistics but
this was something that really confused
me early on when i was trying to figure
out how to sell clothing so
i'm gonna talk about it for a second so
the first option if you're selling on an
app like depop or poshmark
is to just use the apps in app shipping
label creator how many times did i say
app
too many times in one sentence basically
apps like depop have an option where
default will create the label for you
you just have to enter the weight
and then depop will email the completed
label to you and you can print it out
so this is the most convenient but it
also is the most expensive
since these apps overcharge a little bit
for their shipping so that brings me to
option number two which is what i use
when i sold on depop and even in the
early years of having my own website
which is paypal's online shipping label
creator
it's a little bit more time consuming
because you do have to click through
individually for each label and create
your own
but it'll save you one to three dollars
per label
compared to those in-app shipping
services so it really does add up and in
my opinion it was worth my time
and then option number three is what i
use right now basically i signed up for
something called shipstation which
integrates
with shopify and squarespace stores that
is so many s's
basically it automatically creates
shipping labels for you which saves you
time
but it also gets you a discounted rate
on those shipping labels so it saves you
money as well however
there is a monthly subscription fee
which runs from like nine
up to a hundred dollars depending on how
many labels you're creating in a month
so i really only recommend it to people
who are either doing like a huge closet
clean
out or you run your own business so
you're getting orders every single week
anyway that is my whole spiel sorry if
that was boring as hell
um moving onwards once i have all of my
shipping labels printed
i write a little thank you note on each
invoice for the customer then it's time
to commence the
packing phase in which i as the name
would suggest
this is very self-explanatory i'm
packing up my orders i'm attaching the
labels
yes i'm doing this on the kitchen floor
because i ran out of space in the rest
of my apartment because
my entire apartment at this point was
covered in packages of clothing
i had so many orders to ship and then i
put the finished orders in a box
and hopefully they will all be done by
tomorrow morning so i can go to the post
office
and that is pretty much where we're
gonna leave this video overall i shipped
just over a hundred orders of clothing
so
seriously thank you so much again to
everybody who bought something and
yeah i hope this video was helpful for
anybody who's looking to sell their
clothes and give them a new home
and i will see you guys next week
[Music]
you