Developing Cozy

What is Developing Cozy? When you think “home”, what are some of the main things you think of? Is it a smell? A Colour? A feeling?

For us, it’s that homey, cozy, hygge sort of feeling; that feeling that makes you want to curl up on the couch with a book and stay there forever.

But what exactly makes this feeling? We know that a lot of what photography is is capturing a mood, a feeling, an atmosphere. But how on earth do we develop coziness at home, and, even more importantly, how do we get that feeling to show through in our images? Well, there are certain elements that can be easily added in that can help to create that feeling. Follow along for some of our favourite ways to develop OUR cozy into our photography!

Sarah Jenkins:

I love that feeling! It’s basically my only design aesthetic and one of the main feelings I try to capture when I take pictures in my home.

When we moved into our new (old!) house, it felt very 80’s and icky. We are still in the middle of renos and have millions of boxes to unpack. But we have been able to carve out a few corners of hygge coziness amid all the chaos here and there, I can safely tell you that you need three things to quickly make your space more cozy:

Tidy and Organized: You don’t need to Marie Kondo your home, but a quick tidy and putting things where they belong will instantly make your house feel more comfortable. It’s the curse of my father that I can’t ever seem to relax in a mess and truth be told, I don’t want a mess in my photos either. No judgment here, my house is full of children who constantly work against me and my goal for a clean and tidy house. But if you can give yourself a couple of clutter-free spaces, you might find them more comfy just from that.

Blankets and Throw Pillows: I love a room with blankets tucked around for texture, colour, and of course, warmth. Same with the throw pillows (my husband disagrees with my pillow-y obsession yet he always seems to rest in the most pillow-y locale and heaven forbid you try to move one away! His protest is all fanfare; I’m almost positive he actually loves the throw pillows everywhere!). Blankets and pillows make your home feel more cozy because they ARE cozy. They will make your pictures feel cozy too and you start to incorporate them into your homey photos.

Warm Light: I can’t stand cool temperature light bulbs. Blue light streaming from my light fixtures gives me an eye twitch. When we were house shopping, I would write off an entire (otherwise totally fine) house if it had cool temperature light bulbs. I know, it’s an easy fix – and I know that’s kind of an extreme reaction – but I truly couldn’t help it. It was visceral. If a home had ugly blue light, it would make me so mad. And you want happy feelings associated with your new home, not ones that make you want to kick things! Anyways, check your lights. If you, heaven forbid, find yourself with a couple of blue bulbs, switch them out, stat!

This step really won’t benefit your photos much because surely you are remembering to turn off those overhead lights before you take pictures in your now-super-cozy-home, but in case you forget, or want to use the glow of a warm lamp or something to light your subject, now you won’t be distraught to find your subject has blue (or worse, mixed light) skin tones.

Now, how do you transfer that coziness into your photos? I think this is easier than it might appear. Having a clutter free and tidy place to start will help you build up the layers of hygge in your image. Layering that space with cozy things like blankets and pillows will translate easily to the image (other ideas include: candles, heirloom photos, stacks of old books etc.). And using warm light and a nice warm white balance will make your images pop with the coziness factor.

Jill McMillan:

Mmmm *stretches arms in the air and sighs*…. Cozy! There are so many things that for me just scream COZY! But, some things are a little bit hard to describe visually – things like smells and textures. I grew up on a farm, where home-y things were very earthy. Smells have always been a big thing for me!

Now, I live in a smaller, built-in-the-70’s home that has some pretty tiny rooms. I grew up with SPACE, so it has been an adjustment to develop what I would describe as cozy in the atmosphere I’m working with. But, here are my top tips that I have learned over the years:

Plants: Give me ALL the plants! Anything leafy and green – make the house an absolute jungle (not really though. I mean maybe… ok yes, I meant jungle!). For me, that earthy feeling is transcribed through the plants both in and outside my home. Those fields of oats can be transcribed into the wildflowers I planted around my garden, the trees, spaced out and ginormous out in the yard are in my big floor plants, and so on. If there isn’t a plant close by in one of my photos, one gets moved so it IS in, or I can use an overlay to add one (or ten) in during post processing. The more the merrier I say!

Anything wooden or rattan: Again, this ties back to that earthy feeling. The warm, deep browns of barnboards, the boho style of wicker and rattan – it all just screams “curl up with a book on a rainy day” to me! I have been slowly renovating my house to appeal to this aesthetic little by little (and may have slightly gone overboard with my wicker obsession at the local annual flea market a few weeks ago. My husband was certain our truck has just turned into wicker on the drive!), and it has been so fun seeing the spaces transform. But something as simple as a wooden box, a dresser, a bedframe, a chair – any of this brings in that woody, earthy, boho feeling! Along with plants. The wood/wicker plus the plants – you’re golden!

Smells: This one is a little tougher to get into images. Being a farm kid, smells like fresh cut hay, apple pies, and (as gross as it sounds) stinky barn clothes feel home-y. Do I want my house smelling like stinky barn clothes? Absolutely not! But it’s something that, when smelled, smells like Saturdays well spent climbing haylofts and loving on the farm animals. It’s nostalgic for me. So, to incorporate these smells, things like capturing wind blowing through hair (the wind brings in the fresh cut hay smell); any kind of baking images, especially with apples; and plaid clothing – plaid always signifies barn to me. You know, those plaid flannel jackets everyone wears? Yup! Those are barn jackets people! And something that, when added to photos, feels very homey and cozy to me.

One tip when determining how to add a smell to an image: close your eyes. When you think of the smell of, let’s say fresh linens, what do you see? They’re hanging on a clothesline, right? Or maybe it’s the smell of a fresh Spring day – what do you see now? Flowers, right? Add some spring flowers (tulips maybe), even to your indoor images. The things we picture when we think of certain smells are a sure-fire way to incorporate that part of a cozy home vibe into your images.

As I said, there are SO MANY things I could add here, many very similar to what Sarah and Aly do. All of these really tie together to create a general sense of nostalgia.

Aly Ahern:

It’s officially cozy season, ya’ll! I grew up in the south! My Christmas’ were NEVER white! But that didn’t stop my mom and dad from starting a fire and us cozying up on the couch, watching movies together and spending time as a family. Now I live in a place that *sometimes* gets a white Christmas, and I love to bring part of my childhood into this cozy time of year. I also bring these same things into the images I take. My top things are:

Color: Color can make or break your images! But certain color schemes definitely lend themselves to a more cozy image. I really like to go for muted colors – that is, adding in gray a little bit. If I don’t have the right colors in my clothes or blankets, I change them in post processing. Some favorite color schemes included browns, grays, greens, neutrals, blues, rust, and I’m sure I could go. Think ‘earthy’ colors. These colors just scream relaxation to me! When I see them, I just want to grab a blanket and snuggle up with my favorite hot drink (ahem, it’s hot cocoa for those wondering) and read a book or snuggle with kids!

For colors, I recommend looking at the color wheel and picking either colors right next to each other (analogous colors) or colors across from each other (complementary colors). You could also go the route of a monochrome scene, that is, you pick one color (let’s say brown!) and then have mostly browns in your images, with different shades. Color is one of the most important aspects of your images!

Texture & interest: I add texture in a variety of ways. Through the clothes that I wear or my children wear, to blankets, flowers, towels, curtains, scarves, etc. I want you to think about how to bring that texture through in your images. A soft silky shirt won’t have the same vibes as a knitted sweater. But also be mindful of having too much texture in your shots. You want to find a good balance. I love taking pictures of my children sleeping on a knitted blanket. Or of them snuggled up in a blanket.

I also love to give interest in my images through little tiny details. You want to think of little things that will pop in your images. An easy thing to add interest is plants, which Jill does a wonderful job talking about above. Another way I like to add interest is through jewelry! It’s very subtle, but sometimes a simple necklace or ring or earrings can make a nice pop in your images. I really like to think about every little thing in my images to help them be interesting.

Children: Nothing screams cozyness more to me than adding my children into the frame! I love to capture our snuggle times together. We cozy up with a nice blanket and snuggle and giggle together. It’s so easy to get snuggly in an image when cute little kiddos are involved! So grab your favorite kid (ok, maybe you should grab all the kids) and jump in an image together! You won’t regret it, in fact, you will probably want to hang it on your wall!

Some favorite things I like to photograph with my kids are: snuggles on the bed or couch, reading a book together, breastfeeding, giggles, after bath routine, and brushing hair. There are lots of different activities you could capture with your kiddos that bring the cozyness in. Grab a notebook and grab your kids and write down some ideas that you both want to do! It’s a fun way to spend time as a family together. Don’t forget to grab that spouse of yours, too!

Overall, I like to think about what my life looks like on the day to day, what do I do to get cozy? What do I do to relax? That is what I like to add into my images to bring a cozy atmosphere into them!

So, there you have it! All of our top three tips to developing a cozy atmosphere in our homes that help us portray that into our images. The biggest tip: think about what cozy means to YOU, then think of all the things that give you those warm happy vibes. Those are the things you want to incorporate into your photography.

We hope these tips give you all the inspiration to develop your own type of cozy!

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