Frequently Asked Questions

1. What app do you use for editing your photos?

We use Adobe Lightroom Classic CC to edit all of our photos. The full version for desktop requires a subscription to Adobe services, but there is also a free Adobe Photoshop Lightroom that you can use on your mobile phone. Both versions of the app are great! ...But we personally prefer the desktop version. :) It gives you more freedom and tools to edit the photos exactly the way you want.

Additional apps that we use...

⦁ Mextures - We use this to create dust or grain overlays to make some of our photos appear more vintage.

⦁ Phonto - We use this app to download fonts from the internet. We then apply these fonts to some of our Instagram Stories and the occasional photo on our feed.

2. What filters do you use?

We use our own presets that we developed in Adobe Lightroom Classic CC! If you look back through our post history on Instagram, you can see how much our editing style has developed in just this past year. The presets we currently use are a reflection of all of the little changes we have made over that time.

As of now, we have about 19 presets saved that I use every day for editing. These presets are also for sale on our website if you want to try them out on your own photos!

3. How do you/did you become an influencer?

To be honest, it was a bit of a process and definitely not something that happened overnight! In the beginning of 2018, I made a goal (inspired by encouragement from Jared! :)) to go out and shoot photos every single day, post every day, and buy presets to make my feed look more cohesive.

We knew we needed to do our research, so we started watching YouTube videos, reading books, and learning from people that we looked up to on Instagram. There is so much information out there! It just may take a little time to look for and absorb it.

After about 1 month of being consistent and posting high quality content, brands started reaching out to us. This totally surprised us, because we only had about 4,000 followers at the time. But this just shows that sometimes quality content and consistency is more important than the number of followers you have!

Having brands reach out to us gave us the confidence we needed to start reaching out to brands on our own. There was definitely another huge learning curve as we learned how to communicate our offers to businesses in a way that was professional and enticing. We looked at SO many examples and even bought some templates for emails online to help us get started.

This is just a short description of how we got started. There is so much more we want to share with you, but we can't fit it all in one blog post! We continue to improve and grow, and we love sharing the things we have learned with you as they come.

Tips for starting out?

⦁ Consistency + high quality content (instead of posting an average photo just for the sake of posting a photo, wait until you have a photo that you are really proud of, and post it. Quality over quantity)

⦁ Do your research (read books, watch YouTube videos, listen to podcasts, etc..)

⦁ Start NOW and always look for ways to grow and improve! (look at what other successful influencers are doing, and try it for yourself.)

⦁ Be patient with yourself

⦁ Don't purchase followers

⦁ Collaborate with other influencers (shoutouts, giveaways, etc..)

4. How do you afford to travel?

It is NOT easy, but it is definitely doable and very rewarding! Our top forms of income are from working with brands and teaching English online. At this point in our journey, we can definitely say that teaching English online has been our main source of reliable income!

We also do a lot of research on cheap/affordable yet beautiful places to stay. We often check between 3 or 4 different accommodation websites before settling on a location. We also check flights, buses, trains and other transport options on multiple sites to make sure we get the best deal. It takes a bit more time, but it is so worth it! We have sometimes saved ourselves hundreds of dollars just because we took the extra 3 minutes to search on another site.

Another useful tip is to use travel credit cards. There are a lot of great options out there! But we may need to save that for another post when we can go into more detail.

Some of our favorite travel related websites

⦁ SkyScanner

⦁ Google Flights

⦁ Airbnb

⦁ Momondo

⦁ Booking.com

5. Where is your favorite place you have traveled?

We both agree that the North Shore on Oahu is our favorite place that we have ever traveled to/lived! We can't say enough great things about Hawaii and the people there; however, we do have some very notable second favorites.

Madeira! Desiree loves Madeira. This beautiful island lies off the coast of Africa but belongs to the country of Portugal. The island has some of the most beautiful sites we have every seen, from giant cliffs dropping into clear blue seas to rolling mountains covered in soft clouds. Madeira is definitely somewhere you should add to your bucketlist! If you do go, be sure to check out the north shore of the island. That is Desiree's favorite place. :)

Bali! Or maybe Thailand? Jared can't make up his mind. :) We loved the tropical environment and laid back feel of both of these countries. If you are looking for a delicious vegan meal, be sure to stop in Canggu or Ubud in Bali! Bali has some of the best vegan and vegetarian restaurants we have ever been to. The nearby islands of Nusa Penida and Nusa Ceningen are also very bucketlist worthy!