Smartphone Photography Tips for Beginners

So, how do you improve your smart­phone pho­tog­ra­phy? They, who­ev­er “they” is,  say the best cam­era is the one that you have with you, and many times, it’s not your DSLR; it’s your smart­phone cam­era!  I may regret say­ing this, but I see a future in which the major­i­ty of images cap­tured are with a smart­phone and not a camera. 

Smart­phones are always with you, tak­ing pho­tos with your smart­phone does­n’t require a lot of thought or effort, and shar­ing your images to social media from your smart­phone takes just sec­onds. What’s more, the qual­i­ty of pic­tures com­ing from your smart­phone has improved over the years. So much so that the images can rival that of a DSLR. Did you know that on many smart­phones, you can change the aper­ture? And edit­ing apps have allowed us to cre­ate amaz­ing images with­out the help of your computer. 

Tak­ing amaz­ing smart­phone pho­tos isn’t that hard; just like tak­ing images with a DSLR, it’s down to slow­ing down, and real­iz­ing that a great pho­to is more about the basics, and the pho­tog­ra­ph­er, then about the equip­ment that you are using. 

So, how do I improve my smart­phone pho­tog­ra­phy as a begin­ner, you may ask?  It’s all about the basics. Use these smart­phone pho­tog­ra­phy tips for begin­ners and you’ll be on your way to beau­ti­ful photographs.

Use The Rules of Composition When Taking Your Photos 

Sim­ple, straight­for­ward images are more appeal­ing than busy, chaot­ic images, so take a minute and clean up the clut­ter in your pho­tos.  What­ev­er you see on the screen is what you will see in the photo. 

Use the Rule of Thirds to Make Your Subject More Appealing 

Images are bro­ken down into three parts both ver­ti­cal­ly, and hor­i­zon­tal­ly-Now is an excel­lent time to turn on the grid fea­ture on your phone-Plac­ing your sub­ject on the inter­sect­ing points of these lines is more pleas­ing to the view­er’s eye. 

Using oth­er rules of com­po­si­tion, lead­ing lines, fram­ing, and fill­ing the frame will help your pho­tos have a more pol­ished pro­fes­sion­al look.  Prac­tic­ing see­ing these in your every­day life will help when you are look­ing for pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ties.  Do you see a beau­ti­ful arch­way that would be per­fect for fram­ing your sub­ject? A beau­ti­ful path­way of trees that could be used for lead­ing lines?  Lead­ing lines and fram­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties are every­where, you just have to begin to see them. 

Attention to Detail is Key

Take a minute to make sure that the image is straight; move your body to get unwant­ed items out of the pic­ture.  Shoot from dif­fer­ent angles.  Pay­ing a bit of atten­tion ahead of time will pre­vent hav­ing to edit the image later. 

Know How to Use the Light 

Learn­ing to work with light is a huge part of pho­tog­ra­phy!  Light takes an aver­age image to extra­or­di­nary. Shoot­ing dur­ing the gold­en hour is the best time to take your pho­tographs, but if you are unable to do so, know­ing how to work with light will make a huge dif­fer­ence in your images.   Uti­lize open shade, prac­tice cap­tur­ing catch­lights, and use the light to cre­ate bokeh in your images. 

Remem­ber, you and your smart­phone can take amaz­ing pictures…spend some time learn­ing, prac­tice these tech­niques, and you are on your way to improv­ing your smart­phone pho­tos in minutes. 

Cheers, Dena

And don’t for­get to fol­low me on Face­book, or join my pri­vate Face­book group Learn Pho­tog­ra­phy with Dena