Here’s a few tricks I’ve learnt:
1. Natural is best
Natural light is the best friend of any photographer, unless of course you have a whizz-bang studio with wonderful lighting. Natural light gives photos a glow and makes everything more beautiful. So turn off your flash, and work with delicious natural light. The best times of day to shoot are morning and late afternoon {super soft and beautiful light}. If you’re shooting in the middle of the day, I find it best to shoot in the shade so it’s not so bright, or inside by a big window.
2. Work with what you’ve got
We’re limited with our control over the light on our iPhones, but there are a few things we can do. Moving around is one thing. Move about and try and find the best light for your photo. With a bit of practice you’ll soon learn what works best for you and your style. Shoot into the light/sun, shoot with the light/sun behind you. Try a few different ways and see what you like best.
I’m not a fan of using my flash, but it can definitely work for some photos. Use it and see if it works for you. At night, instead of using the flash, I try and find another source of light. You can sometimes just switch the light on right near your subject or the person you want to take photos of, or you can turn on a light not so directly on them to get a softer effect. If you want to get fancy and shoot food at night you can use a different light source like the iTorch app and have someone else shine the light on with their iPhone, and you shoot with yours. Technical? Yes! But anything in the name of a good photo!
For the photo below of my daughter’s birthday we switched off all the lights, which you do when there’s cake and candles, and we shot without a flash, just using the light of the candles. It means the photo is grainy and soft, but I think it adds to the photo.
When you’re taking your photo you can fiddle with the focus. Whether you’re taking your photo with your iPhone’s camera, a camera app or Instagram you’ll see a square appear if you touch the screen {like below}. This is for the focus. Where ever you click on your screen it will make sure that part is in focus.
Sometimes when I’m taking photos I swear I can hear my iPhone screaming, ‘Ouch! My eyes! The sun is in my eyes!‘ OK, I can’t but boy do I give it a hard time. The other day I was at the beach shooting directly into the sunrise and my iPhone was having a hard time coping. It was too bright and it didn’t like it. Most of the time when I’m shooting directly into the light I can’t see my screen at all, because it’s too bright. I just snap away and choose which ones worked later on. When I was shooting the photo below, I couldn’t see a thing. My screen was black and the sun was making my eyes water. I shot 10 photos and got 4 that were worth keeping.
Below I’ve moved the sun to the side and not let it take up too much focus, as it has in the photo above. You can move about and just have a little sun, or a lot. Play around with the sunlight.
5. Get App Happy
If you just needed to take the photo and had no chance to fix the light or work with the sun, then you can definitely edit the photo to make it better. In Instagram alone you could add the lux feature {the sunshine button on the bottom left of your screen} which will give it a boost as well some of the filters {Sierra, Amaro and Rise are my favourites for boosting the light}. If you go to your camera roll and click edit in the top right hand corner, you can enhance your photos by click the magic stick. There are also a whole host of great apps that help make mediocre photos fabulous and I’ll take you through those soon.
Remember, I’m sharing the things I’ve learnt in time with taking photos with my iPhone. Of course each photo you take shouldn’t take hours to create, and I don’t imagine you’d want them to either. I’m sharing these tips in case you want to take better photos. You can consider each tip and use them as you wish. The most important thing is that photography should be fun, especially with your iPhone.
Happy snapping!
More in the How To Create Beautiful iPhone Photos series:
