How To Take The Best Photos on Your Smartphone
Dominic Casey of Marsh Media hosted our Lunch & Learn session on the theme of photography. He studied a Masters in Digital Marketing Strategy last year and used his knowledge to teach us how best to take photos on your smartphone to publicise on social media. He considers himself an amateur photographer with great interest. He has had a camera by his side since his brother first gifted him one at 12 years of age.
Foundations & Principles of Photography
Good quality content is always the most engaging kind. When it comes to photos, Dominic recommends the best rule to follow is to take photos you like. There is no need to snap a perfectly composed shot from the get go, with a little editing and cropping you can improve your final product and bring it up to higher standard. At the beginning, just take pictures that appeal to you.
Rule of Thirds
One of the things to consider before clicking the shutter button is the rule of thirds. This rule recommends that each image should be divided into 9 equal parts. If you follow this rule it can make for more striking photos as the subject of the photo is the central focus and each element has equal space in the picture. Dominic advised people to enable the grid function in the settings of their smartphones to make it easier to adhere to the rule of thirds.
Perspective
By changing the angle of your camera and posing a different view, it can alter how large or small the object your photographing seems. It can be like a small time optical illusion. Playing with perspective can also make your shot more interesting especially when photographing common scenes or objects. It adds an air of unfamiliarity to something ordinary. By pointing your camera upwards towards something it will appear larger, and by shooting downwards the subject appears smaller.
Lighting
Dominic's rule of thumb when it comes to lighting is to avoid using the flash and use natural light where possible. When it comes to editing your picture it is much easier to alter the light in a picture that has been underexposed (too dark), than to rectify an overexposed image. iPhone cameras offer an HDR function, which stands for Higher Dynamic Range. This setting gives your camera control of what it deems the best exposure for the photo you’re taking and actually superimposes 2 images upon one another in order to provide the most ideal result. Dominic explained that this function performs best outside but it could work well in some indoor scenarios too. You can turn it on and off as needed and play around with what you think looks good.
Aspect Ratio
Acknowledging how intimidated some people can feel when hearing the words, ‘Aspect Ratio,’ Dominic approached the subject in a very friendly manner. He advised that the best context to consider this in is to think about where your picture is going to end up. Are you taking a picture for Instagram stories? Then make sure your camera is in portrait mode. Being aware of little things like this will make for an improved finished product.
Format
On an iPhone, in camera settings, you can adjust the format your pictures are saved as. Saving photos as a jpeg is the most compatible with all devices and platforms.
Taking pictures
Once you have optimised all your camera settings for your phone, you can start shooting. Zoom is a handy tool to use to make sure you’re really honing in on what you want to photograph and avoiding distractions elsewhere in your picture. Use the grid to centre your subject and guide you when applying the rule of thirds. To edit exposure before you capture your photo you can tap on the screen and move the yellow sun that appears up and down until you feel it looks best. Tapping the box again will lock the exposure so you can move freely to capture the right angle you want.
Using live photo settings is a handy tool to take pictures of moving subjects like crowds or over energetic children.
The timer feature is also a feature that could prove useful to some.
Mirroring pictures
Dominic used examples of pictures he had pulled from his LinkedIn feed to demonstrate simple edits that could make an average photo more captivating. Sometimes in selfies, the camera flips the picture as a mirror would, this can distort any writing in the picture making its purpose unclear. Dominic flipped some selfies in a matter of seconds mirroring the image so the writing was legible again and making the purpose much clearer.
Cropping
When showing examples of pictures from events, the biggest offending factors were ceilings. In some of the photos, they were taking up over half of the composition. With a simple crop, the focus was readjusted and the picture became far more interesting to look at. Cropping the sides of photos too, which may be empty or just serve no purpose to the function of your photo, is a good idea.
Editing your final picture
Dominic edited the exposure, brilliance, highlight, shadow, contrast, warmth and vignette on all of the photos. As a general rule, he said, highlights go down and shadows go up. How you adjust each of these things will be different based on whatever picture you’re using. A general rule Dominic applies is not to go above or below 20% on each side of the scale of the different aspects you’re editing.
Some extra tips
Any screens will be the source of light in a picture so be cautious when applying highlights to check what the screens in the shot look like. The further away the subject is in the picture the less interest it will attract, so front and centre composition is key. And when editing photos of people, warm light rather than cool light tends to be more flattering.
Dominic encouraged everyone to play with the settings. Leave your perfectionist side behind you and leave room for editing in your pictures. Remember, practice makes perfect. Taking shots you enjoy is a good place to start but the more you do it with the points Dominic told us about, the more natural it will become to achieve a great shot.
