Smartphone snapshots: 5 tips for taking fantastic photos on your phone

Posted By terraceviews-admin on Aug 2, 2013 |

by Andrew Heisler

Today’s smartphones, regardless of the brand, include top-of-the-line, high-resolution cameras. Some even say that because of the smartphone, digital cameras will become obsolete. Whether you’re a photographic traditionalist or more of the progressive type, smartphones and their cameras are here to stay. With a few tips and some practice, you will be well on your way to taking incredible photos you will treasure forever.

1.     Download a photo editor/Join a photo sharing service

Let’s face it: not every photo we take looks amazing right from the get-go. We’ve all taken photos, hoping it matches the beauty of the scene, but often, it doesn’t. You may be thinking, “How am I supposed to account for all of the different elements of a photo like lighting, exposure and focus?”

Luckily, there are many mobile apps that can help. A few good options are Adobe Photoshop Express, Snapseed and Aviary—in fact, all three of these apps are free. Easy-to-navigate interfaces allow the user to experiment with different stylistic features such as sharpening, brightness and saturation. Once you stumble across a series of photo enhancements that you like, save the photo, and it will go back into your phone’s photo app that stores your images.

@alisberm

For those who simply want to take pretty photos, the most popular app to use is Instagram, a photo-sharing social network “with over 100 million users worldwide.” Kevin Systrom, Instagram blog. On Instagram, simply upload one of your photos, zoom into or out of your photo, crop it, run it through any of Instagram’s many fantastic filters (my personal favorite is called “Toaster”) and post! The filters take a lot of the hassle out of photo editing.

You can follow your friends and see their photos or follow anyone in the Instagram community whose photos you enjoy. Unless you make your profile private, Instagram allows its users to easily comment on or like anyone’s posts. Compliment a photo or offer constructive criticism—whatever you do, Instagram is meant to be a collaborative, social space.

2.    Use the zoom as a last resort. Crop the photo instead!

@jarodcoyer

Your phone may have zooming capabilities, but it’s important to know that zooming in results in lower photo quality.  “What actually happens [when you zoom] is you use a smaller area of sensor and then digitally reproduce an image at the same size as you’d normally expect.” Chris Hall, Pocket-Lint.

In reality, it is unnatural for a smartphone to snap a high quality image of an object that’s far away. It’s better to get close enough to the subject to take and focus the image without the need to zoom. Better yet, once you take the photo, go into your photo library, zoom in on the photo and crop it from there.  If you do this, you won’t sacrifice photo quality.

3.     Natural light is your friend. The flash? Eh…not so much

Have you ever had a photo taken of you with a bright flash? You think everything went smoothly until you see your glowing eyes. Talk about unflattering!

@sophratz

According to photo blog Popphoto.com the issue falls not on the actual flash of light, but the light source itself. Many of the flashes on smartphones are “glorified LED flashlights, thrust into a duty they’re not fully prepared for.” The point of having a flash is to freeze an image within a frame. These smartphone lights flash for far too long, over-exposing an image and causing it to end up blurry and poorly lit.

When faced with a situation like this, your best option is to find a secondary light source. Also, whenever possible, try to utilize natural lighting, which exposes the subject, literally, in a different light. Simply put, people seem to appear more attractive in natural light. No wonder Terrace photos always look so great; a little sunlight and good-looking Union members amount to a winning combination.

4.    The photo grid helps to take more interesting photos

Are you familiar with the 3×3 grid that often pops up when you pull out your phone to take a photo? Many people turn this feature off, but it is often quite useful.

@natemoll

The grid helps with the well-known design guideline called the “Rule of Thirds.” A well-snapped photo should have important compositional elements aligned with the horizontal axis, the vertical axis or their intersections on the grid.

Centering the subject of an image is a natural instinct. But often times, shifting the object up, down, left or right creates a more aesthetically interesting photo.

This photo by Instagram user @natemoll is a great example of proper utilization of the “Rule of Thirds.” The close dock sits along the lower horizontal axis while the sunset is smack dab on the top-left intersection. The man’s silhouette aligns with the lower-right axis intersection. Even the cloud line sits on the top horizontal axis.

5.    Be creative! Remember: photography is meant to be fun

@mespurge

While there are guidelines that help make your photos look great, they aren’t the be-all and end-all. Remember that we all have unique creativity and not every photo is the same.

You’re supposed to experiment with photography! Whether that means trying different filters, shadows, features, perspectives, angles, lighting or apps, creativity is unlimited when it comes to photography.

Play with your phone’s camera! It’s a powerful tool that has the capability  to capture the brightest, most colorful and most memorable moments of your life.

Interested in learning more? On October 18^th, there will be a Mini Course called “Creative Smartphone Photography” held at Memorial Union. You can register here today.

Once you have become more comfortable with snapping photos on your smartphone, please share the pictures you take with the Wisconsin Union’s Instagram account @wisconsinunion.