3 Steps to Better Phone Pictures
If you’re like me, you don’t always have your “big girl” camera on you. But you don’t want to miss capturing all the sweet, fleeting, and sometimes crazy memories of everyday life! Use these 3 simple tricks to make the most of your phone camera.
Look For Leading Lines
Leading lines can help “lead” a viewer’s eye right to your subject or area of interest. These lines might be literal lines, like in these photos…
Or the edges of a table or circular pool…
A slide…
or the leg of a wooly mammoth sculpture…
Find the Right Light
Like leading lines, light can literally highlight your subject and draw the viewer’s eye right to where you want it to go. Your subject’s face is a great area to highlight! You can even use the editing options on your phone to brighten your image to exaggerate the amount of light on your subject.
And your subject doesn’t have to be a person…
The absence of light can work this way, too, especially when all other areas of the image are bright in comparison…
Backlit photos can also capture a moment in time, like a foggy morning on the playground, or a steaming cup of tea early in the morning. Here are some examples…
Minimize Distractions
Life is messy, but just like highlighting your subject with light can make a great image, so can minimizing objects that distract from your subject. One easy way to do this is by shooting from above. I used this trick to capture my girls’ artwork without having to clear away the clutter from the table…
Another way to accomplish this is to blur the background using the “portrait” feature of your phone camera. Here is another picture of my daughter’s art taken from a different angle but with a blurred background.
Finally, with practice you can use all three tricks at the same time…and you might not even realize you’re doing it! Remember this shot from earlier…
I use the leading lines of the table edges and chairs to draw the eye to the mug, highlight the steam coming off the tea using backlight, and shoot from below to minimize the table clutter and get the sunlight streaming in from the top corner of the window!
I hope these tips help you capture better everyday memories. Remember, look for leading lines, find the right light, minimize distractions…and have fun!