This day and age taking photos of our everyday life and special moments is so accessible and with the quality in phone cameras improving year by year, it's getting easier and easier to grab beautiful photographs of our friends and family and just day to day memories.
I always say that photographs are such a precious thing, they give us a chance to freeze that moment in time so that we can look back on it in years to come and remember all the details! This being said, not everyone knows how to use their phone cameras in the best way possible so in this blog I'm going to give you 5 key tips to taking better photos with your phone. I will include my own phone photos of my own family as examples.
Before we go ahead, feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more photo-taking tips as well as joining the Georgia-Beth Photography family here.
Tip 1) Good even light
Lighting makes or breaks a photo and my number one tip for all good photos is to have good even light! Natural light is the best, so if you're aiming to get that picture-perfect photo of your kiddies try to plan it during the day time not in the evening when all you have to work with is artificial electric lights.
You want to make sure that you have even light over the whole of someones face so that you don't get any strange shadows cast over their faces. Sometimes it's as simple as turning your subject slightly towards the light source or away from it just so you don't half of their face cast into the shadows... See these selfie examples:
These two photos were taken in the same place seconds apart from each other, the second one I just turned to face the light coming from the window and the difference is huge! If you're indoors, take your photograph as close to any windows or glass doors as possible to allow the natural sunlight to brighten up your picture. If you're outside on a bright sunny day place your subject with the sun behind them so that the sunlight doesn't cast strange shadows on their face it also stops them from squinting in the photo too! Bonus!
Below are some photos using these 'even light tips' that I've taken on my phone recently:
Tip 2) Line up the background!
A big bugbear of mine is when photos aren't straight! Make sure you line up the background of your photos with whatever is straight! If you're outside and don't know how to line it up make sure that the horizon, the ground or the sides of a building are lined up correctly with the sides of the photo. If you're inside use things like walls, tables, the floor, sofa etc... anything that is either horizontal or perpendicular to the ground!
For more photo-taking tips, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel; allow me to teach you how to best capture photos of those special moments, right from the comfort of your phone!
You never want to take a photo that you love and then go to put it in a frame on the wall and you have to look at it lopsided! See the examples that I've taken just now! (In my comfies with no make-up #reallife)
Tip 3) Take the photo from slightly above.
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When you're taking photographs of people, it's much more flattering to take the photo from slightly above, this angle is just far more flattering for face shapes and your figure. Don't take the photo from very high above so that your subject is having to strain up to look at the camera, you just want to take it from slightly above eye level to get that flattering shape! Check out the examples below:
Tip 4) Enough Space
This tip is actually two in one. The main part of this tip is to make sure you 'clear the clutter' in the background of a photo. When you're taking photos of people, you want them to be the focus! So this means that any clutter in the background can be quite distracting, so in these situations, you want to make sure the background is nice and clear from distractions. This doesn't mean it has to be a 'plain' background, it just means you want to make sure that the subject of the photo is the main focus of attention. You might need to physically move your subject, or move the angle of the camera to exclude something from the background, or you can tidy up behind them before taking the snap, see the examples below:
Even though the background in the first one is necessarily 'messy' it is very busy, and the lamps and video set up are quite distracting. For the second photo, I just moved slightly making sure that my background was now far more 'spacious' and less distracting.
The second part of the 'Enough Space' tip is to make sure there is more space than you originally planned to have around your subject. Sometimes we can take the perfect photo on our phones, but then when it comes to putting it into a frame with different dimensions or even onto our little square grid on Instagram we end up cutting someone's feet or forehead off! To prevent this from happening, make sure you give yourself more space around your subject in the photo so that if the edges need trimming for any reason you're not cutting of essential parts of the photo. See some examples of photos with more 'space' that I've taken on my phone this year:
Tip 5) Protect your lens!
If you are out on a bright sunny day you will sometimes find that your photos turn out a bit hazy or blurry. This is because the sun is facing directly into the camera lens, to prevent this all you need to do is place your hand above the phone to act as a lens hood. This simple step will transform your photos, see the examples below:
I hope you have found these tips really helpful! Don't forget to follow and share your photos with me on social media at the links at the bottom of the page!
These tips will help you take your photo taking to the next level and help your create beautiful memories to look back on!
Just a quick reminder, make sure to check out the Lightroom Mobile Presets on our shop: we have everything you need to take your Social Media-destined photos to the next level!
Don't miss out on any more photography tips by joining The Georgia-Beth Photography Family.
I'm always cheering you on.
Georgia x
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