A few years ago, things were much easier with photos. People made amateur pictures with their camera or smartphone, not really bothering about photo ideas. Memory and perpetuation of some special moment were more important. If you needed a photo for sending greeting cards, or wanted to frame a beautiful portrait, you could call professional photographers for doing their job.
Now, with the development of Instagram, things are much more complicated. No, not in terms of the number of photos. Here, the opposite is true. Only the lazy one does not seem to have a profile on this social network. Dozens of photos a day: who is sleeping, what is he eating, how is he training in the gym and walking with his dog.
We look through the tapes of the “stars”, being inspired by their daily affairs, secretly watching our beloved (what happened to them on that day). Even grandparents have created their own accounts and share photos of knitted scarves and their own harvest.
How To Take Unique Photos With Your Phone: 9 Ordinary Life Hacks
But not everyone can surprise you with a truly original photo. You won’t buy photos from Depositphotos.com every day, will you? And if you are trying to establish your work on the Internet, promote products online, advertise personal development training – then you just need catchy photos. And nobody will refuse to have a creative photo of himself (beloved).
And here are some clever advice to make your photos “sparkle”:
1. Thoroughly Clean The Lenses of Your Phone
Yes, yes – this is the first and most basic rule of obtaining clear and high-quality photos. No matter how hard you try to keep your phone clean, it always has your fingerprints on it (that’s the minimum). As well as food crumbs, dust, sand, and other small pollutants. After all, our phone lies in the most unexpected places during the day: in the kitchen, in a pocket, in a bag. It also falls to the ground and into the sand.
Use a soft cloth to clean the lenses. It is better first to blow on the lenses so that large particles fly off. Otherwise, there is a high probability of scratching the lenses with sharp grains of dirt. Make lens cleaning one of your good habits.
2. Adjust Focus And Exposure By Yourself
When you open the camera on your smartphone, the autofocus icon appears. It is better to remove this function and set the focus manually. This is quite simple: you need to place your finger in the middle of the screen until you hear a special sound indicating that the focus is on. The object will be highlighted on the screen with a square.
The exposure can also be adjusted manually: there is a special adjustment dial in Android phones. The exposure control icon on iPhones looks like a button with a sun. Manual adjustment of these functions will help to avoid blurring of subjects in the picture, as well as too dark or overexposed areas of the photo.
3. Composition Plays An Important Role In Harmonious Photography
To create the perfect balance, special compositional rules have been developed. But it takes time to learn and practice them. What if a good photo is needed immediately? The gridlines option, available on Android devices and iPhones, will help you.
When you activate it in the phone settings, a grid of several lines appears on the camera screen, dividing space into 9 equal squares. The secret of perfect balance in a photo is to position your subject along intersecting lines. This approach is called the “rule of thirds”.
4. Say ‘No’ To Flash!
You ask, is it about daytime shooting? No, it is especially important not to turn on the flash, if you are taking a photo at night. In order for the object of interest to be visible, choose a lit place. Street lamps, car headlights, or shop windows could be the light source. Photos will turn out to be more mysterious and will keep good exposure. A flash in a night picture can lighten certain parts of the photo too much, and cause trouble for your eyes.
However, you can experiment with flash in the daytime. It will help you to advantageously present a still life or emphasize the special style of the picture.
5. Don’t Use Zoom
A common mistake while making a photo of a subject at a great distance is zooming. Most phones have digital zoom. This means that the picture is simply cropped, and the desired subject gets closer. In digital cameras, an object is zoomed in with an optical lens. That fact significantly affects the quality of the photo. Using the zoom on your phone will reduce the clarity of your photo. The picture becomes grainy, blurry, and pixels may be visible.
How to get rid of this problem? Just get closer to the subject if possible. This rule works for professional photographers as well. It is better to move than to bring the object closer by the camera.
6. Make Experiment With Perspective And Angles
Do you often notice how successful are photos with the simplest subjects, but well-chosen perspective? Yes, sometimes it is really important to catch the moment quickly: until the butterfly has flown away or the child is smiling for the camera.
Then there is no time to look for the best angle. But if your goal is to give birth for an extraordinary photo, try looking at the subject from different angles and perspectives. Maybe you better take pictures on your knees, or elbows, lying down, or from top to bottom and bottom to top. Perhaps you will create a real masterpiece.
7. Find Leading Lines
Search for lines that visually lead to your subject in the photo. These can be roads and bridges, stairs, rivers, banks, railroad tracks. Lines could be straight or spiral. Take the photo in such a way that the guidelines lead to the subject in focus. This will add depth to your shot. The photo will gain volume. Looking at such pictures, you can move your gaze from the foreground to the background.
8. Leave Room For Negative Space
This is the void around the subject. Don’t fill the entire photo with the subject. Surround him with negative space. Such photos look more advantageous, draw attention to the main subject of the photo. In addition, for Instagram pages, pictures with free space are more artistic.
9. Use Photo Editing Tools And Online Background Remover
Within reasonable limits. Lots of free smartphone apps can cardinally improve your pictures. Here you can lighten a dark photo, smooth out a littered horizon, crop an extra piece of a photo, add colors. The photo editor will allow you to change the atmosphere of the picture: retro, romantic, mysterious, warm, etc.
You can also use free online background remover. This photo editing software will help to remove the image background if you do not actually like it. Even if your photo turned out to be beautiful initially – there is no limit to perfection!
Conclusion
These simple tips for enhancing your cell phone photos will help you to create beautiful pictures, your friends will love. Make a little practice with perspective, focus, and angle, plus a pinch of editing magic, and your photo album will have only artwork. You can upload interesting content to your account that attracts subscribers. And present yourself and your type of activity in a favorable light.