If you’re serious about stepping up your social media marketing and position yourself as a brand, you need to understand that CONTENT IS KING!

“But I don’t have the time and/or money to waste on buying and learning to use a DSLR or paying a photographer!”…

Worry not, my friend! With the information I’m about to give you,  you’ll be able to improve your phone photography enough to get on the right path to cutting through the noise!

Composition

The simplest way to improve your phone photography is by learning the basic rules of composition. The rule of thirds is amazingly simple to master and a very powerful tool. A great way to make your photo more interesting to look at is to keep your subject aligned towards the “outer” thirds (vertically) and your horizon higher or lower than the middle of the frame(horizontally). You can even set most phones to show a grid that divides your screen into horizontal and vertical thirds.

Angling yourself is another simple yet powerful change to your images. Get lower to the ground, stand on your tiptoes and reach high with your arms. We’ll be doing more in-depth blogs about this and other composition tricks in the near future, so stay tuned.

FLASH OFF PLEASE

First off, it’s annoying. No one likes the person walking around blinding people with their crappy phone flash. I don’t even like professional flashes. NATURAL LIGHT IS YOUR BEST FRIEND! The flash on your phone is one-directional (meaning it hits your subject head-on) and looks extremely artificial, causing harsh shadows and making everything look terrible. The best times to shoot are shortly after sunrise or during sunsets, otherwise known as Golden Hour. Overcast days are also ideal as the cloud cover acts as a massive natural softbox that evens out the shadows!

If you’re stuck in a situation with low light ask yourself how badly you need that photo, and, if you decide you really need it, try to find other external sources of light other than your flash.

SHOOT IN RAW

Most phones these days come with the option to shoot RAW. These files will take up more space as they are completely uncompressed in order to keep more detail in the photo. This will allow you a lot more freedom when editing the image.

Do not use digital zoom!

Most cellphone lenses do not have the physical capability of changing focal length (optical zoom). While newer phones like the iPhone X and the Galaxy Note 8 offer some slight form of optical zoom, it’s not going to make much of a difference. The majority of phones simply use digital zoom which make it SEEM like you’re zooming in, when really all that is happening is that you’re increasing the size of the image, thus reducing the final quality of it. This will result in the dreaded pixelated look.

Basic Editing

99.9% of those amazing images you see aren’t what the photographer got directly out of the camera. Take the time to understand terms like exposure and white balance. There are apps like Lightroom CC (mobile) that give you a little more in-depth editing capabilities that will help make that VSCO filter look even better!

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And if you’re ready to take your content to the next level, get in touch. We’d love to help!