They say a picture speaks a thousand words, and lately I’ve found myself sharing more and more on Instagram than any other social media network (find me @catesthill…) – sometimes an image just seems to say enough. It can portray emotion and feeling, it can capture a moment in time and can really inspire your creativity. I certainly don’t know what I did before mobile phones had cameras, how would I have snapped that pretty flower, that shadow falling nicely on that building or a coffee that I’m sure the whole world wants to see?! And although a lot of the photos on my blog are taken with a digital SLR (Nikon D40X), mobile phone cameras are so good nowadays that you can create lovely, clear images on-the-go.
The other week mobile network Three kindly invited me on a #PicPerfectWithThree mobile photography masterclass to learn how to make the most of my smartphone camera. On the day we were lent an iPhone 6 to try out and received some top tips for taking better photos from the lovely photographer Jodie Humphries of photojodie.com. I cracked the screen of my iPhone 5 while on holiday in Malaysia so left the day really tempted to upgrade to the 6; the camera’s clearer and the screen’s bigger, so it’s a lot easier to flick through photos and edit them.
First Jodie gave us some tips for taking photos indoors – how to make the most of the light, how to frame a shot – then we hit the streets of London and went on a photo walk (my favourite photos from which you can see here in this post). Afterwards we had a glorious editing session over afternoon tea. Here’s what I learnt:
Tip one: Find the light
If you’re taking photos indoors, windows should be your best friend, they provide the biggest and broadest light source. Plus it’s natural light so you’re halfway there to creating lovely white images instead of the creamy yellow images you can sometimes get with incandescent or fluorescent light sources. Plan for when you’ll get the best light (usually the morning) and move whatever you’re photographing (flowers, food, kids and all) in front of the window. Sometimes even opening the window can bring in a brighter light. If you need a little help, Jodie told us about the Manfrotto Lumie light, a small portable LED that creates a super-bright beam, perfect for those cloudy, overcast days.
Tip two: Get up close, zoom with your feet
Don’t be afraid to get up close to your subject – Jodie told us ‘to get out of no man’s land and zoom with your feet!’. If you see a little detail that inspires you, zoom in on that and make it the raison d’être of the picture. Remember what it is that caught your eye in the first place – was it that particular colour of those roses, that particular shadow in the park, those blue eyes of a loved one? – and make it sing in your photo.
Tip three: Use an editing app
Don’t just use an Instagram filter, there’s some fantastic mobile editing apps out there, such as Snapseed, PicTapGo, VSCOcam and Afterlight – it’s almost like having photoshop with you on-the-go. Everyone tends to have their favourites, I like VSCOcam and sometimes use Afterlight, but hadn’t heard of Snapseed before the session and was really impressed with it. I tend to tweak the exposure, contrast and sharpen in VSCOcam, sometimes add a filter, then if it really needs it, lighten a bit more in Afterlight (the variations are more subtle in Afterlight).
Tip four: Shoot loads, edit later
We’re all multitasking, in a rush, on the go, coffee in one hand and mobile in the other. Unless you’re super-quick to edit, shoot multiple images of the same thing then you can review them later at your leisure and single out the best one. Half your camera roll might be of no use, but in there somewhere, there’ll be some gems. Sometimes too they may all look the same from a glance, but one might have got the light that little bit better, or another might be straighter than the others. And don’t feel pressurised to share all the time, think quality not quantity.
Tip five: Have fun, open your eyes and look around you, find the extraordinary in the ordinary!
This is the most important tip: have fun and be creative! Don’t get too bogged down in the technicalities, that’s the beauty of a mobile phone camera, you can whip it out and just snap and go. Enjoy it. Look around you, when you’re on your daily commute or walking down the street, look up, look down and find beauty in ordinary shots. Also, try to tell a story, what does that image mean to you, why are you sharing it?
Good luck and get snapping!
