Monday, October 30, 2017

How To Take Awesome Photos With Your iPhone



I literally wrote a lot of this before the hurricane so if anything sounds out of place that might be why Hello. It is me. I am here. I am Nabila. Today I am talking about photos. And iPhones (although this will apply to pretty much apply to any phone).

Who will this help?

-You
-Your friends
-Everyone you know
-bloggers
-non-bloggers
-anyone who has social media
-anyone who has a phone
-unicorns
-and the troll under the bridge
-your little sister

Pretty much everyone. Pretty much everyone who either has a phone or has access to one. If what I looked up was correct, 77% of all American adults own smartphones. I mean that is a lot and doesn't even include teens and tweens. In this post, I'm going to list 13 tips/things you should if you want to get cool photos with your iPhone. These are super user-friendly so don't fret if you are very new to this whole "Taking photos thing". 

How To Take Stunning Photos With Your iPhone


1. Use The Rule Of Three's

I originally heard about this when I was in 4th grade (I think). I was doing this after-school computer club thing where we made silly videos and it was actually a lot of fun (it was pretty much just a bunch of technology geeks which are of course the best people). The teacher who was in charge of the class mentioned the term but didn't really explain it. I asked my dad about it and he explained it to me. Pretty much the rule of 3's says that the actual subject of the photo should take up about a 3rd of the photograph while the other 2/3rds of the photo should just be background. You can find the actual definition here. This doesn't apply to all photos but you should always keep it in mind. Maybe you are taking a picture of a plant. Instead of just getting the plant show the plant and its surroundings. This makes the photo more interesting and unusual. 

2. Put On The Grid Feature

This goes along with the point above. When you put the grid on when you are taking a photo there will be 9 equal squares. This helps so that you can make a photo look exact and use the rule of 3's. It is super easy to turn this on and personally, I think it really helps. All you have to do is go to the settings app and scroll down to the thing that says "Photo and Camera". Once you are there you just have to scroll and tiny bit and then you should see something that as "Grid" that you can turn on. For some people, this makes it harder to take photos as it can be a bit distracting though. 

3. Don't Use Flash

Most of the time flash just makes a photo look fake a weird. Unless it is dark and you are taking a photo with your friends try not to use flash. I did actually have an example but I can't find the photos so you know...

4. Try Not To Zoom

Whenever possible try to physically get closer to whatever you are taking a photo of. Yes, I know more walking is almost never a good thing but it will make your photo better. I, of course, get using zoom because sometimes you have to. Whenever you do zoom in though it degrades the quality of your photo and makes it really fuzzy. 

5. Clean Your Lens

Don't look at me like I'm a crazy person this is a thing. I promise. It is a good idea to clean your lens everyone once in a while. The lens on your camera can get dirty super easy. I mean think about where your phone has probably been in the past few hours. Maybe in your pocket, in that drawer you haven't cleaned in like 10 months, and maybe even a bathroom. That is both gross to think about but it also means that there is probably a lot of dirt on the lens. Any soft cloth will do the trick. If you happen to have one of those things that are supposed to clean glasses than those also work super well for this. 

6. Try To Use The Rear-Facing camera

This means instead of what I like to call your selfie camera or the camera on the screen side of your phone. There are a couple reasons for this. Number 1 is that personally, I think it is a million times easier. Second though and most importantly the rear-facing camera is a lot better quality than the "selfie camera". 

8. Get A Tripod

You might be confused but yes there is such thing as a phone tripod. I was actually looking them up on Amazon recently because I really want one. The average price is about 10-40$ which isn't like that expensive. They are really useful especially if you have really shaky hands which I definitely do. 

9. Pay attention to lighting 

This is really important for basically every photo you ever take. Things like lighting are essential. I kind of have 3 things for. Number one is when you can if you are taking photos outside get the sun behind you. This makes whatever you are shooting a lot brighter and easier to see and less weird shadows. Number two which relates to number one is that you should always use natural lighting when you can. Number three is..... Something. I actually did have a number three and then I forgot because as I said I have memory problems. 

10. Edit Your Photo

Last but certainly not least is edit your photos! I love editing photos and although it might sound complicated it's pretty easy. I use an app called VSCO on my phone which is really easy to use but also has a lot of features. So I personally love VSCO but there are also a lot of other super cool editors out there and there are some like super professional ones if you are willing to pay money for it.


Thanks to Aura (a cool digital picture frame company) for providing me with this awesome graphic!


And that was how to take awesome photos with your iPhone with the one and only Nabila! Actually, though I took a bunch of photos for this post right before the flood (this post has been pushed back and changed dates when it was supposed to be published like ten times) and it's both making me cringe and smile but also kind of frown and I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THEY ARE.

So anyway how is life for you guys? Do you use your phone for photography? Are you a blogger? What are your iphone photography tips? Do you enjoy taking photos? What is your favorite photo you have ever taken? 


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