The photographer stepped away, but an awesome moment is going down at the event you’ve spent months planning? Have no fear- the smartphone is here!
Learning some basic photography skills will improve your chance of capturing these stellar moments.
Rule of Thirds
Use the grid option on your smartphone. You want the main subject of your photo to be centered at the intersections of the rule of thirds grid- not smack in the center of the photo!
Boring photo that doesn’t draw the eye to anything in particular.
Rule of thirds in action.
Beware of Backlight
The human eye is drawn to light- so you want the light in a photo to be in front of the subject, not lighting the subject from behind.
No!
Yes!
Backgrounds
What's physically behind the photo can make or break an otherwise perfectly lit, rule-of-thirds abiding photos.
Avoid “polehead”, "treehead" or anything else sticking out from behind your subject.
Come in closer and change your angle to naturally crop out polehead.
Remember to keep a keen eye on the background. That means stay away from garbage.
Move around until you find the best angle for a non-distracting background.
This is a hot mess. Discard.
Say No to Blur
And while it might be common knowledge, it's worth mentioning that not posting a bad photo is better than posting a blurry photo. To be safe, take a variety of photos and choose the best option before you post.
Using these simple tips, you can improve your social media photo taking skills without investing in more photographers and special equipment.
Practice makes perfect, so take many pictures and study what worked and what needs some adjustment.
Special thanks to the Kicking Cow human and doggy team for participating in this blog.