Part one of a multi-part series
1. Use grid lines to balance your shot.
One of the easiest and best ways to improve your mobile photos is to turn on the camera's grid lines. That superimposes a series of lines on the screen of your smartphone's camera that are based on the "rule of thirds" — a photographic composition principle that says an image should be broken down into thirds, both horizontally and vertically, so you have nine parts in total.
According to this theory, if you place points of interest in these intersections or along the lines, your photo will be more balanced, level, and allow viewers to interact with it more naturally.
To switch the grid on ...
iPhone: Go to "Settings," choose "Photos & Camera," and switch "Grid" on.
Samsung Galaxy: Launch the camera app, go to "Settings," scroll down and switch the "grid lines" option to "on."
2. Set your camera's focus.
Today's phone cameras automatically focus on the foreground of your frame, but not every picture you take on your phone has an obvious subject. To adjust where you want your camera lens to focus, open your camera app and tap the screen where you want to sharpen the view.
If you're taking a photo of something in motion, for example, it can be difficult for your camera to follow this subject and refocus as needed. Tap the screen to correct your phone camera's focus just before snapping the picture to ensure the moving subject has as much focus as possible. A square or circular icon should then appear on your camera screen, shifting the focus of your shot to all the content inside that icon.
3. Focus on one subject.
Many of the best photos include just one, interesting subject. So when taking a picture of one, spend some extra time setting up the shot. Some professional photographers say that the subject shouldn't fill the entire frame, and that two-thirds of the photo should be negative space — that helps the subject stand out even more.
But be sure you tap the screen of your smartphone to focus the camera on your subject — that'll help to ensure that it's focused and the lighting is optimized.
Pro Tip: Once you've taken your photo, you can use filters and ap
ps to make the subject even more vivid, or to crop it to frame the subject correctly. The brightness, contrast, and saturation of the photo can also be adjusted accordingly — all from your phone.
4. Embrace negative space.
"Negative space" simply refers to the areas around and between the subjects of an image — and it can take a photo from "good" to "great."
When you include a lot of empty space in a photo, your subject will stand out more and evoke a stronger reaction from your viewer. And what does negative space looks like? It's often a large expanse of open sky, an empty field, a large wall, or water.
5. Find different perspectives.
Taking photos from a unique, unexpected angle can make them more memorable — it tends to create an illusion of depth or height with the subjects. It also makes the image stand out, since most mobile photos are taken either straight -on or from a bird's eye view.
T
ry taking a photo directly upward and playing with the sky as negative space, or, you can try taking it at a slight downward angle.
6. Play with reflections.
There's something so idyllic about seeing the sky reflected in a body of water. There's a reason why we love seeing that — our eyes are drawn to reflections. So look for opportunities to play with them in photos.
There are plenty of out-of-the-box places to find reflections — puddles, larger bodies of water, mirrors, sunglasses, drinking glasses, and metallic surfaces are just a few.
7. Use leading lines.
In some photos, there's a line that draws the viewer's eye toward a certain part of the frame. Those are called leading lines. They can be straight or circulinear — think staircases, building facades, train tracks, roads, or even a path through the woods.
Leading lines are great for creating a sense of depth in an image, and can make your photo look purposefully designed — even if you just happened to come upon a really cool shape by accident.