In my work as a photographer, I meet a lot of moms. Often I meet them within days or weeks of becoming a mother for the first time, when they’ve been freshly transformed into a new version of themselves. And the thing that always strikes me about the moms I connect with? How strong we are and how fiercely we love.
I take photographs of those moms to capture that strength, power, fierceness and love. I take photographs of myself and my own children to capture those feelings for me, for us, and to help us remember how small they were, how much they were loved, how much fun we had and that sometimes the days felt long and it was hard but we made it.
Related: Dear dads: Take the picture
When I first became a mom, I felt I had to capture it all—every giggle, smile and milk-drunk moment. It was easier to snap away on my phone than it was to get my ‘proper’ camera out and I was quickly overwhelmed by the sheer number of photographs on my camera roll—20,000 and counting of mostly poor quality and blurry images. I never even thought of printing them or putting them in an album or a frame.
As a photographer this frustrated me, so I set out to learn what my iPhone could really do. I tried and tested what I knew about lighting, adapting to the capabilities of my phone. I soon realized I could take great shots. The iPhone camera is a powerful machine—you just need to know how to drive it!
I gathered together everything I’d learned and created an online guide, The Memory Gift, full of iPhone photography tips and tricks to help you take your own beautiful photographs with the very best camera of all: the camera you have with you, right there in your hand while you’re nursing or in your pocket while you’re playing at the park with your toddler. Read on for my top iPhone photography hacks.
4 iPhone camera tips
1. Hack 1: Be focused
Setting the focus of your image and adjusting the exposure—the amount of light you let into your lens—will help you take better shots. I almost always reduce the exposure a little, which creates a slightly darker image with more detail.
Look through the screen at your subject and tap the part of the image you want to focus on. A yellow box will appear with a symbol of a sun. Tap and hold the sun and drag it up to increase the exposure (make it brighter) or drag it down to reduce the exposure (make it darker).
Take a practice run and see what a difference adjusting the exposure can make.
2. Hack 2: Use Live mode
Trying to catch the kids when they’re racing around is tough! Even sitting ‘still’ can be, well, a bit wriggly. Live mode can capture a small amount of movement and allows you to choose the best frame—hopefully with everyone’s eyes open!
Turn Live mode on by tapping the concentric circles icon at the top right of your Camera App screen and then take a photo. View it by tapping the photo icon at the bottom left of your screen, select edit and then tap the Live mode icon at the bottom (those concentric circles again!).
A scroll bar will appear. Scroll across to find the exact frame that you love, then tap ‘Make Key Photo’. There you have it!
3. Hack 3: Don’t go off grid!
Improve your iPhone pics by turning on your grid. This will enable you to see gridlines when taking a photo, helping you get key lines straight before you snap. The result is a much more appealing image with straight lines.
Don’t believe me? Take a look at the image below. Taken without the benefit of gridlines, I was standing and my phone was on an angle, tilted slightly towards the subject.
In the image below, I moved back a little and knelt down and used the gridlines to make sure my phone was straight up and down and the lines in the image. In this case the posts and roof of our porch were straight. Go to Settings > Camera > Composition and set Grid to ON.
4. Hack 4: Capture a video and take photos at the same time
Can’t choose between capturing a photo or a video when your kids are doing something cute? You can do both!
Whether you’re in PHOTO mode or VIDEO mode, when you press and slide the shutter button to the right, a second shutter button will appear on the bottom right-hand side. Simply press that shutter button to take photographs at the same time as recording video, and never miss a moment.
Practice these tips and you’ll be taking the first steps towards better photographs of your family that are worthy of printing, posting and sharing far and wide.
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