From unique, creative ideas, to visual storytelling, the term “iPhoneography” has only evolved throughout the years. iPhoneography in the simplest terms refers to people taking pictures and videos with their iPhone, while using all of the features that the iPhone offers. With the development every year of the iPhone camera size and quality, taking amazing, breathtaking photos has become easier than ever. Keep reading to learn more about what exactly iPhoneography is.
iPhone Image
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Visual Story
Since the release of Apple’s first ever iPhone in 2007, the iPhones have evolved and grown into a new form of creativity. Believe it or not, the iPhone device that you carry with you everyday may just be the most powerful camera you can purchase. Your portable iPhone gives you the ability to bring out excitement and personality in everyday moments and adventures that you experience.
These moments range from hanging out with your friends and family, holiday’s, birthday’s, vacations, and even a casual day at the mall. With a quick click on your iPhone, you are able to capture smiling faces, different foods, different sceneries, and all the laughs and joy each memory brings.
iPhoneography Memories
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Keep Things Simple With iPhoneography
It’s important to not overfill your photos with different subjects. In order to keep each of your photos intriguing, focus all the attention of the photo on a single subject and a simple background. For example, consider taking a photo of a daisy flower against a white wall. Or, an image focused on someone jumping into the ocean with the ocean water in the background such as Image 1.3. Images that focus on a single subject tend to be high-quality images, compared to those that focus on multiple subjects in one photo.
Single Subject Image
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Explore With Your Eyes
When taking photos and videos with your iPhone, it’s important to explore the area with your eyes. Basically, when you’re taking photographs, focus on what your eye finds interesting. This can be the position of element or a specific object. Whatever you choose, frame your shot on what you feel is most captivating and interesting to look at and avoid capturing any background distractions in the shot. The end goal is that whoever looks at your image should be able to see what’s in frame and to imagine what exists outside the frame.
Captivating Image
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Always Capture The Details
It’s true, the iPhone shoots wonderful portrait shots along with wide angle shots with lots of vivid colors. However, the camera lens also has the ability to capture macro shots. With the macro mode enabled, you can take pictures or video of subjects that are as close as 2cm to your iPhone’s camera lens. This means you can take shots of flowers, textures, insects, or pretty much anything small or at close distance, with accurate focus, rich detail, and no blurring.
Macro Shots
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Use Aperture Settings When Taking iPhoneography
The aperture is an opening in the lens that can be made bigger or smaller and its overall purpose is to control how much light reacts with camera the sensor. Aperture settings allow you to control the brightness and focus of the non-subject portions of your photos. Use a narrower aperture to keep more elements in the image in focus and have an evenly distributed exposure. To bring your subject out of the background noise, use a wide aperture.
Open the Camera app, select Portrait, then tap on the f button. A slider will show up next to the shutter button. This is for you to adjust the f-stop, and see the changes as you move it. Once you’re happy with the way your photo will look, tap on the f button again. A small aperture has a large F number and produces a deep depth of focus. A wide aperture has a small F number and creates a narrow depth of focus.
Aperture Settings
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Take Advantage Of Portrait Mode
In 2016, Apple released a new camera feature for iPhone called Portrait mode. This mode enabled people to photograph a specific subject with more clarity and focus. Essentially, using this lens keeps the subject of your photo sharp and crisp while blurring the background.
In fact, you have the ability to capture amazing images that look like it came right off of a professional camera when using portrait mode. Remember, the perfect lighting is key to capturing quality images when using portrait mode.
Portrait Mode
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Move Around When Taking iPhoneography
It’s important to never solely on your camera’s zoom to adjust your composition. Always move around to get close or move away from your subject matter. When you move closer to your photo subject when taking your shot, your subject will appears larger and more clear, as opposed to zooming in from far away. Moving around when taking iPhone images allows you to capture photos in different angles with a variety of backgrounds and light exposure.
Enhance Your Photos With Editing Apps
One of the great advantages that the iPhone has aside from its camera, is the access to thousands of photo editing apps that you can find and download on the App Store. These apps can be downloaded to your phone and used to make whatever changes you wish to your photos. These changes include brightening your photos, adding highlight to your image, making your image more saturated, or contrasted, or even adding text or stickers to your image. The only limit is your imagination.
Many editing apps are free, but some have to be paid for. The most important thing to be on the lookout for when downloading apps is to make sure that the app saves the edited final version of the image in full resolution! There are a huge number of apps that don’t do this, resulting in a lower-quality image than you originally took prior to editing.
Some famous apps that are most commonly used for editing images include: VSCO, Adobe Lightroom, Picsart, iMovie, and much more.
Editing Apps
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Have Fun With iphoneography!
Most of all, have fun when capturing images and videos with your iPhone! Get out there and take photos of anything that captures your eye. Experiment with all of the different modes and features that the iPhone provides you with to capture your shots. You have the ability to experiment with different composition techniques, taking shots from different angles and points of view. And keep in mind, editing photos and videos can be just as much fun as taking them. However, this only applies if you’re working on a good photo to start with. Therefore, focus on taking quality content before focusing on editing. Keep practicing, and keep learning – it’s fun! Reach out to Digital Task Force today with any questions that you may have about iPhoneograpahy.