Everyone loves beautiful images of flowers (well, almost everyone I’m guessing). Flowers are pretty, but just snapping away at them with your phone without some intention does not guarantee that your images will turn out as good as they could.
Eight tips for getting better results using your phone to capture flowers
1. Pay attention to the light
If it’s a bright, sunny day you’ll get harsh shadows. Position yourself in ways to cut down on areas that will be overly bright or almost white.
2. Watch what is in the frame
Flowers are pretty, period. But, if you have distracting backgrounds, pieces of stems, random leaves or other objects, they take away from your main subject, your image just looks cluttered and there is no real focal point.
3. Use the zoom function on your phone.
This will help you to showcase only one flower or area of flowers and almost eliminate the background. Be careful not to go to far with this though. Many mobile phone cameras distort and become fuzzy if zooming in too far.
4. Change the image ratio to help you compose the flower
Using a 1:1 square is another great way to bring only the flower into the frame without having any background to worry about it.
5. Lock your focus
Using the lock focus function of your phone camera will help you ensure you get images that are sharp. We tend to move as we’re standing over the flower or the wind may be moving the flower a bit. After you’ve locked your focus, then use burst mode to capture quite a few images. Once you take a look at your images you can weed out those that are not sharp.
6. Use a background
Grab a white or black piece of foam core board to use. Place it behind the flower you’re photographing in order to isolate and create a more fine art-type image.
7. Steady yourself
Hold your phone with both hands to steady your hands. Better yet, use some type of tripod, this way you know you’re phone is not moving.
8. Experiment!
Try using the flash on your phone to see what happens. Depending on the background and surroundings it may create a dark background.
General photography concepts apply
Remember, photography is photography, whether you are using a mobile phone or camera. Brush up on compositional rules and learn your phone’s camera functions. These will help you create much better images in the long run.
