5 Tips to get you the best holiday photos on your phone camera

Its a holiday season and festivity all around. Lots of colors and lots of lights and laughter all around. Its surely a time which will be spent with lot of near and dear ones. This is a time when the cameras – especially the ones on our phones keep coming off the pocket to capture these beautiful moments. Being someone who likes to take a lot of photos on phone cameras, I thought i will come up with 5 Tips to get you the best holiday photos on your phone camera. Its simple straight forward ones but few things which we generally tend to miss. Usually these tips are the ones which I apply to my professional photography as well. So lets get started. 

a. Composition ! 

I have told it in past, I will tell now, and will repeat for ever – Composition is one of the critical things in photography. If you cant show what you want to convey through the photograph then you already lost the game in the beginning. One simple friend we have in all our phone cameras is the Grid lines ( which maps to rule of thirds ). Enable it right away – its def not distracting. Keep your key subjects or group on the intersection of the 2 horizontal/vertical lines instead of keeping them bang in the centre of the frame. Following rule of thirds definitely makes you get more visually appealing images.

b. Shut the Digital Zoom off ! 

Infact the phone cameras come only with the digital zoom which gets activated by gesture (pinch) or using the volume knobs. AVOID it right away. Use your feet and go near or far from the subject than using the zoom to magnify and spoiling the quality of the image. Get close and connect with your subject, dont stand back and pinch the screen to virtually go close.

c. WTF ( With The Flash ) ! 

Most of the shooting this holiday season will happen indoors or in late evenings or in clubs where light is an inexistent thing. But luckily for us most of the current generation phone cameras come with a very good flash. Don’t fear turning on the flash. Bright image is definitely better than a blurry one. Dont forget the red-eye-reduction. Alternatively you can even ask one of your friends not in the frame to light up the subject using his/her phone flash in continuous mode ( video mode light ) and there by being able to create interesting lighting.

d. 2 Hands better than one ! 

With the drink or cutlery in one hand its always a tendency for folks to just use the camera in one hand and grab the picture. Instead ask yourself if you really want your image to be shaky and blurry … Get your hands free and hold the phone in both the hands or atleast support it using the other hands and give it a second or two to ensure you allow its autofocus to settle and go ahead and fire.

e. Present it better ! 

Oh yeah i know there is Instagram and there are tonnes of filters in it to make beautiful why am i even talking about presentation. The whole phone photography world runs on Instagram filters but why follow the sheep ? be creative and be different. Each of your camera phone app comes with its own inbuilt editing tools and filters and frames. Work on your exposure, colors, crops and you will realise your images are lot better than the thousands of similar looking photo-copy images found on IG stream. There are even apps which gives holiday themes and ones which makes you create cool looking diptych or collages. Try them out – there is a whole new world outside the square format – retro toned images.

BONUS >>> Get creative ! 

Selfie was def a word of 2013 and also there are millions of reason not to make your family/friend give a cold stare at the camera while you are taking a photo- why do the same ? Go out of the box and try something different and new. Use props may be or try different angle, work on concepts when you have a family get-together and end up making a nice photobook with all the memorable images. Dress up your dog or may be even climb on top of your car to get a good view, shoot a pano for group photos, or do bizarre things but play safe and ensure you get an image which looks different from what your friend took in his/her iPhone5S (am pretty sure the droid phones take much better images too, and not to forget the Nokia with 40mp camera).

Happy Clicking !!!