Smartphone photography has become an essential tool for business for three simple reasons:

• We can take photos, edit and post them immediately
• It removes the cost of a professional photographer every time we want to create imagery
• It allows us to share behind the scenes and personal moments in a genuine, authentic way – which helps create a deeper connection with our audience!

But what if the quality of your smartphone photos isn’t great?  Does it matter?

At the end of the day, yes, absolutely. The better the quality of your images, the more likely people will notice and remember them – for the right reasons.  Don’t let your viewers be distracted by poor lighting, bad composition, and unflattering poses.  Level up your smartphone photos and instead, people will be more likely to stop and check out what you have to say.

So what makes a great photo?  Just like professional photography, great quality smartphone photography relies on good lighting, good composition, and an interesting subject.  You’ll have to join me at my Smartphone Photography Workshop to learn all my tips and tricks in those areas, however, I do have some lesser-known tips you can take on board as of today to help you improve your smartphone photography immediately:

• Turn on your camera grid so you can use the rule of thirds to improve your composition in every image. The rule of thirds states that when an image is divided into nine equal boxes, the image will be more pleasing to viewers if any important compositional elements are placed along their lines or intersections.

• If you want to zoom in on a subject, use your phone camera’s set focal lengths (x2, x3, etc). By using your fingers to zoom in on your screen, you will only be increasing the size of the image and then cropping it – which will result in a poor quality image.

• When shooting indoors, turn off any artificial lights. You may think that by doing this you will be creating a duller or darker room and not enough light for a good image, but the newer mobile phones can deal this kind of lighting much better than they can artificial lighting. Artificial lights (and in particular downlights) just add unflattering shadows and colour casts. Try it out and see what you think!

• Whenever possible, use portrait mode. This will blur the background and make the subject of your image the focus, giving it a more professional look. Just remember that you will need some distance between your subject and the background to make portrait mode work.

• Analyse your image before posting it online to check if it needs a quick edit.  Often something as simple as brightening your image and adding a little more vibrancy or contrast will take it from good to great – and this can be done in a few seconds.

So there you have it, five lesser-known tips that will help elevate your smartphone imagery and get your images noticed. Which will you try first? Have a go and tag me on social media so I can check out the result!

If you’d like to really up your smartphone photography game, join me at my next smartphone photography workshop where I teach everything I know, as well as give personalised feedback and advice on your images.