I took the butterfly photo above yesterday morning on an iPhone. 🦋
It’s amazing to work with the big clients, the ones with huge marketing budgets that allow for a “let’s do it” attitude at every strategic turn, but there’s something imaginatively wild about a scrappy brand able to execute with nothing but the phone in their hands.
If you’re a small business on an even smaller budget, don’t worry, be happy. Of course, it’s ideal to hire a photographer for six hours, get a TON of content you can spread out across a few months and milk the pictures for all they’re high-resolutionally worth. Still, the one-day photoshoot only takes you so far. There will always be those unexpected in-between moments, when you suddenly decide to aesthetically streamline the interface of your app or a spark of inspiration changes the entire look and feel of your brand—MUTED ORANGE!—and now, you’ve got to capture that all on your own.
Again, totally fine. Take out your phone and GO. Here are a few tips to help:
Work your angles.
This photo above was taken while sitting on the sidewalk, getting strange stares from two tourists trying to assemble a beach chair. Sometimes, the straight-on angle is what you need but more often than not, if you exaggerate your angles dramatically (get on the ground or throw yo’ hands + phone high in the air), you’ll walk away with a much more interesting shot.
Rule of thirds.
Mentally, divide your scene in thirds both horizontally and vertically to form a neat grid of nine rectangles. Eyes are naturally drawn to the top or bottom third, left or right third of a photo, so for a picture with visual appeal, place your subject in those sweet spots.
The Green Dot
There’s a lot light can do to mess up a photo (The Small, Green Dot: An Ode to All My iPhone Sunset Photos) but it can also make it amazing. When the sun is in front of you, shining like a celestial spotlight on your subject, you’re in the clear. When that heavenly body is behind you, you’re taking a silhouette. Congrats?
Wait
The best photos usually aren’t the first ones you get. Wait a minute, breathe, and let those birds glide exactly where you want ‘em across the ocean before you snap.
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Do you like these business tips and tricks? Let me know in the comments below! Also, yes, I’ll be posting fiction again here soon, so for the short story enthusiasts reading this, stay tuned and thanks for reading!
