How to take better photos with your phone camera

Why give tips on how to take better phone photos? Am I losing clients over the growing quality of these cameras? Am I worried?

My answers to those questions: Because people take bad photos for Instagram and the world would rather see pretty photos. No. No.

1. Wipe off the camera lens. So you have this excellent tool in your hand. And you touch the lens all the time (we all do - no big deal). But why not wipe it off before taking a photo? You wouldn't touch the lens of a high quality camera after eating pizza and putting lotion on your hands without then cleaning it, would you? If you often see lots of white fogginess, it's because you need to wipe off the lens. Just use your shirt.
2. Don't zoom. While phone camera zooms are getting better every year, you still need to understand the difference between optical zoom and digital zoom. Optical zoom is actual zoom - zooming in without losing a ton of quality. Digital zoom is literally nothing but cropping your image in your phone while taking the photo rather than after. Lots of phones will talk about both zooms as if they're special. Just look for optical zoom.
3. Buy an iPhone X or 8 Plus. You want portrait mode.
4. Take a better selfie. This is me sitting on the same couch. The photos are taken 2 seconds apart. The crappy one is me with the window behind me. The great one is me facing the window.

Happy Friday!
​Autumn