foreign camera with Advanced Eye tracking and lenses that can achieve wafer thin depth of field maybe you've got a medium format digital camera with a host of expensive lenses maybe you've got a Fujifilm x-series camera lightweight and easy to take with you maybe you've got a Leica camera that produces stunning images with those Leica colors maybe you've got a little Ricoh gr camera that fits in your pocket but has an aps-c size sensor and produces high quality shots maybe you shoot on film maybe you shoot on medium format film if you're a photographer the chances
are that you have spent time and money in accumulating a fantastic camera system that produces high quality results so on Earth would you ever choose to shoot on your phone well no certainly not because they're great cameras they're not great cameras they've got a tiny little sensor that makes these mushy images that they add a load of digital sharpening to to sort of correct for that they're not very pleasant to shoot with the screen's difficult to see in bright light you can't go air level shot with it very easily because there's no viewfinder there's no
tactile buttons in short phone cameras are rubbish but it's their rubbishness there's one of their superpowers let me explain [Music] so there are three great things about the camera in your phone firstly you have it with you most of the time even if you have a tiny pocket-sized camera you still have to have thought about taking it out with you your phone's one of those things you just have with you by default secondly you don't look very conspicuous holding a phone well not as much as you do a camera people are really used to seeing
people with their phones out so you'll blend in more and that will allow you to get images and situations where a camera may make you stand out more and may make people react differently to you thirdly bear with me on this one they're very limited cameras and what I mean by that is that they're not versatile they work okay in some situations and in others they struggle and when conditions are optimal for them the quality is only possible it's not exceptional so why is that a good thing because by far the most critical factor in
image quality isn't the camera it's the photographer and the decisions that they make and while having all those lenses and wide apertures dynamic range intelligent eye tracking all that stuff is great it does do two things firstly it encourages you to fall back on those things when making a shot secondly and this is especially relevant if you take multiple lenses and accessories out with you it brings a lot of choice and choice is the enemy of creativity working to limitations forces us to problem solve it gives us parameters that our creativity has to live between
when you can't rely on your camera to produce beautiful looking images you have to fall back on the most basic fundamentals of creating good photography composition lighting coloring tone storytelling the decisive moment in short your skill and creativity in your ability to visualize an image if your image quality is going to be possible at best how do you make your shot stand out even if you can't bear to attempt any serious work with your phone camera when you could simply take out your Sony or your Canon or your Leica you should still attempt to shoot
on your phone because it's a fantastic exercise in improving your photography and there are lots of great photographers out there creating stunning work on their phones and it's not about buying the latest iPhone all those cameras are just incrementally different degrees of mediocre but a mediocre camera doesn't necessarily mean a mediocre shot because there are different kinds of photographs some rely on high quality Equipment like environmental portraits shot on a medium or a large format camera some rely on specialist equipment such as difficult to capture exotic Wildlife but some types of shots work fine on
something as simple as a phone something like high contrast light and Shadow for example take a look at these Shots by Kathy Ryan from her series office Romance Kathy Ryan has been the Director of Photography for the New York Times magazine for over 30 years the New York Times building is situated on 8th Avenue on the west side of Midtown Manhattan it was designed with white ceramic rods covering the exterior in order to control light and heat coming into the building one day Ryan noticed the amazing Shadows being cast by these rods as sunlight streamed
into a stairwell so she took out her phone and made a picture she shared the image to her Instagram feed and this was the start of Ryan's love affair with the relationship between the New York Times building and the sunlight a project that was eventually to turn into office Romance the images evoke an almost meditative sense of Harmony and quietness that fills in Stark juxtaposition to the realities of the fast-paced high-pressure world of meetings and deadlines that occur in these offices some images are more figurative some Venture more into abstraction but they're all held together
by this recurring feeling of Stillness and calm you can almost hear them the muffled sound of the city outside the quiet hum of the air conditioner they're largely in black and white and any color ones have a very minimal palette yet for me they evoke a warmth a sense of contemplation and a phone is the perfect camera for a series like this these are opportunistic photos so something that you carry on you that requires minimal setup is perfect the semi-abstract nature and high contrast look means that these images don't need to be made on a
high-end camera system there's no need for a shallow depth of field for lenses that can resolve fine detail for 14 stops of dynamic range or perfectly rendered skin tones these things don't matter here what does matter is how carrying a phone with you makes you think about what images you can make with it working to these limitations forces you to think creatively taking all that choice away focuses your mind I was particularly drawn to this shot and I think this is a great example of how you can use a phone camera to make an amazing
shot this is an image of a 612 pound window being replaced but it's almost balletic in its composition the semi-siluated figures against this tapestry of rigid horizontal lines the way all the people are working together and that subtle reference to Joe rosenthal's raising the flag on Iwo Jima creates an almost comedic contrast between that iconic War image and the mundanity of replacing an office window this image is great but it's great because Kathy Ryan knows how to frame a shot understands light and contrast and most critically knows when to release the shutter the decisive moment
these things are enough to make a great shot with a simple and fairly mediocre camera so going out to take photos and only taking your phone camera can be a great exercise in your photographic discipline when we're packing our photography bags it's easy to worry about all the images that we might miss if we don't take this lens or that filter or that flash gun or that full frame body but when we actually start to make images it's easier to switch your mind into that kind of positive mindset and the question becomes less what can't
we make without X Y and Z and more what images can we make if we only use our phone camera and Kathy Ryan and many other photographers have shown us that it's possible to make outstanding publishable work with your phone camera so with that in mind here are 13 practical tips on getting great shots out of your phone before you do anything else clean your lens just give it a wipe ideally with a lens cloth if you don't have one just do it with your T-shirt I wouldn't recommend doing that with your high-end expensive lenses
but phone lenses are generally pretty rugged but I too often see those hazy washed out phone photos because they've been taken through a lens with greasy fingerprints all over it two turn your screen brightness up and hold the phone with both hands treat it as much like a camera as you can be aware of where your lenses are located and keep your fingers out of the way especially when using those wider focal lengths I also recommend putting it in Airplane Mode to stop people calling you and interrupting you mid-shot three switch on and use the
rule of thirds grid lines on your phone and don't do it to use the rule of thirds but because when you're not looking through a viewfinder but rather holding your phone screen out in front of you it's very easy to misalign or to till your phone accidentally use those lines to get your horizontals and verticals nice and straight so I'm not advocating that you should always be using the rule of thirds but on the flip side it's sometimes good to have a starting point to develop a composition from it's kind of easier than starting with
no guidance it will just help you get into that mind space where you're analyzing your frame from a compositional perspective four download Lightroom onto your phone and use it as your camera by tapping this little camera icon here put it into professional mode and it will give you loads more controls than your camera app on your phone it will also allow you to shoot in raw and stop that nasty automatic digital over sharpening that so many phones like to bake into your images the app is free to download and use if you have a Creative
Cloud subscription you can sync your preset and your photo library but you don't need a subscription to use it number five so while I just told you to download Lyra onto your phone that doesn't mean that you have to edit your photos on your phone of course if you want to edit them on your phone then please go ahead but it's just that personally I find the tiny screen and fiddly control is not really ideal I prefer to concentrate on taking my shots at the time and then taking them home and editing them on my
computer later and if you're using Lightroom through a Creative Cloud subscription those images will already be in your Lightroom catalog when you boot up Lightroom on your computer although personally I like to use Lightroom classic or photoshop by overlighting CC this processing the image is a fairly important part for me so I prefer to have a little bit of extra control but that's just how I shoot there's no right or wrong way your style May suit editing as you go whatever works for you but I feel I can be a bit more objective about my
images if I leave a Time separation between taking them and editing them number six look for strong lighting contrast phone sensors are tiny and so giving it something that's easier for you to deal with like strong lighting is a good way to get great shots try exposing for the highlights and pulling down the exposure when you take the shot this can look good when there's very hard light very defined Shadows it's actually important to get the image as close to your final Vision as possible in camera as there's generally not as much latitude for pushing
phone images in post look for patterns and shapes cast by hard sunlight look for Silhouettes look for strong colors try shooting into the light number seven now this may seem obvious to a lot of people but remember to shoot horizontally as well as vertically remember to shoot in landscape mode as well as portrait also you don't need to stick to the aspect ratio that your phone takes photos natively in whether that's 16x9 or 2x3 you can try and shoot maybe square or ten by eight that's particular favorite of mine because it can change the balance
of your shot and sometimes it can make a shot that doesn't really work together very well number eight go black and white this may sound oversimplified and obvious but choosing to shoot in black and white can help greatly with the phone images black and white is a lot more forgiving with low quality images it can help eliminate those nasty Digital Color Renditions phones can also generally get quite good close-up shots and when you turn a detail shot into black and white it can help emphasize form and texture I'm not in any way saying you should
always shoot in black and white um it's just one way to simplify your thinking process even more because with black and white you're reducing your composition down even more to just its fundamental building blocks of dark and Light 9. abstract try thinking less about representing something figurative and try thinking about your frame as a way of balancing color and shape and form now phones are great for this if for no other reason then you carry them around with you all the time and Abstract shots are everywhere you might see an abstract shot on the bus
to work or while you're waiting in an dentist waiting room or going up a flight of stairs in a gallery or something and it doesn't have to be fully abstract either you can start to introduce this practice in your figurative work and shooting abstract will help you learn to balance all the elements in your shot it's a great learning process number 10 take advantage of your phone's small size you can flip your phone upside down and get your lens really close to surfaces and objects you can shoot through small gaps where a bigger lens would
struggle number 11 try using filters that you already own you just need to hold it over your phone lens so you can use a polarizer to eliminate Reflections or get deeper Blues in the sky a pro Mist can help take away that digital look especially with a phone that's very useful um you could cut out some colored gels cut out a little square and stick it over your lens and then use that as a black and white filter maybe a red or a yellow number 12. look for interesting things interesting scenes if you can't rely
on your camera to make a nice image you have to make the image something of Interest this could be something funny it could be something weird it could just be a scene where a particular color has arisen as a theme or a juxtaposition between two elements use the photographic frame to alert people to those small beautiful things that are too easily missed as we go about our busy lives finally number 13. take your time we're very conditioned to just sort of whip out our phones and take a quick snapshot and if you're trying to capture
that decisive moment and it's happening right now then that may be the right approach but if you're taking a portrait or you're taking some architecture or a landscape or some detail shots take your time to get it right thank you foreign camera wouldn't be my camera of choice for the type of Photography that I personally like it's not really versatile enough but I do really enjoy the challenge of shooting with it and if I'm honest I've got a fair few shots from it that I'm really proud of and there's one thing I'm sure any photographer
will tell you which is they'll have been told at some point that's an amazing photograph you must have a great camera which is kind of annoying because they'll spent years honing their craft and it's not meant in a bad way so you don't want to go defensive and correct them so it's always rather satisfying to be able to say thanks but actually I just shot that on my phone for the main reason that you should aspire to shoot good photos on your phone is because the best way to learn and to improve your photography is
to take pictures the more you do it the better you will get so turn those times when you're not going out with a specific intent to take photos into potential photography sessions what images can you make while you're waiting for the bus while you're taking your kick to school hanging out the washing waiting for a meeting to start condition your mind to see potential photos through the mundane through the ordinary it'll make you a better photographer the next time you pick up your camera or maybe even one of those shots you take on your phone
will turn out to be your next masterpiece I'll see you next time [Music] foreign [Music] [Laughter] [Music]
