We’re only on Day 4 and I have already been having so much fun with the Instagram daily photo portion of my Project 2012. So many of you have chosen this as your goal for the year too and I’ve loved seeing the variety of images cell phones are capable of capturing. Truly amazing!
As I was glancing through our group and looking at my own photo submissions, I noticed a striking example I wanted to share with you. I have convinced my husband to do his very first ever photo project. He’ll be documenting his year through Instagram and I’ll be organizing his images into a set while he travels for work. During our New Year’s Day lesson on using his phone, we took this pair of images while standing side by side:
Which one do you feel is stronger? Art may be subjective, but the answer is pretty clear here.
Take 2 fills the frame with twinkly lights and green. The hands and the toasting glasses are nicely composed and the reflection on the liquid causes the whole thing to be much more sparkly.
Take 1 was taken at the same moment but the camera view finder was being held 1 foot over to the side and up higher by a few inches. It has a busy background. The wall, blinds, and cord pull are not important to this image. They distract the eye from the subject matter: the hands, glasses, and twinkly lights.
Another thing to notice? The camera in your cell phone will be analyzing all the light within the viewfinder. The wall and shades in the first image caused the camera to expose the image more brightly which loses the darker festive mood of the second image.
Things for you to consider when shooting with your cell phone:
1. Are you capturing background details that aren’t important to your subject? Would angling your phone just a little differently crop something ugly out of the picture?
2. How bright or dark is your image? Can you tweak the angle of the phone to capture a different lighting mood?
Just a little tweak in the angle can completely alter the feeling of your image.
This next week, I’d love if you’d try taking two photos of the same subject but just alter you angle a bit differently for one of them. Share the results in our group. Which one did you end up liking better? Why?
Janmary, N Ireland
I too have become a bit more aware of backgrounds and angles with my iphone pics.
I often tilt my DSLR but realised I wasnt doing it much with my iphone.
Most of my pics today were tilted!