10 tips to take better phone pics

WORDS Malibongwe Tyilo

We all know that our smartphones are incredibly powerful computers with pretty impressive cameras, but how many of us actually use them to their max? With our current #shelfie competition, we thought we’d share 10 tips to take better phone pics. 

Many of us don’t realise the full potential of our Instagram accounts, beyond ubiquitous selfie-taking and occasionally documenting the food on our plates. But there’s an entire community out there that takes their Instalives seriously. They’re international, with branches in cities all over the world; they have Instameets and keep large followings in the tens to hundreds of thousands. They call themselves Instagramers or Igers. Gareth Pon, the founder of the local branch of the Igers community, is one of the most followed South Africans on Instagram with over a 150k followers!

Recently he gave a talk at the Epson Develop Yourself photography and printing event, and he offered these 10 tips on how to use your smartphone to capture the kind of pics that could not only bring out the Iger in you, but also be perfectly print-worthy.

• A real Iger doesn’t hang and wait for the moments, they create them. So Gareth says: “When you’re in the mood for photos, go wherever your heart fancies! Your smartphone and its camera can go wherever you do.”
• Light is your friend – and is your best friend when you use it to highlight particular elements of your image.
• Most cameras have a zoom function, but don’t use it unless you absolutely have to. Rather move closer to your subject, if you can.
• Shoot before you think. Sometimes spending too much time on composing the perfect shot will mean that you lose it.
• Wear good, comfortable shoes. This is true of photography and many other hobbies!
• Keep looking, but know what you’re looking for. Don’t be so focused on capturing the image that you’ve set out for, that you miss other wonderful opportunities along the way.
• Keep stable, if you possibly can. Otherwise use any motion blur to good effect in your image.
• Avoid using the flash. While cameras in phones are fantastic, their flashes often aren’t.
• Shoot lots of images – it doesn’t cost you anything!
• Change your perspective: lie on the floor, stand on a table, jump on a merry-go-round – there is so much more to the world than what you see at eye level.

Keep in mind that even if you’re not on Instagram, Gareth’s tips apply to any sort of smartphone photography, whether it’s just for your own private folders, other social media or simply to print out on one of Epson’s versatile colour printers. Their impressive technology can print up to 1 800 postcard-sized pics using just one ink tank, at a cost of 60 cents per photo. That just might make us go retro and start keeping physical photo albums again.

Snap a selfie of your bookshelf – a shelfie – and enter our competition now.