50 things I have learned about iPhone photography

In this post you are going to discover the 50 most important things I have learned about iPhone photography. Over the past two years I have taken some really great photos, and at least ten times more photos that did not turn out the way I wanted. I have done a lot of photo editing, which often only made my photos worse. I have spent countless hours on social media sharing my work and following the work of other photographers. And I have learned many things in the process.

I hope that by sharing the most important lessons I have learned I can accelerate your learning and help you avoid some of the mistakes that I made. But most importantly, I hope to inspire you to become a more active iPhone photographer. Let’s get started!

General iPhoneography tips

1. Getting a better camera won’t make you a better photographer.

2. Any iPhone is good enough for creating great photography. I’ve seen great photos taken with iPhone 3G. You really have no excuse.

3. Consistent practice is the best way to improve your iPhoneography. Keep practicing even when you’re out of ideas, and you’ll eventually create something amazing.

4. Treat your iPhone camera as if it was an expensive DSLR. If you only use your iPhone to create quick snapshots, you’ll never get anything else out of it.

Taking great photos

5. First learn how to take great photos. Only then it makes sense to master editing.

6. Become an observer of light. On a very fundamental level, photography is all about light, so the better you understand light, the better photographer you will become.

7. Learn to predict how the scene is going to change in the immediate future. Will that person briefly appear in the reflection after a few seconds? Be prepared when that moment comes.

8. The very best photos convey a strong emotion or tell a great story.

9. Mystery is the best way to tell a story in your photos. The best stories are already in the mind of the viewer. If you create mystery, the viewer can fill in the blanks and create a story that’s uniquely theirs.

10. Always take a few seconds and pause before taking a shot. Is this really the best angle and the best composition, or should you try something else instead?

11. The easiest way to improve your photography is to work on the angle and composition.

12. Learn the fundamentals of composition, get comfortable using them, and then learn how to break them. You must know the rules before you can break them.

13. Turn on the gridlines until you start thinking about any scene in terms of the grid.

14. Practice composition with simple photos that have a lot of empty space. Large open areas are perfect places to start with iPhone photography.

15. Always ask yourself what the main subject of your photo is, or what is the first thing that the viewer will notice. If there is no subject, is it really worth taking that shot?

16. Your composition should emphasize the main subject or subjects. And no, your subject should not be in the center of the frame.

17. Placing your subject even slightly off the center will greatly enhance your photos.

18. Think about photos in terms of balance. If you put your main subject in one corner of the image, you also want to have something of interest in the opposite corner to keep the composition balanced.

19. Turn on HDR for landscape photography and when sky takes up a large part of your photo.

20. Don’t use HDR for photos of movement and when you need to take many photos quickly.

21. Shoot against strong backlight (e.g. sunset sky) to create silhouettes.

22. Learn to quickly adjust focus and exposure – and how to lock it by holding down your finger.

23. Never use digital zoom. Zoom with your feet or crop your photos afterwards.

24. Use volume buttons for a camera-like shooting experience.

25. Use the volume buttons on your headphones for remote shutter release – or to stay discreet when taking photos in public.

26. You should be able to take the iPhone out of your pocket, turn it on, and open camera from the lock screen in two seconds or less. You don’t want to miss that perfect shot.

27. There are some great iPhoneography accessories on the market, but you don’t really need them to take great photos. Buying cool gear won’t make you a better photographer.

Editing and apps

28. No editing can turn a bad photo into a good one.

29. The easiest way to ruin a good photo is to mindlessly apply strong vintage filters.

30. If you are going to use filters, make sure you adjust their strength. The default filter strength will almost always be too strong and result in terribly overedited photos.

31. Your editing should enhance what is already great about the photo, and perhaps add a certain feel that complements the message of that photo. Everything else is unnecessary.

32. Learn the essential adjustments such as brightness, contrast and saturation first. Only then you should look into more advanced effects and filters.

33. Don’t download 50 photo apps. Only get a few and make sure you know how to use them.

34. Snapseed, VSCO Cam, Camera+ and Mextures are great apps to start with.

35. Don’t add text on your photos. Text is distracting and never looks good.

Photo management

36. Always have a backup of your entire photo library. And another one.

37. Despite technological advancements, external HDD is still the most practical way to back up a large photo library. Just don’t keep it in the same bag as your laptop.

38. iCloud is great for automatically transferring your iPhone photos to iPhoto.

39. Keep your edited photos in a separate photo album for easy access.

40. Don’t take multiple identical photos. Avoid the pain of deleting them later. Instead you should change the angle or composition and then shoot again.

Sharing and social networks 

41. Share your work on social networks to stay motivated and get feedback.

42. Follow other photographers whose work you admire to stay inspired and get new ideas.

43. It’s OK to copy someone else’s style for the sake of learning. You’ll eventually discover your own unique style, so you don’t have to worry about copying someone else initially.

44. Don’t try to be active on 10 different photo sharing sites. It will drive you crazy. Just pick your favorite and do a good job there. I only post my photos on Instagram.

45. Don’t use Instagram filters if you want to stand out on Instagram.

46. Always respond to people who took the time to comment on your photos. Simply saying “thanks” can make a huge difference.

47. Don’t tag your photos using every single hashtag you know. You don’t want to look like a spammer, do you?

48. Don’t watermark your photos. Watermarks are ugly, and nobody is going to steal your photos anyway.

49. Only share your best photos so that your feed looks great. Quality always beats quantity.

50. Digital photos are transient. Print your best work to make it timeless.

Which of these tips are your favorites, and is there anything you would add to this list? Or is there anything that you disagree about? Please let everyone know in the comments.

This article is written by Emil Pakarklis, a passionate iPhoneographer and the founder of iPhonePhotographySchool.com. If you want to learn how to edit great photos with the iPhone, check out his free iPhone photo editing video course.