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Check our shopWe have all been in this situation, attempting to take a selfie where we look great in the mirror but hit by a bus on our phones or capturing that breathtaking sunset but just looks like another day on our phone.
Anas Alkassem is a iPhotographer and Videographer playing with shadows and using dark colors are his thing, which he takes using either landscape or portrait mode. Anas shares that being a passionate photographer that’s constantly practicing can lead to an independent stream of income and a good livelihood. It requires patience as building a customer base takes time.
Taking the perfect picture starts with:
Lighting
A key point that Anas repeatedly mentions is having a good source of lighting. The ideal and best source is sunlight as it enhances the colors of the pictures. The reason Anas emphasizes on lighting is that the iPhone camera can not take proper a photo in dull lighting. The best timing is early morning and in the late afternoon, during noon the sunlight is above head vertically creating an unflattering shadow. While taking pictures indoors Anas suggests moving the object towards a window to take advantage of natural lighting.
Clean the lens
Once you have established a good lighting source, clean your camera lens with a soft cloth. This step is generally overlooked but Anas explains that having any dust on your camera lens may affect the camera’s ability to focus and hence resulting in an unclear picture.
Use your iPhone’s camera only
Try your best to avoid using the Instagram or Snapchat camera as it can result in a crooked, unclear, and low-quality picture. The phone camera app is built to provide a clear picture by allowing you to adjust the focus and lighting.
Yellow box
iPhone users will be familiar with a yellow box that pops up when taking a picture but what is it used for and how to control it. Anas explains that the yellow box is important for two things, focus, and lighting. When clicking on the screen while taking a picture the yellow box acts as a focal point and the object will appear sharp. A sun appears near the box and moving it up and down to adjust the lighting.
Grid
To avoid having the picture crooked use the grind option in the iPhone to help adjust the alignment before taking a picture. You can set it up by going to Setting → Camera → Grid. Once you have enabled the grid white lines will appear when you turn on your camera.
Live
The Live option in the iPhone gives more options for the picture as it takes a short video before taking the picture. Anas suggests having the live always on while taking a picture as you never know what you may capture.
Lens
External lenses such as micro, fisheye, and ultra-wide can be used to add diminish to the picture. For iPhone 11 users those lenses are readily available and a great experimentation hack.
Editing:
Ana’s favorite apps are Lightroom mobile app, VSCO, and Inshot.
When editing a picture it is important to keep in mind three keywords exposure, contrast, and shadows.
Anas highlights that while editing one needs to balance between exposure, contrast and shadows in order to result in a good picture. Filters on photo editing apps are commonly used and it can be difficult to choose the right one, Anas suggests choosing a filter that suits the colors of the picture. If the pictures' main colors are blue and green makes sure that the filters that do not alter the original colors of the picture. If you have unwanted objects in your picture, simply use the "tool heal" in the Lightroom app.
Next time you take your iPhone out for a picture, hope it turns out to be your next screensaver!