Ways to Take Better Portraits with Your Phone

I am a firm believer in taking pictures of your family. One of my favorite things to do is to look at pictures of myself growing up. It’s not that I’m vain (far from it) they just bring back great memories of my family and of old friends. They are such a treasure to me! I was my son to be able to have the same experiences when he’s an adult, so I take tons and tons of pictures. We’re SO lucky to live in a world in which we have fantastic cameras with us at all times – on our phones. We are SO lucky! One thing that I love is taking portraits of my son. We have tons of pictures of him running around, playing, and sleeping, but I always want more portrait type shots of him. Sometimes it’s a pain to get my big camera out and snap them, so it’s useful to know how to shoot portraits on a phone. I’ve compiled 4 things I think will help you take better portraits with your phone.

1) Find a Soft, Natural Light Source

This might be the most important step. In photography, whether with your phone or with an expensive DSLR, lighting is the most important component to an image. Soft, natural light is great for portraits. I typically like to find this type of light near windows. If you have your subject face a window the light will be distributed over their face evenly.

2) Find a Non-distracting Background

It’s important to pay attention to the background of your portrait composition. You don’t want an overly distracting background. I liked how simple the composition for this image was – just a couch and a shiplap wall. Non-distracting, but interesting.

3) Shoot in Grid Mode to Follow the Rule of Thirds When Shooting

Grid mode is great because it allows you to shoot your image while following the rule of thirds. You can easily compose the image and use the grids as a template to follow. To turn the grid on in an iPhone go to Settings > Photos/Camera > Grid.

4) Edit the Image in an App like Filmborn

Filmborm is a great photo editing app for your phone. I’ve recorded my screen as I edited an image. I typically apply one of the Fuji presets to the image, straighten the image, sharpen the image, and increase the shadows.

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