Better Phone Pictures
Hi, a friend asked me, “how to take a good picture? Where should the main subject be placed in the image?” These are good questions. Using the rule of thirds will be your go to resource. The rule of thirds is a tool to create visual pleasing images.
As I have said before, taking better phone pictures begin with taking the shot. Once you have taken the shot, take it again. When you take it again, play with the composition. Change where the main subject is placed.
To enable the rule of thirds grid on your phone, open settings. Scroll down and select camera. Open camera and scroll down to composition and turn on the grid.
When taking landscape photography an example would be placing the horizon not in the middle but instead align on the bottom horizontal line or the top. Giving either the sky or land more space in the composition.
The next two images have special meaning to me. The first, is when I joined my daughter and her family to Florida. Briella was sitting on the beach as the waves were coming in. I just really like this image.
My next example is while me, my mom and daughter went back to Illinois to my Great Aunt’s funeral.
A powerful image. My Great Aunt driving off into heaven. With the leading lines in the road and on the side rail, they draw your eyes into the field of clouds. Very special image for me.
A single object like a person or pet, place one of their eyes on one of the intersecting lines.
One of our usual weekend routine is eating breakfast out and getting groceries. This weekend we went to the Waffle House. While waiting for our breakfast I took the opportunity of taking a picture of the salt and pepper shakers!
Looks good. But then I applied the rule of thirds.
The two waffle signs look nice. For the collage I prefer the left image with the sign centered. But if I was just taking the picture of sign by itself with no other images to go with it, I like this shot.
This is why I recommend taking the shot and take it again. It’s much easier to take the image the way you want to start, but there is post editing. In the post editing the image can be cropped, applying the rule of thirds. The post editing can be another post!
Think of the rule of thirds while taking your picture. Consequently, this will become second nature, automatic. You won’t even be thinking of the rule, you’ll just do it.
Most importantly, have fun taking pictures, and taking them again!
Take Care. Best wishes, Debra
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Hi, if you are like me as you are looking back on the pictures taken, none of them have you as the photographer in them. One way to create better images for memories sake is being in the image. That’s why my post, selfie pictures.
This is the original image from the phone used for the collage at the beginning of this post. Here you can see a bit of the phone’s shadow in the bottom right side. I was able to crop the same image twice. Creating two different images for the collage. Notice in the collage the phone shadow is not shown. With simple cropping, I was able to make the picture look better.