8 Ways to Start Succeeding at iPhone Photography this Year

January 16, 2019

Are you starting to fall out of love with the idea of iPhone photography or being a professional photographer who feels just as comfortable using their iPhone as they do a DSLR?  

Maybe you set some New Year’s resolutions that were a bit… unrealistic last year, and you thought that you could achieve them, but you didn’t and now you don’t think that you can succeed at iPhone photography? 

If that’s the case, then, same. 

Read: Top iPhone Photography Apps, 2019

2018, was a good year for a lot of people, but it was an incredibly challenging year for iPhone photographers. From the introduction of new gear and new tech to a feeling of inertia that seems to have taken over the community. 
 
Perhaps it could have come from having New Year’s resolutions that were extremely ambitious, and maybe slightly unrealistic. Whatever the case, one thing is for sure, calling it a New Year’s Resolution seems to be a sure-fire way to make sure that it fails. 

With the advancements in Apple technology, photographers—from professional to novice—have noticed that there’s so much they can do within iPhone photography. Having a powerful smartphone in the palm of your hand has unlocked the ability to capture stunning photos no matter where you go.  

So, without further ado, here are our 8 tips to help you start succeeding at iPhone photography in 2019…  

iPhone Photography Tip #1: Get Better at Editing Your Images  

Whether you choose to take a retouching class, or you choose to invest some money in image editing mobile apps, make it a point to start getting better at re-touching. It is, after all, an essential part of iPhone photography and photography in general. It doesn’t matter if you take care of your lighting, composition, etc. If you don’t know what to do in “post”, your images are doomed to remain amateurish. 
 
Here’s a rarely admitted fact; many professional photographers once felt completely lost when they opened up programs like Lightroom and Photoshop. Although it seems like everything is second-nature to them, in the beginning, they didn’t know the difference between a clone tool and a crop icon. Every single good image was purely coincidental. 

 

In 2019, it’s time to get better at editing images! 
 
Do it slowly, too… Don’t immediately expect that you’ll get good at it without practicing. 

If you feel ambitious and can stomach it, feel free to take a Photoshop retouching class, but you don’t have to push yourself too much. Start with one portrait and then do another the next day or next week, and so on. 
 

Read: The Best iPhone Accessories for Winter | Skiing, Snowboarding, Hockey - Recommend Swapping this featured blog for an evergreen blog article, rather than a seasonal piece, such as: The Case for Every Adventure 

iPhone Photography Tip #2: Re-Approach Street Style or Candid Photography 

You might feel a bit awkward asking someone if you can take a picture of them with your phone — especially if this person is not an influencer and they’re not used to being approached by strangers for photographs. Be brave! 

The thing is, in order for you to be able to re-touch portraits, you will need portraits. What better way to have a gallery of images than to shoot them yourself? It takes you less than a minute to take a good street style candid of a stranger and once you’re happy with how you’ve retouched them, you can turn that into a series. 

 

 

This tip also allows you to figure out your composition and exposure quickly because this is an ordinary person who no doubt has somewhere else to be, and can’t stand there all day waiting for you to figure out your phone settings. If you don’t follow through, they can simply leave you hanging — and bounce. 

You’re probably feeling a bit of pressure but take a deep breath. Breathe. 

You don’t have to shoot 5, 10, or 20 street style portraits. Nope! You only have to shoot one. 

Sure, you can shoot more than one if you really want to test your iPhone photography skills, but you don’t have to feel like you’ve failed if you only managed to get one image, or if people have started to mean-mug you. 

iPhone Photography Tip #3: Find Yourself a Muse  

A lot of professional photographers have noted how much having a muse seems to change their vantage point, and approach to photography. While we’re not trying to tell you how to approach this tip, we’d like to make a suggestion; 

Approach a family member, perhaps someone who you’ve never really taken photographs of them, and take pictures of them either as intentional portraits (so that you can retouch them later), or candid images as they go about their daily lives. 

 

 

What ends up happening is that you’ll learn so much about this person as you carry varying images of them at their best and most candid times. Should anything happen to this person, you’ll at least have their memory with you all the time, comforting you. 
 

Nobody ever regrets taking photographs of a family member they don’t have photographs of. Never! 

Read: What Makes An iPhone Photo, A Good Photo? 

 
If taking pictures of a family member isn’t going to work for you, take pictures of anyone else. Someone that you see quite often and are on friendly terms with. As long as you can practice the first two tips with them, then you’re good.  

iPhone Photography Tip #4: Create an Online Portfolio  

Instagram is great. It is. But if you don’t have your own dot com, you won’t look serious to anyone, especially as someone who shoots on an iPhone. Unfortunately, content shot on iPhones is still not seen as “professional” enough — don’t know why... 

With that being said, even professional photographers have an exceedingly hard time making sure that their online portfolios are up-to-date, don’t fall into this trap. Updating the online portfolio is no fun if you have a ton of images that are backlogged. Avoid this situation by updating your portfolio on a weekly schedule. 
 

Note that we’re not advocating for daily uploads. That’s a bit too much like 2018. It’s unrealistic. It’s not going to work. 

 
The point here is to do something, no matter how small, that you can do consistently, all throughout 2019. 

iPhone Photography Tip #5: Go on More Adventures and Take Pictures 

Another no-brainer that needs repeating. 

If you don’t intentionally go out and do something interesting, you cannot possibly have interesting (and diverse) content. You cannot get noticed. 
 

Even if the point is not to turn into an Instagram Influencer, you can still create some amazing memories by simply finding adventure and immersing yourself in it, and fortunately, you don’t have to worry about ever endangering your iPhone because we’ve got the iPhone cases and accessories you need to protect your iPhone, no matter the climate or conditions. 

 

 

 

Stop looking on with envy and join the ones who are already grabbing life by the horns and living it to the highest level on their feeds. 

Go for it! 

iPhone Photography Tip #6: Back-Up your Photographs 

Yes — especially the photographs that you shoot with your phone! 

There’s a tendency to not really care for images that have been shot with an iPhone. It’s as though they’re second-class citizens of the photography world, however, when someone memorable happens in anyone’s life, the first thing that they reach for is their phone. What a paradox! 
 

As with a conventional DSLR image, your iPhone pictures deserve to be backed up, and whether you prefer to do that in the iCloud via any other mechanisms, it’s a good habit to establish, because you want to always make sure that you have multiple copies of your images — in-case you lose your iPhone or forget it in an Uber somewhere… 

iPhone Photography Tip #7: Head to the Printers  

Again, up to this point, you’ve probably approached your iPhone photography in a pretty laissez-faire manner. Not really seeing it as “serious” photography. 
 

You’re not the only who is guilty of this. Pretty much everyone looks at images on the iPhone and doesn’t think even once to print them. The thing is, seeing a physical version of your photograph will actually change your approach to photography — even iPhone photography! 

 

When you make a large print of your photograph, you will finally be able to be critical of it in a way that’s constructive and helps you improve as a photographer. PLUS, if anyone sees that image, they might ask you who shot it, and upon finding out, they might insist that you take pictures of them as well! 
 
 

Read: How To Change The ISO Settings On Your iPhone 

iPhone Photography Tip #8 Stop Following Certain Accounts on Instagram 

Especially if you feel like a turd after looking at their impressive iPhone imagery. 
 

As you know, there’s nothing wrong with feeling challenged by fellow iPhone photographers, but the problem is when you start becoming obsessive over what others are doing with their images and where they’re shooting these images; i.e. which brands are flying them where… 

If you notice that any particular account is making you feel like this, don’t feel embarrassed to cut them off. Your mental health is way more important than being respectable. Unfollow! 

iPhone Photography Bonus Tip: Have fun! 

With all that being said, we still maintain that you should approach these 8 tips with a cheerful, relaxed attitude. Don’t get mad at yourself if you don’t manage to do all 8. 1 of these is still a great accomplishment, so let’s make 2019 even better! 

Take a look at our various iPhone car mounts, protective iPhone cases, or iPhone lens kits, to see how you can use Hitcase products to take keep your iPhone safe while you capture the most epic photos this year.  

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