Mobile photography

At every cliff overlook, scenic vista, point of interest, or national monument, you’ll see a familiar sight. Hordes of tourists with their families, the younger ones rocking selfie sticks while the dads roam around with massive DSLRs weighing down their necks. If you can put up with the onslaught of temporary smiles and manufactured moments of tranquility amidst the mass of tired and weary humans, you start to see the one thing all these people have in common: they all just want good photographs.

Too often, you’ll see someone with a passing interest in photography save up for a $4,500 DSLR and buy it, expecting it to improve their photography tenfold. But what do they do when you watch them use it? They shoot on Auto. All the time. Sure, the image quality is sharper, you’ve got more pixels, and better focus, but is it a good photograph? It’s stunning to me that so many people who proudly carry around these machines capable of capturing raw, intimate moments in people and nature ultimately end up snapping such unremarkable pictures of tourist attractions and generic landscapes. What gives?

The people I’m talking about are the ones who mistakenly jumped to the conclusion that in order to sharpen your photography skills, you need a better camera. You don’t. What you need to do before even thinking about what camera to get is develop your ability to see. You need to able to spot what would make a good photograph before even pulling the camera out, and if you can’t do that, your photographs won’t be very interesting.

This means paying attention to the world around you. It means observing how the modern curves of a glass staircase perfectly complement the gothic stone archway of a church in the background and then getting yourself into an interesting angle to photograph this clash of time in. It means looking at how the soft shadows of a fence interact beautifully with the ripples of a puddle on the pavement and clicking the shutter at just the right moment to create a symmetric composition, creating some sense of order from chaos.

And here’s the best part: you don’t need a fancy DSLR to develop your ability to see. You’ve got an even better option right in your pocket: your mobile phone. You can just pull it out when you see something interesting and click away. It’s even more convenient than an actual DSLR because you never have to lug it around with you, never need to worry about expensive lenses or replacing filters, and you always have your phone on you.

Modern smartphone cameras actually do too much. They’ve got all kinds of features and effects available at your fingertips, but you really need the basics of simply being able to point and shoot. It’s very, very good for this. By just going on a walk in your city with your phone, you will come across endless opportunities to develop your photographer’s eye. The problem is, we haven’t trained ourselves to spot these moments.

Next time, go on a dedicated photo walk with the intent of simply taking in your surroundings and taking pictures. You don’t need to have any purpose beyond this. This is exactly what I do when I’m solo traveling in cities. I simply go on incredibly long walks across the entire city taking pictures with my phone. I try not to use public transit and walk as much as I can. Oftentimes, you get to appreciate the intricacies of the city and its people far more this way. You get to see the oft-traveled streets, the rarely used alleyways, the unappealing backyard lots hidden away from the main avenues, and the evolving architecture of the buildings over time. All of these can be captured in photographs in countless ways.

Once you spot an interesting thing to photograph, it’s then time to think about how you’ll photograph it. What angle will you shoot from? Portrait or landscape? Where in the frame should you position the subject? How much of the frame do you want the subject to fill, and how close can you actually get to it? Are there too many distracting elements in the background? How can you move the frame around to avoid them? How do I not let the overexposed sky in the background blow out all my shadows? These are all the questions that will seem overwhelming at first, but will come as second nature once you start doing it often. You’ll develop such a good intuition for these things over time that you’ll be shocked your brain is doing all this decision-making in the matter of one or two seconds. That’s the mark of a good photographer. And again, all of this can be practiced on your mobile phone. No need for a DSLR.

One of the biggest mistakes I see novice photographers make is that they don’t get close enough to the subject. They keep a safe distance and simply photograph an interesting subject. Sure, it’s a cool subject, but it’s not a good photograph. To really get your picture to resonate with your viewer, you need to get incredibly close. Fill the frame with your subject and put them front and center. The closer you are, the fewer distracting elements there are in the background. With mobile photography, this can be particularly challenging, but you can augment your phone with accessories to make this a little easier (I personally use the Moment lenses).

And if you’re still struggling to truly develop the ability to see, there are tons of resources out there on how to take interesting photographs. Follow basic composition techniques like The Rule of Thirds, use leading lines wherever possible, utilize negative space to your advantage, and create symmetry whenever the opportunity presents itself. You don’t need any of a DSLR’s capabilities to practice the basics of compositional photography.

Then, and only then, do you need to worry about the more advanced stuff. Light levels, shutter speeds, aperture, long exposures, and filters. Perfecting those techniques can take years to master. But your ability to see can always keep evolving independently of camera tricks and light manipulation techniques. In fact, I’d say it’s far more important than any of those other things. If you’ve properly developed your eye to spot what would make an interesting photograph, your pictures will inevitably be better than someone who hasn’t put the time into it, regardless of what camera you or they have.

Every time I bring up photography as one of my main hobbies, the next question is always “What camera do you use?”, and every time, they’re shocked to learn that I don’t actually have one. I just use my mobile phone. I get messages on Instagram all the time asking the same question, and everyone’s always surprised when I reveal that all the pictures on my profile were shot on my Google Pixel. I do some light post-processing in Snapseed to adjust highlights, shadows, and contrast, but aside from that, they’re not retouched or manipulated in any way.

The picture quality of smartphones may never match that of a DSLR, but do you really need it to? If you’re just in it to learn and grow as a photographer, you absolutely should not drop that much money on an expensive piece of prosumer-grade equipment. This is why I’m a huge proponent of mobile photography and will likely never own a DSLR all while calling myself a big photography buff. I enjoy talking about what makes a good photograph, not what cameras are capable of. The camera will keep advancing and technology will keep getting better, but the essence of what draws us to a moment of time captured in a beautiful rectangular frame will not be that different a hundred years from now.