3 ways shooting with the iPhone helped me improve my photography

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1) Freedom with shooting

Choosing to use the iPhone to photograph my world over the DSLR has given me an unexpected freedom to try new things.  One thing that I struggle with when using the DSLR is the pressure to try to get the most perfect shot possible.  I push myself to get the technique right, the composition, the lighting, the content…I could go on with that part.  But, the place where I set the bar for this expectation is way too high for every day shooting.  It just isn’t something that is really possible.  I end up feeling irritated & disappointed in myself when I can’t reach that level every time I shoot.  Using the iPhone has allowed me the freedom to let go of that self-placed expectation of getting THE shot each time I snap the shutter.  It has allowed me to frame things in a new way (I love using the square frame for taking the shot so that I already have the composition set to fit into Instagram).  I find myself taking shots of things, people, and places just to see how it turns out.  Without the worry of whether it will be THE one best shot of my life.  This freedom with the iPhone camera has started to seep into my shooting with my DSLR.  I am trying more things and shooting for myself without thinking about who else will see the shot or like it.

2) Freedom with editing

There are so many great editing apps available for the iPhone that sometimes it can be hard to decide which one to start with.  I am loving both VSCOcam and PicTapGo right now.  They both have basic editing & presets that you can apply then adjust to your taste.  I love being able to get a nice clean edit then apply different presets just to see how they look.  I don’t experiment much with editing in Photoshop or Lightroom, when editing the images from my DSLR.  I pretty much just stick with my usual tried & true workflow.  While this helps me keep consistency with my editing, it can get a bit boring too.  So, opening up an image in VSCOcam and adding different presets (you can always add a preset to see how it looks then click the back arrow to remove it) has been fun & given me a place to try new styles.  A matte edit?  Sure.  A colorful pop?  Sure.  Grainy black & white?  Okay.  So fun.  Shooting with my iPhone has given me the freedom to try new things with editing without a huge commitment to altering my overall style of photography.  Gotta love that.

3) Improvement in composition

Using a different tool (the iphone over the DSLR) with a unique size to the traditional 3:2 ratio has helped me improve my compositional skills.  Like I mentioned before, I usually turn on the square framing option in the camera when I am shooting.  I have found that this helps me frame my scene more easily than trying to crop it 1:1 later to upload to IG.  When I first started using my iPhone for snapshots I thought that I would miss the 3:2 ratio but then I made my first small photo book of just iPhone images using the square framing format and I was hooked.  I loved the way those square images looked in print.  Now I almost always shoot using the 1:1 ratio straight from the start.  I like that I can shoot my subject, look at the image, almost like photographers used to do with Polaroid images, then make any necessary changes and shoot again.  This has been especially helpful for my food photography.  I can see things that I want to change before I fire off a bunch of shots on my DSLR plus I can upload a shot to IG straight from my phone.  The other way that shooting with the iPhone has helped me improve my photography is because of the depth of focus.  When I am shooting with the DSLR I can control all the settings of the image.  I can adjust the aperture to keep the focus on my subject while allowing the background to become a softer area of the frame.  I can keep distractions to a minimum by utilizing the controls on the camera.  With the iPhone, I don’t have those controls.  I can choose where the focus will be and choose which part of the image I want the camera to use for exposure, but the whole frame will be exposed with the same depth of field.  This has made me much more aware of what is in the frame, corner to corner.  I find myself looking at every detail of the frame before I take the shot.  If something is in the background that I think is a distraction then I re-frame the shot.  I try to use the background to enhance the composition instead of just trying to make it less relevant in the frame.  I look for colors, lines, and light when framing the shot since I know everything will be in focus.

I would love to hear how shooting with your iPhone has changed your photography!

Allison Jacobs

Allison is a natural light photographer dedicated to shooting her everyday life as it unfolds in Southern California. She attempts to capture the memories and moments in her life by carrying her camera with her almost everywhere she goes. She shoots with a Canon camera, drinks coffee every morning and is obsessed with photography. Allison is a food lover, runner, and reader but not always in that order.

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