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if you’re like me, you enjoy going about your daily life and capturing things you see with your camera, known as Mobile Photography. Unlike a long-lens camera with extra gear, and an over-shoulder bag weighing you down, your smartphone is with you to take quick pictures at any moment.
Capture them in natural light, as the softer lighting will flatter them, and also create a nice glow around the edges; look, too, for reflections in mirrors and glasses or other reflectors, like a body of water. And finally, a very basic composition technique, but one that can make a huge difference to your shots, is the use of leading lines.
Composition
When you are using your mobile phone to take a photograph, you should consider what is in the background behind the object or person you want to photograph, so you give the right amount of space, avoiding disturbing elements, while keeping your photo as crisp as possible.
You are also likely to enhance your photos by varying your compositions so that the eye of the beholder can settle more precisely on your subject, for instance and on the top, moving the phone at the same speed as the subject, thereby blurring the background of the photo, and keeping the subject in sharp focus. Panning is a technique achieved with the help of a dedicated 3rd party app that drops the shutter.
If you shoot from a low angle in a low-light area, grasp the phone in both hands and lean against something solid for stability. A smartphone tripod is also an option to keep the camera still and avoid shakiness that produce blurry results. Your image will appear more professional using burst mode (where the phone will take a sequence of photos very quickly one after the other) and then select the most interesting shot.
Lighting
Regardless whether your camera is a smartphone or an app situated on a stand-alone device, you need to understand light, whether it’s natural or artificial, to understand how your photograph will appear after you’ve taken it.
When shooting people, make sure your subject is well-lit, and avoid shadows and blemishes. If possible, shoot in what photographers call the ‘golden hour’ around sunrise or shortly before sunset when the sun’s rays create a more dramatic effect.
You can make photos feel deeper and more interesting than if you were just standing up straight shooting in front of you, by shooting from below or from high up. Sometimes laying on the ground or getting really low makes a big difference. One trick is to turn on gridlines on your phone, which will overlay a series of nine lines on your composition representing the rule of thirds. That will help you figure out how to make your photos more balanced. This is really helpful for landscapes and portraits.
Camera Settings
A lot of modern smartphones have more than just the regular camera mode. You could even use lenses, a wireless remote and camera apps to get better pictures, as well as specific modes that can create fake light painting effects (like light graffiti and lava lamps or create watery backgrounds. Or you could use grid lines or the rule of thirds to bring focus.
For example, some smartphone cameras have automatic scene recognition to suggest a mode (Blue Sky, Greenery or Monochrome, etc). Another set of settings worth a quick explanation are metering, ISO and white balance.
Blur is easily caused by involuntary handshake, so carry a tripod/steadying surface if possible. You can also use Flex mode on selected smartphones to shoot hands-free.
You can make a series of exposures in a burst as Fast-moving subjects are better bracketed in a burst   Most all phones have a setting for this mode; it’s accessible in Photo mode for iOS and Android (stock) devices or in many third-party apps. Most phones also have a self-timer for those group shots.
Editing
Good enough to rival a DSLR camera, mobile photography is a pastime and a wonderful personal choice for documenting life on the move, but smartphones aren’t both ends of the lens, and because you have a camera in your purse doesn’t mean that your images are going to be stellar.
Use your phone’s photo editing app to brighten or darken, increase or decrease the contrast, or add additional saturation. Then, go on to less dramatic changes, including the ability to refocus a photo after the fact, crop it, or layer text or other effects over a picture.
For example, you can adjust the exposure on a photo to bring it up from a dark shot or to soften down an overexposed one; just don’t be too heavy-handed or you’ll add ‘noise’ – a mottled look to the photo. Cloning out a spot or other kind of blemish is another common edit, and most programs have a tool for this (but please, use it only sparingly). The best editing apps are straightforward to learn, without too many ads or annoying requests to upgrade.