Remember the first mobile telephone cameras? And the grainy, blurry, low-quality photos they produced?

Well, these days telephone photography is capable of some pretty grand feats. Plus, dissimilar to that bulky DSLR that you haul not in appropriate to vacations, it’s regularly at hand.

Learning how to grab great shots using only your telephone is the best way to stand not in including build a muscular presence on top of Instagram.

In this post, you’ll learn how to grab great Instagram photos using only your phone, including some Instagram picture ideas to inspire your feed.

How to Take Good Instagram Photos: A Step-by-Step Guide

Bonus: Download a for free checklist that reveals the exact steps a lifestyle photographer used to fill out from 0 to 600,000 followers on top of Instagram with no budget including no expensive gear.

How to grab great Instagram photos on top of your phone

Learning how to grab great photos on top of your telephone requires knowledge some fundamental principles of composition including lighting, including honing your own instincts while a photographer. You just miss to accompany a few uncomplicated rules.

Step 1: Use logical light

Lighting is the foundation of a great photo. Understanding how to utilize light is the first including the majority critical rule of getting big photos using only your phone.

Avoid using your flash within favor of logical light, which creates photos that are richer including brighter.

A flash can flatten not in your photo including wash not in your subject. If you can’t blast outdoors,  take photos near windows or within well-lit rooms. Even at night, it’s preferable to discover sources of atmospheric light, similar to street lamps including store windows.

Step 2: Don’t overexpose your images

You can brighten up a photo that’s too dark with editing tools, yet there’s zero that can fix a photo that’s overexposed.

Prevent overexposure by adjusting the lighting on top of your screen: tap including slip your digit up or down to adjust exposure.

how to grab great instagram photos, overexposed

How to Take Good Instagram Photos: A Step-by-Step Guide

Another way to prevent overexposure is by tapping your digit on top of the brightest part of the mounting (in the event above, it would exist the windows) to adjust the lighting earlier than snapping your photo.

Step 3: Shoot at the right time

There’s a reason photographers love bright hour. This time of day, when the sun is low on top of the horizon, makes each and every photo more beautiful. It’s nature’s Instagram filter.

If you’re shooting at midday, clouds are your friend. It’s tough to grow a great shot under direct sunlight, which can exist severe within photos.

Clouds diffuse the light from the sun including cause a softer, more flattering effect.

Step 4: Follow the rule of thirds

Composition refers to the arrangement of a photo: the shapes, textures, colors including additional elements that make up your images.

The rule of thirds is single of the the majority important composition principles, including refers to a uncomplicated method of balancing your image. It divides an image into a 3×3 grid, including aligns the subjects or objects within a photo along the grid lines to cause balance.

For instance, you can center your photo:

But you can too accomplish a pleasing effect with “balanced asymmetry”, where the question is off-center yet unbiased not in by a further object. In this case, the flowers are arranged within the lower-right area of the photo, including are unbiased by the sun within the top-left corner.

How to Take Good Instagram Photos: A Step-by-Step Guide

Pro tip: Turn on top of the gridlines appropriate to your telephone camera within settings, including utilize them to practice aligning your photos.

how to grab great instagram photos on top of your phone

Step 5: Consider your viewpoint

When you grab a photo on top of your phone, you likely hold it up around eye position including snap, right? That’s what everyone else does, too. Resist this logical tendency provided you want to grab interesting, unexpected photos.

Taking photos from a different vantage point will give additional perspectives, regular when it comes to a familiar spot or subject. Try shooting from above or below, crouching low to the ground, or scaling a wall (if you’re feeling ambitious).

Don’t break your leg within pursuit of the perfect shot, yet challenge yourself to see things from a new perspective.

Step 6: Frame your subject

Leaving volume around the focal point of your photo can total more visual interest than zooming in. Sometimes you grow a surprising fact that makes the photo regular better, similar to the moon tall within the sky of this photo:

Unlike a camera with an adjustable lens, your telephone camera “zooms in” by shrinking your land of view. In effect, you are just pre-cropping your image. This can limit your options appropriate to editing later, including you might go wide of intriguing details, so stop doing it.

Instead, just tap your photo question or focal point to centre the camera.

How to Take Good Instagram Photos: A Step-by-Step Guide

If you want to perform yourself regular more options, you can buy an external lens that fits on top of to your phone.

Step 7: Draw the viewer’s eye

In photography, “leading lines” are lines that run through your image that sketch the eye including total depth. These might exist roads, buildings, or logical elements similar to trees including waves.

Keep an eye not in appropriate to leading lines including utilize them to total motion or purpose to your photo.

You can utilize leading lines to direct the viewer’s gaze to your subject, while within this shot:

Step 8: Add depth

It’s easy to centre solely on top of the question of your photo, whether that’s a person or a handsome slice of pizza. But photos that contain layers, with patterns or objects within the background while skilfully while the foreground, are naturally intriguing as they offer more depth.

This photo, instead of than just cropping tightly on top of the flowers, too includes the railing behind them, a tree on the additional side of that, including then a sunset including horizon. Each layer of the photo offers something to look at, drawing you in.

Step 9: Don’t not remember to grow creative

Some photos on top of Instagram are so popular that they become cliches, uplifting an entire Instagram account dedicated to repeat images. Don’t grow so caught up within Instagram photo trends that you lose your creativity.

You want to stand not in from additional brands on top of Instagram, so regularly challenge yourself to discover a additional angle on top of a usual subject. This will too help you establish a distinctive including memorable brand identity.

How to Take Good Instagram Photos: A Step-by-Step Guide

Watch this video appropriate to regular more tips on top of how to grab great Instagram photos on top of your phone:

10 Instagram picture ideas

Now that you understand the principles of photography, let’s talk regarding subjects.

There are certain subjects including themes that perform skilfully on top of Instagram as they offer wide appeal including tons of visual interest. Take note, as posting charming subject matter boosts your visibility on top of Instagram.

Here are a few Instagram photography ideas to consider:

1. Symmetry

Symmetry is pleasing to the eye, whether it appears within nature (Chris Hemsworth’s face) or the man-made earth (the Royal Hawaiian Hotel). Symmetrical composition much enhances a question that might not exist exciting otherwise.

You can too break up your symmetry to total interest. In this photo, the bridge creates vertical symmetry while the trees including light break it up.

2. Patterns

Our brains too love patterns. Some Instagram accounts have regular amassed huge followings by documenting attractive patterns, similar to I Have This Thing With Floors.

How to Take Good Instagram Photos: A Step-by-Step Guide

Our universal love of patterns too explains the viral appeal of Japanese master Yayoi Kusama’s mirror rooms, which cause infinitely repeating patterns of uncomplicated shapes including colors:

Look around yourself appropriate to inspiration. Architecture, design including nature are all sources of mesmerizing patterns.

3. Vibrant colors

Minimalism including neutrals are trendy, yet at times you just crave a pop of color. Bright, wealthy colors make us happy including perform us energy. And when it comes to Instagram photography, they make a big impact on top of a small screen.

They can regular make a simple skyscraper building look beautiful:

4. Humor

If you want to exist depressed regarding the state of the world, go to Twitter.

Instagram is a happy place, which means humor plays skilfully here. Especially within contrast to the perfectly composed including edited photos that expand on top of the platform. Funny photos are a breath of additional blast appropriate to your audience, including they demonstrate that you don’t grab this whole thing too seriously.

5. Candid action

Capturing your question within motion is tough, which is what makes it so impressive. A compelling deed shot is exciting including arresting. It turns regular an standard question into something lovely:

You don’t regularly miss to strive appropriate to perfection either. Sometimes a little blurred party adds an artistic, dreamy touch:

How to Take Good Instagram Photos: A Step-by-Step Guide

When taking deed photos, grab multiple options to increase your odds of an astonishing shot. You can utilize burst method (by holding down your camera button) to arrest 10 photos per second.

6. Detail shots

A sharp centre on top of an unexpected or intriguing fact can exist attention-grabbing, especially within a cater for full of busy, dynamic photos. It’s similar to a palate cleanser, gift a faculty of stillness including calm.

Using Instagram editing tools similar to vignette (dimming the edges of your photo) or tile shift (which creates a soft blur around your focal point) can enhance fact photos.

Take your photo from a close distance to preserve quality. Shooting from miles away including cropping lowers the image resolution, leading to grainy, lackluster photos that damage your brand. Make sure you’re uploading images that are sized appropriate to Instagram.

7. Captivating backgrounds

This is a uncomplicated technique, yet it works: grab benefit of an awesome background! It’s the reason you regularly want to grab a selfie within a restaurant bathroom with murderer wallpaper. People curate great photo walls appropriate to a reason.

The more creative your background, the better. As within this example, a gorgeous background can exist the perfect complement to a product post.

8. Animals

Some things are true, regular provided we don’t really understand why. Yawning is contagious. Light is both a particle including a wave. Instagram photos are better provided there’s a cute animal within them.

It would exist impartial to say this is the cheapest trick within the book. But provided you have an adorable pup at your disposable (or, just putting this not in into the universe, a miniature pony) it would exist a mistake not to utilize them.

How to Take Good Instagram Photos: A Step-by-Step Guide

9. Food

Did your mom ever notify you that your eyes were bigger than your stomach? Nowhere is that more right than Instagram, where we can’t grow enough of food photography.

The undisclosed to an excellent food photo? Shoot from above, grab benefit of photogenic surroundings, including utilize logical light. The preceding single is especially important, as the people eating next to you definitely don’t want to exist blinded by your flash.

10. People

Research has start that people love looking at faces on top of Instagram (hello one time again to Chris Hemsworth). In fact, photos with people grow up to 38% more likes than photos without.

To grab a stunning portrait, accompany the principles above: utilize logical light, choose an appealing background, including explore shooting from different angles to arrest a more intriguing shot. Some phones regular contain a painting mode, which will optimize lighting including focus.

Now that you have knowledge of how to grab astonishing photos using your phone, learn how to edit them using our step-by-step guide. Master the techniques appropriate to producing great subject matter appropriate to your brand account using a few inexpensive including easy-to-learn tools.

Save time managing your Instagram presence using Hootsuite. From a single dashboard you can schedule including publish photos directly to Instagram, engage the audience, measure performance, including run all your additional communal media profiles. Try it for free today.

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