Photography is a huge part of modern life, even for the most amateur photographer. Selfies, family photos, and travel pictures can all easily be taken using a smartphone camera. Most people prefer to take their phone out with them rather than a fully-fledged camera – especially since you’ll save space, and in most cases, modern smartphones are just as good as many point-and-shoot digital cameras. However, just because your phone has the potential to snap amazing pictures, doesn’t mean it will if you’re not applying these simple pointers.

Here are some common mistakes plenty of people make when taking photos on their iPhone. These simple tips will help you amp-up your iPhone photography game!

Not Choosing A Focal Point

First thing’s first: you really need a resting place for the eyes in all of your pictures. If you’re not taking the time to choose a focal point, then your pictures are probably falling flat. This is especially important when photographing scenery, walls, and other things. If there’s no focal point, your picture will look dull. Always ask yourself what the main focal point or ‘eye resting place’ is. For instance, if you’ve seen a cool wall and you think it warrants a picture, don’t just take a picture of the plain wall. Instead, wait for somebody to walk or cycle past, or even position yourself in the photo. You don’t have to be looking or posing. Just being there can help the shot to look more interesting and give the eyes a natural resting place, making for a more professionally shot photograph.

Never Adjusting The Exposure

Adjusting the exposure is something you may need to take the time to do before you start snapping away. Many smartphones do this automatically, but it doesn’t mean they always get it right. It is up to you to check that this is right so your picture doesn’t turn out too dark or too light. It should be just right. If it looks a little bright on your screen, play with the exposure a bit, and see if you can create a more professional looking picture that is true to life.

Not Buying Equipment To Make Your Life Easier

There are so many cheap pieces of equipment out there that could help to make your life easier. A tripod, for example, could help you if you would like to take some pictures with you included. They are easy to set up, portable, and cheap, so you don’t really have an excuse for taking sub-par images! Many of them can even be attached to trees and other things you find outdoors, helping you to come up with ideas for a ton of original photos.

Storing Them Somewhere Unsafe

Once you have a bunch of high quality, carefully composed pictures on your phone, you should be making sure you store them somewhere safe. There are apps you can use for this potentially, such as Evernote, but making sure you have plenty of storage on your cloud (iCloud, for instance) may be enough. If that’s not an option, you should learn more about how to transfer pictures from your phone to your PC. Do it sooner, rather than later, as you won’t be able to replicate those pictures. Buying an external hard drive especially for your photos might also be a good idea and give you peace of mind.

Not Positioning Your Subject Properly

Your subject doesn’t always need to be in the middle. In fact, it can look better when it’s off-center. The ‘rule of thirds’ is extremely helpful in this case, so use the grid on your phone camera to position your subject. This can make it look more interesting, especially if you play with the angles of your photos on top of this. You can have your subject in the middle, but it’s usually more interesting to play with it.

Over Editing The Pictures Just Because You Can

We have way too many options for editing pictures on our phones these days. The filers are endless! Over editing your pictures just because you can is not a good idea. You can edit them a little, but if you want to have authentic shots that astound people without filters, you’re better off working on your skills instead. Many filters will make an image too bright or too dark, and using more than one filter or turning the contrast/sharpness up too high is definitely not a good idea.

Have you been making any of these mistakes? Leave your thoughts and what you’re going to do from now on below!