World Photo Day: Tips, Tricks & Apps For iPhone Photography

August 19th marks this year’s World Photo Day. Can you believe it’s been 175 years since the  first permanent photographic process was patented?  Flash forward to 2009, when Korske Ara, a passionate young photographer from Australia launched the World Photo Day Project with a dream to unite local and global communities in a worldwide celebration of photography. On August 19, 2010, World Photo Day hosted it’s first global online gallery with 270 photographs shared and website visitors from over 100 countries.

Today, you can get inspired at the official online gallery and feel free to share your own images at worldphotoday.org/gallery 

Now so many of us are taking photos not just with cameras but with our mobile devices. If you’re like me, you probably don’t always need a camera when you’re out capturing a special image. I often rely on my iPhone 5S.

Here are some tips and tricks on the iPhone 5S that I’ve found handy and I’m sure will impress your friends and family!

Spot the Light: The first and most basic tip in photography is to spot the light and keep it behind you. This will illuminate the subject that you’re trying to capture.

Focus Facial: The Focus Facial recognition on iPhone 5s is amazing — take advantage of this key feature, always touch the screen on your subject to focus properly.

Rule of Thirds: When shooting landscapes or travelling, always remember the rule of thirds: that is, never centre your subject. Enabling the Camera Grid in your iPhone 5s Photos and Camera settings can help you achieve this.

EarPods: Did you know that your EarPods can double as a remote button for your camera? Plug your EarPods in, and click on the +- button.

Burst Mode: Burst mode on the iPhone 5s continuously captures 10 photos per second, letting you take hundreds of images so you don’t miss a single look from the runway. From the Camera app, just tap and hold the shutter. Favorites are automatically selected but you can also choose your own.

Panorama Capture: This allows you to capture the entire runway in a single shot with the Panorama feature in your iPhone’s Camera app. Just tap the arrow on the righthand side in the Camera app to take the panorama from right to left.

Camera app + Filters: Quickly and easily switch between formats, including video, photo, square and panorama, with just a swipe. Pick one of eight Apple-designed filters and see it live before you take the shot. If you want to change it later, no problem.

True Tone Flash: Capture vibrant colours on the runway in their purest form with the new True Tone flash on iPhone 5s, which determines just the right balance of ambient light versus flash for more natural-looking skin tones. The result is a beautiful shot with more true-to-life colors.

iCloud Photo Sharing: Create shared streams to share photos and videos with selected friends and colleagues. They can instantly see the photos that you are taking, post their own photos, videos, and comments to your streams, and it all appears on everyone’s iOS devices — automatically.

More Tips!

•  Set the Auto Focus and Auto Exposure by pressing and holding anywhere you want on the image

•  If the picture is a little dark, tap on a shadow to brighten the exposure

• Want to take a picture while you are recording? Grab it tapping the white circle the left of your record button

• Take video in landscape for the best video capture

TAKE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY FURTHER

Some interesting apps include…

Slow Shutter Cam ($0.99): Lets you capture a variety of amazing slow shutter speed effects that you only thought you could get with a DSLR.

ProCam 2 ($1.99): Offers 17 live lenses and an anti-shake feature to help you capture the best shots

Over ($1.99): This is the app for adding text and artwork to your photos. Designed with mobile creatives in mind, Over features standard and custom-made fonts and well-crafted artwork combined with a sleek design, easy-to-use functionality, and immediate sharing ability.

Party! Party! ($0.99): Party Party is more than your own personal photo booth. It can bring an experience to life with its easy-to-use stop motion feature — layering your photos atop one another to make a looping animation! No matter how you use it, this app is designed to make it simple to capture the fun of any moment.

Mextures ($1.99): With over 120 hand-picked textures, Mextures gives you endless opportunity to create your signature photo look. For the ultimate finesse add gradients and lightleaks filters to take your photos to the next-level.

Afterlight ($0.99): Afterlight is the perfect image editing app for quick and straight forward editing. This app offers a simple design, paired with powerful and snappy tools that will give you the look you want in seconds.

VSCO Cam (Free): VSCO Cam is the premier way to shoot, edit and share your photographs. VSCO Tools allow for fine tuning, with the goal to complement, not define, your photographs. Exposure, Temperature, Contrast, Crop, Rotate, Fade, Vignette and more allow you to define your look.

Litely (Free): Add gorgeous, film-inspired tones to your photos in seconds. Adjust crop, exposure, sharpness, vibrance & vignette for lovelier photos.

Hipstamatic ($1.99): Digital photography never looked so analog. Make and share beautiful photography with Hipstamatic. Swap lenses, flashes, and films for hundreds of different effects. Instantly share your best prints to Oggl, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, and Tumblr.

EyeEm (Free): Shoot, edit, and get creative with your photography using unique filters and effects. Connect with new talents, and discover exciting albums for every topic you can imagine.

Fuzel (Free): See your photos in motion – Fuzel is the first app ever to let you create animated collages — make photo collages, add music, and see them play out in a fun and stylish fashion.