5 tips to INSTANTLY up your PHOTO GAME
(upbeat electronic music) – What's going on guys? Five things to instantly
step up your photo game. Here we go, let's get rolling,
let's get right into it. Number one, angles. No more hip shots or blind fire, we're gonna think about this. Angles are huge, instead of
just pulling out your phone or your camera and snapping the subject, be it an object or a person at
whatever's the easiest angle, just take 10 extra seconds and think about where could this look cool from? Objects typically look really,
really good or way better when they're taken from a waist level so you're at the same
perspective of the object. Or just put a little thought into it. Maybe just move around to the
left or move to the right, move to the back, just
take 10 extra seconds and think to yourself how
can I make this look better than just snapping it for
the sake of just snapping it? 'Cause we all know, we get home, people compare photos and they always say, wow, yours looks a lot better
than mine, why is that? 'Cause we thought about those
angles, that's number one.
Tip number two, shoot through something. Instead of just taking a shot, maybe dangle something in
front of the lens a little bit. Maybe if you're outside taking a portrait, instead of shooting the
people in the forest, maybe back into the tree a little bit so you can see those
branches and the leaves hanging down in front of the lens, it gives you bokeh, it gives
you nice out of focus elements, and it adds that extra
(growling) to the photo that is otherwise missing
if you didn't do it.
Maybe shoot through the handle of the mug, take two playing cards, hold them up to the
lens, shoot through that. Essentially, shoot through anything, put an object in front
of the lens and just finagle your way through
so you can see the subject through whatever it is
that's blocking the lens. That adds a huge dynamic. It frames your shots in a really creative and interesting way, give that one a shot. Pun intended. Number three, think opposite. Let's say we're gonna
go do a landscape shot, we are in front of Lake Louise. Everyone is taking the same photo. If there are a hundred people there, your photo might be better,
it might be better lit, but for the most part the
composition of Lake Louise from those hundred people
isn't gonna differ very much. And this doesn't just have
to do with landscape photos, it can do with let's say
you're taking a picture of a deck of cards or maybe
you're shooting a smartphone, maybe a book, maybe a pair of boots, it doesn't matter, it
could be a living room.
Try to think what the most common, typical place the photo
will be taken from. So everyone stands in
front of the mountain here, everyone places the deck here. Get that in your head and
then completely it off. Think okay, I'm gonna shoot
it from the back forward. I'm gonna shoot it upside
down, I'm gonna shoot it from the left, from the right, from above. It's these little things,
it's these little tips that end up producing huge results. So just by taking 10 seconds
ahead of time and saying to yourself, this is what
everybody does right here, what is completely opposite
from what everybody does? And I'm gonna do that. You might surprise yourself. Hell, it could be shit too. Talk about lighting, lighting is huge. If your stuff isn't lit
well, A, no one can see it, B, it just looks like
it, C, there's no reason it has to look bad, lighting
scares a lot of people. People are thinking, oh I
don't know how to set up lights or I don't own lights,
the solution's very easy.
I'm probably gonna do an entire video on this subject itself,
just move to a window. That's it, just stand
in front of a window. If you're shooting an object,
just move to a window, find the light, essentially,
if it's dark outside, maybe don't take the photo unless you're trying to go for night photography. If you're trying to take
a picture of something in a restaurant and the
lighting is poor, just wait. Just do it tomorrow. If it's grainy and it looks
bad and you can't figure out the light, there's probably a reason, you shouldn't be taking
the photo right now, unless that's your job and
that's a whole other story. We're just talking about
regular people taking photos on a regular basis and
we wanna up that quality. You're not gonna die, there's
no fire, wait til tomorrow. Wait for golden hour,
and if you don't know when golden hour is you can google it, there's apps to show it, you can ask Siri, hey Siri, when's golden hour? Window light is naturally diffused, especially if you're on a cloudy day, that cloud cover provides a big
giant soft box, if you will.
So your photo's probably
gonna end up looking a hundred times better and
you're gonna say to yourself, damn, this actually looks incredible. You're welcome. Number five, placing
objects into the frame that help tell the
story, maybe it's people, maybe it's something, maybe
it's different objects. Let's say we're gonna take a
picture of a deck of cards. We're putting it on a table.
It's kinda boring by itself. So maybe we add a laptop, now
we're gonna add a cell phone, maybe we'll throw a
sweater in there and a mug. Those things are just
creeping into the corners but that provides an atmosphere now. The picture's much more interesting. It's not focused on just the laptop, it's not focused on the sweater, and we've made that very
clear by keeping those things to the edges, they're
not the focus points, the deck of cards is the focus point.
But we've added these extra elements to just create more of
a mood, more feeling, more of a story in this
photograph and it took an extra 10 seconds to
just drop these things in. You'll notice that a lot of these tips, all these things are very, very basic tips but will elevate your
photography be it with an iPhone, be it with a DSLR, be it
with an Instax camera, whatever, they'll make your photos better.
Try them out, I think you're gonna get some mileage out of it. (upbeat electronic music).
