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Level Up Your Phone Photography

Simplified and actionable photo tips, with a dash of creative inspiration, to improve your phone photography skills. Learn how to create consistently good, wow-factor photos with the phone camera you already own. No expensive gear needed. Distilled from 17 years of professional photography expertise.

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Week 2: My Go-to Photo BackUp System You Can Copy

LEVEL UP YOUR PHONE PHOTOGRAPHY WITH GABRIELLE TOUCHETTE ••• Welcome to Week 2 of 2025! In today's e-mail, you'll get: PHOTO TIP OF THE WEEK: how to backup your iPhone photos INSPIRATION OF THE WEEK: train your eye to take more attractive photos PHOTO OF THE WEEK: night photos with (and without!) a tripod RESOURCES YOU MIGHT LIKE: starry night sky tutorial PHOTO TIP: How to backup your iPhone photos I’m a huge fan of making sure my digital files are backed up, especially photos. As a...

LEVEL UP YOUR PHONE PHOTOGRAPHY WITH GABRIELLE TOUCHETTE ••• Welcome to Week 1 of 2025! In today's e-mail, you'll get: PHOTO TIP OF THE WEEK: get into the habit of printing your photos INSPIRATION OF THE WEEK: my most cherished possession PHOTO OF THE WEEK: experimenting is greater than perfection RESOURCES YOU MIGHT LIKE: 50% off upcoming workshop PHOTO TIP: Transform your photo overload into printed books I can’t start a new year without talking about printing photos. Taking photos of...

LEVEL UP YOUR PHONE PHOTOGRAPHY WITH GABRIELLE TOUCHETTE ••• In my professional photography work, I'm known for photos that are sharp, bright and vibrant. My professional photos: The very same techniques that I used to take the above photos, I also apply to my phone photography to get my photos sharp and bright. My iPhone photos: So what's the not-so-secret secret? 3 things: NUMBER 1 - LOTS OF LIGHT. Prioritize taking photos in bright light. The brighter the light (in other words: the most...

LEVEL UP YOUR PHONE PHOTOGRAPHY WITH GABRIELLE TOUCHETTE ••• Why is it that some people's phone photos look like this... ... while other people's photos (using the same phone camera) look like this?: That's because the first person is shooting in auto mode, and the other person is shooting in a more intentional, manual way. So if phone camera technology is so advanced in 2024, why does auto mode produce such terrible photos? DESIGNED TO BE AVERAGE That's because phone cameras were designed to...

LEVEL UP YOUR PHONE PHOTOGRAPHY WITH GABRIELLE TOUCHETTE ••• Becoming a good photographer involves three different types of skills. And yes, even pro photographers struggle to develop these skills. I can personally attest to this! When I was first starting out, I would see so many good photos by other photographers, but whenever I tried to recreate them, my photos always looked painfully bad. They were either too dark, too unclear, too cheesy or too boring. Soooooo many cheesy photos. If you...

LEVEL UP YOUR PHONE PHOTOGRAPHY with Gabrielle Touchette In today's e-mail: The power of 3 for more creative photos. A live workshop on Zoom, coming up in January. A 20-sec tutorial on sharper, clearer phone photos. Read more below.... THE POWER OF 3 Bad design shouts at you. Good design is the silent seller. -Shane Meendering Things grouped in threes tend to bring more natural, harmonious visual appeal to a photo. That's why good photographers gravitate towards this number when composing an...

LEVEL UP YOUR PHONE PHOTOGRAPHY with Gabrielle Touchette Ever wonder what a professional photographer sets their iPhone camera settings to? Today I'll show you. Three things I do: #1 - I set my camera to shoot Most Compatible and not High Efficiency. #2 - I turn my Grid on. #3 - I turn my Level on. Let me show you why (and how). First, go to settings on your iPhone. Scroll all the way down and click on "Camera": In camera settings, click on "Formats": #1 - Go in "Formats" and set your camera...

LEVEL UP YOUR PHONE PHOTOGRAPHY with Gabrielle Touchette In today's newsletter: An in-person phone photography workshop in Winnipeg 4 expert tips for taking family photos with a phone How (and where!) to print phone photos with quality 1. Workshop Announcement! First off, I'm excited to announce that I'm hosting a rare in-person phone photography workshop at Sweet Petals Farm on Saturday September 7th! Terry will be hosting my workshop group at her flower farm in Winnipeg. (She's the best!)...

LEVEL UP YOUR PHONE PHOTOGRAPHY with Gabrielle Touchette I’m always looking for ways to take more interesting photos. The other day I was at a pool with friends and was bored about the thought of just taking regular photos. So it got me thinking: what can I do to take photos out of the ordinary? I suddenly had an idea: What if I put my iPhone camera into a ziploc bag and submerged it half way into the water? I gave it a try and it was such a fun, creative experiment! My iPhone 14 was a bit...

LEVEL UP YOUR PHONE PHOTOGRAPHY with Gabrielle Touchette When you take photos with your phone, do your photos look like #1 or #2?: If you're more of a Photo #1 than a Photo #2 photographer... I promise you, it's not the camera. It's how you're using the camera. The good news is, it's very easy to improve your photography! Here are the 7 most common phone photography mistakes and how to fix them: (Click here if you'd like to skip the email and go straight to the video tutorial.) 1) You’re too...