Have you ever noticed that iPhone photos generally look flat? But professional camera lenses create more texture, depth and mood?

That's because mobile phone lenses aren't as sophisticated.

They don't take photos how our eyes see.

When you look at an object with your eyes, the lens inside your eye changes shape in order to focus on the object. This naturally makes the foreground and background blurry, which helps your brain understand depth. This is how you get the information about what's near and what's far.

This happens all the time, whether you're thinking about it or not.

When we take photos with our phone cameras, the lenses are smaller and less sophisticated, and they tend to make everything in the scene in focus, regardless of distance.

This creates images that feel flat and uninteresting.

But you can override that default look! (without buying a pro camera with expensive lenses)

Instead of taking a photo straight-on of an object, take it from an angle so that there is more separation from the background.

If you are closer to your subject than your subject is to the background, you will get more blur.

And blur adds texture, interest and mood to photos.

And people LOVE that.

Here's how to get more natural blur in your phone photos vs. a photo with everything flat and in focus:

Whenever I'm using my iPhone camera, I'm constantly thinking about how I can make my photo more interesting (aka more depth and blurriness).

Here an example:

This photo was taken straight on, with more distance between my camera and the roses than the distance behind the roses and the rest of the plants. This makes the photo generally "flat".

To upgrade this photo, I changed my angle so that there was more distance in the background and my camera was closer to one of the roses:

Seeing more blurry flowers and plants in the background helps to accentuate the texture, detail and highlights of this one flower as my main subject. To me, that makes my photo more interesting.

It's harder to get this look with a mobile phone lens than with a professional lens, but it IS possible.

It's all about managing distances and angles.

Remember:

Get closer to your subject than your subject is to the background.

And that beautiful blur will appear!

_________________

Curious to see how my professional camera lenses make photos extra blurry and moody? Check out some of my latest photos in my online portfolio. I'm often using a shallow depth of field lens in my portrait shoots, and this makes backgrounds extra extra blurry. Which is fun to work with.

•••

Hi I'm Gabrielle. I run a full time photography business in Winnipeg, specializing in portrait and commercial photography. This newsletter started with my passion for helping everyday people realize their full photography potential. With a bit of technical and creative help, you too can take better photos with the phone camera you already have.

Find more of my resources here:

​Instagram • My Blog • Patreon • Lightroom Editing Course​

Gabrielle Touchette Photography

​Unsubscribe • Preferences • PO Box 46, Winnipeg, MB R2H 3B4