Give It Your Best Shot: Taking Better Images for Social Media

There’s no doubt about it. Social media just went on overdrive when the coronavirus hit town.

Americans sat on their portable devices and did everything and anything on social media, hoping to make something out of the pandemic.

As the US consumers were told to stay at home more and more, their social media use also jumped higher and higher. They’re sharing their indoor Peloton exercises, yoga sessions, and food preps with their inner circle. Photos then became a magical way to go through the pandemic in one piece.

Seeing the need for people to connect, tech companies developed new forms of live streaming, game features, and video chat on major social media sites during these times.

To note, Zoom became the ‘King of Social Connection” during the pandemic.

Also, Facebook Messenger, Apple’s iMessage, and WhatsApp gained more ground in these times. Today, the numbers say it all. Facebook has over 2.5 billion active users worldwide and growing. That’s nearly a third of the planet’s over 7.6 billion inhabitants.

And as you, more than anything, are most likely to post a selfie or a groupie on your social media account in these trying times, it’s, but timely you get to know how to do your pictures best. It doesn’t matter if it’s on an iPhone, an Android smartphone, or a tablet. If your picture’s well made, it’s bound to astound and create waves.

Do Some Research

Well, learning from the masters is a great way to master an art form. Whether you like it or not, making sure you come up with better photos is an art form. And that’s good news. You’re bound to improve over time.

But here’s the thing. You may need to shorten that learning curve to come up with stunning selfies and groupies. To do that, you’ll have to look into an established brand. Such a brand should have at least 50,000 followers or more. This ensures you’re looking at a reputable company and not just a shiny object lost over time.

To start, dig into their Instagram. It’s a good place to start as Instagram is more picture-centric. Study their colors, their composition, their backgrounds. If you scrutinize it all, you’ll realize that these images are a work of art. Someone took the time and the effort to make it all happen.

Lighting Is Everything

By far, this could be the crux of the matter, the most important tip of them all.  Bear in mind that lighting plays a central role in any photo. No matter the device, if your lighting is too dark, you’ll end up with dark pictures.

The best photos use natural lighting. It’s the best source of light you can find. The trick is to do it on a cloudy day or a shade on a sunny day. Too much sun means weird shadows will form on your photos. An overcast day means you take away the sun’s harshness, leaving behind beautiful pictures with a natural glow.

If you’re shooting in your house or indoors, make use of ring light or any artificial lighting to make your pictures count. If not, you can stand in front of an open window so that the natural light falls directly on you. The subject of the photo should be facing the sun. That way, the shooter is shooting not against but in the direction of the light.

Rule of thumb: Never make the lens of the camera face the source of light directly.

Shoot What You Love

Chances are, there will be tons of possible subjects that you can come up with over time. However, it’s always best you focus on things that you love. If not, you’re bound to burn out and take photography out of your routine.

There’s also another advantage if you shoot what you love: storage space. If you take a photo of random things, you’re bound to find your smartphone storage out of space sooner rather than later.

Well, if you find yourself short of camera space for storing your files, relying on cloud storage for photos should be wise. Not only can you expand these kinds of storage, but also you can access it just about anywhere, so long as you have internet.

The Rule of Thirds

For the longest time, season photographers have seen the enormous power of the rule of thirds. Renoir and Vermeer are just some famous artists who made use of the rule of thirds.

To make the most of the rule of thirds in your social media posts, divide your final picture into three equal spaces. Then, make sure your subject appears only in a third of the total space. That means the rest of the space should not carry them.

To do this, turn on the grid setting on your smartphone.

Nix Zoom

Last but not least, never use zoom-in. Unlike real cameras, your smartphone or tablet doesn’t actually magnify anything. Rather, it’s just plain software doing its job. So if you use the zoom in your mobile, you’re just actually increasing the pixel size.

It takes time to master photography. But when you do, your social media account is bound to explode.