When you’re not a photographer

Every Social Media Manager dreams of perfectly curated timelines featuring only the best from your favourite professional photographer.

You line up photoshoots. You make shotlists of every single thing you think you might possibly need. You get everything filed away and ready to go.

And then you get a request for a post that you don’t have an image for. And it needs to be posted 10 minutes ago.

Here are my (non-photographer) tips for getting an iPhone photo that does the trick every time.

• Trial & error baby! Don’t like the picture you just took? Try it in a different light, from a different angle or with a different background. Future you will be grateful you took a little extra time to get some options.

• Check the background. Do a quick tidy of the area and move anything that’s ruining the aesthetics of it all.

• If you’re taking a picture of a product - ask someone to hold it. It’s easier to get a nice iPhone picture of a person than a product by itself.

• Portrait mode - if you’re using portrait mode, check to see if anything is blurred out. It can be bad for blurring out straws/tops of glasses or making people look weird when their hair is up. If this is the case, switch to regular photo mode and keep on going.

• Turn on your camera grid and read up about the Rule of Thirds

• Play around with Lightroom, there are a ton of TikTok tutorials that will help you learn how to better edit your pics.

• Ask your photographer friends if you can tag along on one of their photoshoots so you can pick up some of their tips & tricks.