Photo Gallery: How to Take Camera Phone Pictures

Fountain Portrait, England
In capable hands, a camera phone—the most widely used kind of camera in history—can produce compelling images. In this gallery, get tips for taking the best shots wherever you go.
A mobile phone snapped this shot of a young girl playing in a water fountain in Horsham West Sussex, England.
Photo Tip: Avoid direct sunlight. Your subjects will be cooler, happier, and more attractively lit if they don’t have a sunbeam hitting them in the face. If it’s an overcast day, you’re in luck. This is one of the best outdoor lighting situations for photographing people. If it’s a sunny day, have your subjects stand in the brightest patch of shade you can find.

Tree Backlit by Sunlight
Sunlight pierces a lone tree.
Photo Tip: Choose the highest quality setting available so you lose less detail and don’t get a muddy photo. If you have to choose between resolution and a quality setting to save space—and it’s unlikely you’ll make prints—reduce the resolution.

Storm Cloud, Canada
Thunder cell over Cochrane, Alberta. The storm rolled over the hills like an ominous blanket, producing frightening tornado warnings.
Photo Tip: Wait for the “magic hour.” During the times of sunrise and sunset, the sky is colorful enough for even a camera phone to capture land and sky with fairly good exposure.

Restaurant Table
As I was walking out of a restaurant I had an aha moment when I saw this empty dining table with the hanging light and colorful frames. All I had was my cell phone so I shot it.
Photo Tip: Stabilize your camera phone. In low light, camera phones slow the shutter speed to let in more light and have a longer opportunity to capture movement. Hold the camera phone with both hands and brace your upper arms against your body when you shoot.

Surf Self-Portrait, North Carolina
Self-portrait taken with a Blackberry mobile device in Oak Island, North Carolina, 2009. The phone survived.
Photo Tip: Use the rule of thirds. When composing a picture, imagine two horizontal lines and two vertical lines crossing like a tic-tac-toe grid on top of it. Place strong lines and divisions like the horizon on the gridlines and let elements of interest fall on the intersections.

Mother and Child, Mumbai
They were happy when I showed them the photo and I was happy 'cause I could give them a smiling moment. Taken at a traffic signal in Mumbai, India, from an auto-rickshaw using a mobile phone camera.
Photo Tip: When the background of your picture is cluttered and the lighting is questionable, fill the frame of your camera phone by moving in closer to your subject.

Bicycle Taxi Driver, Indonesia
Took this with my two-megapixel mobile phone camera during our vacation in Bandung in early 2008, from our chartered angkut (minibus) on the road.
Photo Tip: By mastering the technique of panning, you can create some very cool images. To do this, hold the camera phone with both hands—for steadiness—and frame the approaching subject on the LCD. Move the camera at the same speed as the subject, thus freezing the subject while the background is blurred through motion.

Panoramic View of Venice
A Nokia N95 mobile phone image of Venice (low resolution version), made from a collage of over 120 images, part of a portfolio of 20 images
Photo Tip: Shoot a panorama. If your camera phone doesn’t include a dedicated panorama mode, you can use third-party stitching software on your computer to create panoramas from several frames. A cell phone tripod will help you line up the shots.

Criminal Court Tour
As part of a pre-legal seminar my group and I were taken to a criminal court to witness trials, among other things. Here one of the female guards sits next to bullet-free weapons on a desk, while a student tries on the cuffs for fun. This was a "one in a million shot" I took with my cell phone.
Photo Tip: Anticipate shutter lag. Get used to your camera phone’s timing so when something interesting happens, you’ll have a good feel for the point when you need to press the shutter release to capture the most interesting moment.

Hiker
As the storm clouds gathered the only route was downward.
Photo Tip: Get the right color tone. Shooting in black-and-white in any light can help develop your photographer’s eye by letting you concentrate on the relationship between light and shadow without the distraction of color.

Rain Clouds & Sun
Despite not having my SLR, this monsoon, which occurred at sunset, spoke for itself on my camera phone.
Photo Tip: Put horizons in the right place. Sometimes, putting the horizon down low to emphasize a dramatic sky is preferable.

Man Smoking
My brother, a travel freak. Loved the way he enjoyed a smoke sitting in front of his car, facing the river in the forest. So I captured it with my Nokia two-megapixel mobile phone.
Photo Tip: When photographing adults, experiment with both the angle of your composition and the angle of light to see what’s most flattering.

White Flower
This photo was a surprising shot taken with a cell phone.
Photo Tip: Try using a black background to make a subject stand out. Black velvet material works great because it absorbs any light hitting it. As a result, no shadows or reflections appear in the picture.