Capturing the Mobile Moment

*DISCLAIMER: The book I am reading is called iPhone Obsessed. However, I do not own an iPhone. The pictures below were taken with an Android (more specifically, a Samsung Galaxy S6 edge).

What is the mobile moment? It is the circumstances that would cause me to pull out my phone and snap a quick photo. For me, this could be anything, really, from great lighting to the natural and authentic moment of a human or animal. The mobile moment usually occurs when you least expect it to and is the moment that brings together a memorable image.

I take a lot of pictures with my phone. However, most of them are not worth sharing. Like many others, I know the fundamentals of phone photography, such as making sure the subject is in focus and fits within the frame of the screen. Easy enough, right? But here’s where it gets a little overwhelming—I begin to consider other features into my shots like framing, perspective, lighting, and exposure. I, personally, have a tendency to overthink the elements of a shot rather than just simply taking the photo, resulting in many passed opportunities.

Photographer and author Dan Marcolina would agree that this is a mistake many amateurs, like myself, make. He suggests snapping the shot and then thinking about it afterwards. There is always the option of editing it later. The perfect photo opportunity can be gone in an instant. Marcolina says it’s often the unconscious reaction to a moment that makes the most honest and impactful picture. Although the first impression will usually work best, he recommends following up with a more conscious set of angles (Marcolina 4). Marcolina’s advice has really changed the way I take pictures. Below are some unedited photos I’ve recently taken of my dogs. The top photo was taken just moments before she jumped off the bench and chased after a squirrel, and the photo on the bottom was taken of my dog mid-yawn. Had I spent time overthinking the shots, I never would’ve captured these moments.

Both pictures were achieved by applying the Rule of Thirds, which is basically breaking an image down into thirds (using both horizontal and vertical lines) so that you are left with nine parts. To make this easier, I simply went into my camera settings and turned on the grid lines. For the photo on top, I positioned the edge of the bench to one of the horizontal lines, balancing out the image and making for a more aesthetically-pleasing shot. As for the photo on the bottom, I aligned my dog’s head along a vertical line, purposely making her off center and therefore allowing me to expose more of the background.

In iPhone Obsessed, Marcolina stresses the importance of framing. “What to include in the frame and what not to include: It is that decision that really defines why still images can be more powerful than seeing the whole scene as in video” (Marcolina 2). Things to consider when quickly deciding your framing include the angle and position of the shot. What is the angle of the shot? Is it high or low? Will the shot be more dynamic if it’s taken horizontally, vertically, or squared? For both of the pictures above, I decided to take them in landscape and at eye level. This gives the viewer a sense of first person, as though he or she is experiencing the moment from his or her own perspective.

With a tap of a screen, phone photography is a hobby anyone can get into. The simplicity and practicality of a smartphone make shooting photos much easier than it would be with a bulky digital camera. This first blog was just about capturing and framing the mobile moment. I look forward to reading and discovering more tips and tricks. Over the course of the next couple of blogs, I will be trying various photography and editing techniques such as grunge, HDR (high dynamic range), and adding light. 

Any thoughts on the pictures? What are your “mobile moments”, and where do you get your inspiration from?

Marcolina, Dan. iPhone Obsessed: Photo Editing Experiments with Apps. Berkeley: Peachpit Press, 2011. Print.