Phone Photography Tip

I really wanted to name this “Improve Your Phone Photography with This One Weird Tip!” or something like that, but I didn’t want to be mistaken for a nut-job. Oh wait, maybe I am a nut-job! Either way is fine with me. 🙂

I was looking through the pictures on my phone, and besides being tempted to do about ten billion different Throwback Thursday posts, I was reminded of this picture taking tip that I learned – the hard way.  But before I tell you what it is, I have to tell you this: it’s kind of obvious.  So obvious that I didn’t think of it.  Also, you probably have thought of this, or it doesn’t apply to you.  So feel free to laugh at with me when I tell the story.

It all started one time when I was watching Keely.  She was fairly new to us, and she wasn’t very reliable on her house-training.  I don’t remember exactly why I did it, but I think she was sniffing something in our dirty clothes hamper, and there was a good layer clothes (all of which were not really that dirty), so I decided to try putting her in the hamper to see what she would do.  She thought it was a comfy bed or something, and I wanted to show the others how she was just sitting in there contentedly.  So I grabbed my phone and tried to take a picture.  I have my phone set to automatic everything, so when I got this, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong:

I got it no matter how many times I tried.  “Oh well, it must be the lighting in here or something,” I thought.  And I almost dismissed it from my mind.  I almost gave up.  But my problem-solving, can’t-leave-a-puzzle-unsolved gene came to my rescue, and after some hard thinking, I thought of another possibility.  Maybe the lens was dirty!  Sure enough, I flipped the phone over to investigate, and the lens was covered with fingerprints.  After cleaning it off, I was shocked to see the difference it made!

So, my hot tip for taking good quality phone photos *drum-rolls* is keep your phone lens clean.  (It also doesn’t hurt to keep other camera lenses clean as well if you have them! 😀 )

This may seem obvious, but honestly, I forget it!  Would you believe that the exact same thing happened again a few days (maybe weeks?) later?  It did!  I was taking pictures of the Mariners puppies, and was frustrated because the picture weren’t turning out.  I think someone had to remind me to check my lens to see if it was dirty, which it was.

Before…

After!

Isn’t that much better?  This has happened several times since, and each time I’ve gotten a bit faster at thinking to check.  But who wants to miss out on a unique picture because of this?  Not me, for sure!  I use my phone a lot, and it gets dirty fast, so I am constantly cleaning the screen and the camera lenses.  Now.  😛  I am happy to report that I haven’t lost a photo-op…yet. 🙂

Has this ever happened to you?

Do you feel like you clean your phone screen or camera lens all the time?