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podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 3
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —and I said, "Aubrey, I've had this phone for two years, how did I not know that." So for anyone just joining us, we're back, this is week three of Phone Photography Basics.
AUBREY: Week three already.
JESS: I know. Okay, so last week was all light. This week, before we hit record, you were telling me about a hike.
AUBREY: Oh, the canyon thing.
JESS: Tell them.
AUBREY: So we go up the canyon a lot as a family, just up American Fork Canyon, nothing exotic. And there's this stretch with scrub oak on both sides, and in the fall the light comes through the leaves in these little slats. And I kept stopping. Every ten feet I'm stopping to shoot the light on the trees.
JESS: How many stops are we talking.
AUBREY: A lot. Enough that my son Easton, he's fifteen, finally goes, "Mom, you're being weird about the trees."
JESS: (laughing) He's not wrong.
AUBREY: He's not wrong! I was being weird about the trees. But here's the thing, I got one shot out of that whole hike that I still love. Just the light coming through, nothing else in the frame. And it cost me being a little embarrassing in front of my kid for twenty minutes.
JESS: Worth it.
AUBREY: Worth it. At the end of the day, that's kind of the deal with this whole class. You look a little weird sometimes. You kneel down in a parking lot, you make everybody wait while you reshoot something. I do this all the time and I've made my peace with it.
JESS: Okay, so that's sort of a mindset thing. Give us something practical too. Something somebody listening right now, not even in the class, could go do today.
AUBREY: Sure. Exposure lock.
JESS: Say more.
AUBREY: So on most phones, if you tap and hold on the screen instead of just tapping once, it locks the exposure and the focus right there. You'll see a little box, sometimes it says "AE/AF Lock" or it'll just kind of pulse.
JESS: And why do I want that.
AUBREY: Because otherwise your phone keeps adjusting on you every time the light shifts a little, or something moves through the frame. I fought this for months. First time I actually used it on purpose, I didn't trust it. I kept re-tapping, undoing it, re-tapping. And I lost this really nice shot I was getting of the sunset over the point of the mountain, just lost it, because I couldn't leave well enough alone.
JESS: Oh no.
AUBREY: Yeah. So now, discipline. I lock it and I leave it alone. Tap, hold, lock, done. Trust it.
JESS: I love that it's a discipline thing and not a technical thing.
AUBREY: A lot of this is discipline, honestly. The camera's not the hard part. The camera you already have can do plenty. It's whether you're willing to hold still and let it work, or reshoot when the first one's bad instead of just keeping the first one.
JESS: Which, real talk, most people keep the first one.
AUBREY: Most people keep the first one. And the first one is almost never it. That's not a knock on anybody, I do it too, I just try to catch myself.
JESS: Okay, last thing. Next session. What are we doing.
AUBREY: Next week we're doing people. Photographing actual humans, which is its own animal, because people move, and they make faces at you when you point a phone at them.
JESS: (laughing) They do.
AUBREY: So we'll talk about getting low, getting close, and I'm going to tell on myself about a group photo that went very wrong at a family dinner. Everybody ended up looking like cutout silhouettes.
JESS: I want to hear this.
AUBREY: You'll hear it. Bring a phone with some photos of people already on it if you can, we'll look at real examples, yours and mine.
JESS: Perfect. Okay, that's it for this week. Go lock your exposure, don't be weird about the trees unless you want to be.
AUBREY: Be a little weird about the trees. It's fine.
HandoutHandout 1: Supply & Shopping List
Handout 1: Supply & Shopping List
You already own the main tool. That's kind of the whole point of this class. This list is short on purpose. Don't let anybody talk you into more than this.
The one thing you actually need
A phone with a camera. Doesn't matter how old, doesn't matter the brand, doesn't matter if the corner's cracked (mine is). If it turns on and takes a picture, you're in business. Charge it before class.
Budget tier (this is genuinely enough)
- Your phone. See above.
- A soft cloth to wipe the lens. That little smudge from your pocket lint ruins more photos than bad light does. Any cloth works, the kind you clean glasses with is nice but a t-shirt hem is fine too.
- A window. Free. This is your main light source and we'll talk about it a lot. If you have one that gets morning or evening light without direct sun blasting through it, that's your best friend for this whole class.
- A notebook or notes app for the few settings and terms we'll cover. I'll say things like "tap to focus" and "exposure lock" and it helps to jot them down so you're not hunting through your phone menu at home trying to remember what I meant.
That's it. That's the budget list. If you stopped right there you'd be fine.
Nice-to-have tier (only if you want to spend a little)
- A cheap phone tripod or mini stand, the little tabletop kind. Fifteen to twenty five dollars, sold at most department stores, Costco sometimes has them in with the electronics. Not required. Handy if your hands shake or you're shooting something (like a quilt) where you need both hands free to hold fabric flat.
- A phone case that doesn't cover the lens. Sounds obvious, but I've seen people fighting a case edge that creeps into the corner of every shot. Check yours before class.
- A small clip light or cheap LED lamp, the kind sold for reading or desk work. Not a ring light, I don't love ring lights, the light's too flat and even. A regular lamp you can angle is more useful. This is genuinely optional. We're going to lean on window light for almost everything.
What you don't need
- A new phone. Please don't buy one for this class.
- Lens attachments, clip-on zooms, any of that. I've tried a couple and wasn't impressed enough to recommend them.
- A "real" camera. If you already have one and love it, bring it, but this class is built around the camera you already have in your pocket.
A shopping note
If you're picking up the nice-to-have stuff, you don't need a specialty store. A tripod and a clip lamp are the kind of thing you can grab on a regular Macey's or Costco run, in with the electronics or the desk supplies. I wouldn't make a special trip just for this class. If you're already headed out, fine, grab one. If not, skip it and use what you've got.
One more thing: bring your phone charged and bring something to photograph that actually matters to you. A quilt, a kid, a plate of food, whatever you're proud of or trying to sell or just want to remember better. We'll be shooting real stuff from the first day, not test targets. The class works better when the subject means something to you. 🙈
HandoutCheat Sheet: Phone Photography Basics
Cheat Sheet: Phone Photography Basics
This is the one to stick on your fridge or keep in your camera bag if you're the kind of person who has a camera bag for a phone (no judgment 🙈). It's everything from class, boiled down to the stuff you actually need mid-shoot.
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Light first, always
- Turn off the overhead light. Just do it as a habit. Overhead light is almost always the problem.
- Move toward a window. Morning and evening light is softer. Midday sun through a window can be harsh but it's still usually better than a ceiling fixture.
- Face your subject toward the light, not away from it. Backlighting turns people into silhouettes. If everyone at the table is dark and the window's glowing behind them, move the whole group.
- If something's shiny or glaring (glass, metal, laminate), try tilting it away from the light source before you touch a single setting. Sounds too simple. Works more than it should.
At the end of the day, light is the whole game. Ninety percent of a bad photo is bad light, not a bad camera.
---
Tap, don't guess
- Tap the screen on your subject. This sets both focus and exposure at that spot. Don't skip this. Your phone is guessing without it.
- Hold your finger down until you see the little sun or brightness slider show up, then drag up or down to brighten or darken before you shoot.
- Exposure lock, once you're happy: press and hold on the spot until it locks (you'll see AE/AF LOCK or a yellow box, depending on your phone). Then leave it alone. Don't keep re-tapping. I learned that one the hard way and lost a good sunset over the point of the mountain fussing with it.
---
Body position (the free upgrade)
- Get low. Kneel, crouch, sit on the floor if you have to.
- Get close. Closer than feels natural. Then take one more step in.
- Most boring photos come from standing at eye level, five feet back, every single time. This costs nothing and changes everything.
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Composition, quick and dirty
- Turn your grid on (Settings, under Camera). Use the lines. Put your subject on a line or where two lines cross, not dead center.
- Fill the frame. If you can't tell what the photo is about at a glance, get closer or cut out the clutter around it.
- Watch your background before you shoot, not after. A plant "growing out of someone's head" is fixable by moving two feet, not by editing later.
---
The two rules I'd keep if I had to drop everything else
- Take the second photo. The first one is almost never it.
- A clean, well-lit photo of something ordinary beats a fancy, blurry photo of something interesting. Every time.
---
What I skip on purpose
- Portrait mode and filters. I think the fake blur looks fake and filters age badly. Learn to see the shot instead.
- Fancy editing sliders. I do basic cropping and a brightness nudge and call it done. That's not my thing, and it doesn't need to be yours either.
- New gear. The camera you already have is enough for almost everything you'll want to shoot.
Bring your actual phone to class, cracked corners and all. We'll work with what you've got. 🎉
WorksheetHandout 3: Light, Angle, Focus — Your Practice Checklist
Handout 3: Light, Angle, Focus — Your Practice Checklist
Bring this with you and actually mark it up. Don't just read it, do the things. I forget stuff too if I don't practice it right away.
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Part 1: Find Your Light
Walk around the room (or your house, later) and check these off as you find them.
- [ ] A spot near a window with soft, indirect light (not direct sun blasting through)
- [ ] A spot with overhead light only, no window
- [ ] A spot with both
Now shoot the same object in all three spots. Same object, same angle, just move it.
Which one looks best? _______________________
Nine times out of ten it's the window. Overhead light (especially the yellowish kind) makes everything look sickly. I learned that one photographing a baby quilt under my kitchen fluorescents. Came out green. Not the good kind of green.
---
Part 2: Get Low and Get Close
Pick an object on the table. A cup, a shoe, whatever's around.
- Shoot it standing up, from about five feet away. That's what most of us do without thinking.
- Now kneel down so you're level with it, or even below it.
- Now get in close, close enough it almost feels uncomfortable.
Circle the one you like best: standing / kneeling / close
If it's not "standing," welcome to the club. My daughter Lily took a photo of our dog once that put mine to shame, and all she did was get low. I've been teaching it on purpose ever since.
---
Part 3: Tap to Focus, On Purpose
- [ ] Open your camera app
- [ ] Tap directly on a face, or an object, and watch the little box appear
- [ ] Take the photo
- [ ] Now tap somewhere else in the frame and take it again
What changed? _______________________
If your phone has exposure lock (usually you tap and hold, or there's a little sun icon you can drag), try it:
- [ ] Lock the exposure
- [ ] Move the phone around without re-tapping
- [ ] Notice it doesn't jump around trying to "help" you
I fought this one for a long time. Kept undoing my own lock because I didn't trust it, and lost a good sunset shot over the point of the mountain because of it. Don't be me. Lock it and leave it alone.
---
Part 4: The Second Photo
Pick anything in the room. Take a photo of it.
- [ ] Take it again, moved two feet.
- [ ] Take it again, from a different angle.
- [ ] Take it again, after fixing whatever bugged you about the first three.
Which number was the keeper? ___ (mine's almost never #1)
---
Part 5: One Real-World Fix
Pick one of these, whichever you actually run into:
- [ ] Backlit people (window or bright light behind them) — move the whole group so the light's in front of them, not behind
- [ ] Glare on something shiny (glass, metal, paper) — tilt the object away from the light source, not the camera
- [ ] Cluttered background — physically move the object, don't just try to crop it out later
What did you fix, and what did you do? _______________________
---
That's it for today. Small stuff, one problem at a time. Bring your phone next week and we'll look at what you brought back. 🎉
HandoutHandout 4: Troubleshooting Guide
Handout 4: Troubleshooting Guide
Here's the thing. Almost every bad phone photo traces back to one of these problems. I hit all of them myself, some of them more than once. Find your problem, try the fix, take the second photo.
1. Photo looks yellow or green That's your indoor lighting talking, usually fluorescent or old bulbs. Move near a window instead. I spent a whole evening once shooting a baby quilt under my kitchen lights and every photo came out sickly green. Front room, next morning, window light, done in two tries.
2. Everyone's a silhouette This happens when your subject has a bright window or door behind them. The camera exposes for the light, not the faces, so the people go dark. Fix is simple even if it doesn't feel obvious the first time: turn around so the light is on your subject, not behind them. Move the group, not the phone.
3. Photo looks flat and boring You're probably standing up, five feet back, shooting straight ahead. That's how most people shoot everything, and it's why most people's photos are boring. Get low. Get close. My daughter accidentally out-shot me with a photo of the dog just by kneeling down and getting near it. I studied that photo for a while before I figured out what she'd done right.
4. Blurry photo Two different causes, two different fixes. If the whole photo is blurry, your hand moved, brace your elbows against your body or lean on something. If just part of it is blurry, you didn't tap to focus, so the camera guessed wrong. Tap the screen right on the thing you want sharp.
5. Glare on shiny or flat surfaces Metal, glass, glossy paper, the diagonal miter on a quilt binding (still fighting me on that one, honestly). Try tilting the object away from the light source instead of straight at it. My dad wanted a photo of an old directory page and it took three tries, tilting the paper solved it. There isn't always a clean answer here. Sometimes you just keep adjusting the angle until it breaks your way.
6. Colors look washed out or dull Usually overhead lighting again, or shooting in harsh midday sun. Try morning or evening light, or move to open shade. Light is genuinely the whole game here, more than any setting on the phone.
7. Can't get the exposure right, keeps changing as you move Use exposure lock (press and hold on your subject until you see the lock icon) and then leave it alone. First time I used it I didn't trust it, kept re-tapping, and lost a good sunset shot over the point of the mountain. Lock it and walk away from it. Discipline.
8. Photo looks fine on your phone, terrible printed or on a computer This one's mostly out of your hands and it's normal. Screens display color differently. Don't chase perfection here, just get it close.
9. Too much going on in the frame If you can't tell what the photo is "of," that's usually clutter, not a camera problem. Step closer, or move the subject away from the busy background. Simplify before you shoot rather than trying to fix it after.
10. You took one photo and it wasn't great, so you gave up This is the most common problem and it's not really a technical one. The first shot is almost never the shot. Take the second one. Take five. I reshoot constantly. Nobody sees the four bad ones, they just see the one that worked.
At the end of the day (I know, I know) most of this comes down to light, distance, and taking one more photo than feels necessary. One problem at a time. You'll get it. 🎉
podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 1
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —and I told her, it's a phone, not a Nikon, but she did not believe me until she saw the picture.
AUBREY: Which picture?
JESS: The quilt one. From your test post.
AUBREY: Oh, dang, that's a good one. Okay, wait, should we actually start?
JESS: We started. This is the podcast. Welcome, everybody. I'm Jess, I run the programs office here at Community Learning, and this is Aubrey, who teaches Phone Photography Basics, which starts up this week.
AUBREY: Hi. I'm not much of a talker at the top of things, so bear with me.
JESS: You warm up.
AUBREY: I warm up. Give me twenty minutes.
JESS: So tell people why you even started doing this. Because it's not the normal photography-teacher origin story.
AUBREY: No, it's not. I quilt. That's the actual thing I do. And I'd finish a top, forty hours of work, lay it out on the bed to take a picture, and it would come out yellow and flat and you couldn't even see the seams right. I was sending progress photos to my siblings the whole time I was making it, I do that constantly, they're probably sick of it—
JESS: They're not sick of it.
AUBREY: They might be a little sick of it. But there's this one time, I'd finished a quilt for my nephew Edwin, and I sent a photo to my sister, just a normal update photo, and she asks me what pattern it is. And then she asks me where I got it. And we're on the phone for twenty minutes about this quilt.
JESS: That's the dream, right? For a maker.
AUBREY: That's exactly the dream. And I won't admit how much I live for that, but I'm admitting it right now, so.
JESS: You just admitted it.
AUBREY: I did. But here's the thing. That whole conversation only happened because the photo was good enough for her to actually see the quilt. If it had come out like those early ones, yellow and washed out, she doesn't ask about the pattern. She just says "cute" and moves on. The photo is doing real work. People don't think about that.
JESS: So what changed? Between the bad quilt photos and the one that got your sister on the phone for twenty minutes.
AUBREY: Light. That's basically the whole class in one word. I moved away from my kitchen fluorescents and started shooting near a window. Turned the overhead light off. That's it. That's like ninety percent of it.
JESS: Ninety percent feels like a big number.
AUBREY: It's a big number because bad light is the most common problem and nobody thinks to blame it. They blame the phone. They think they need a better camera. You don't. The camera you already have is fine.
JESS: Okay, give me something people can actually use right now, before they've even signed up for the class.
AUBREY: Tap to focus. That's the one. Most people point their phone and shoot, and the phone guesses what to focus on, and it guesses wrong half the time. If you tap the screen right on the thing you actually care about, your kid's face, the stitching on a quilt, whatever, the phone locks onto that and everything looks sharper. Takes two seconds. Nobody does it.
JESS: I did not know that.
AUBREY: Most people don't. It's not fancy, it's just a habit you don't have yet.
JESS: Okay so this week in class, what are people walking into?
AUBREY: We're doing light first. Always light first. I'll show a couple of my bad ones, the really bad ones, the green kitchen quilt disaster, so everybody feels better about their own bad photos. Then we go find windows. Phones out the whole time, I don't want anyone just watching me.
JESS: And next session?
AUBREY: Next time we get into getting low and getting close. Most people shoot standing up, five feet back from everything, and that's why the photos are boring. My daughter Lily took a photo of our dog last year that was better than anything I'd taken all week, by accident, and it was because she just got down on the floor with him. I studied that photo for way too long trying to figure out what she'd done.
JESS: And it was just... low and close.
AUBREY: Low and close. Twelve years old and she nailed it without trying. So that's the lesson. Kneel down. Get closer than feels normal. We'll practice it right there in the room.
JESS: I love that you learned a technique from a twelve-year-old.
AUBREY: At the end of the day, I'll take instruction from anybody who gets the shot. Even if she's shorter than me.
JESS: Class is Thursday evenings, sign-up's still open, link's in the description. Aubrey, thanks for doing this.
AUBREY: Thanks for making me talk before ten a.m.
podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 2
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —and I said, "Aubrey, it's a phone, not a diagnosis," but you were fully committed to figuring out why that photo wasn't working.
AUBREY: I was. It bugs me when I can't explain a problem. If a photo's bad, there's a reason. There's always a reason.
JESS: Okay, so for anyone just joining us, welcome back. This is the podcast that goes with Phone Photography Basics, the community-ed class, week two is in the books. I'm Jess, I run these recordings and generally heckle Aubrey a little.
AUBREY: She does.
JESS: Somebody's gotta. So, what did you actually cover this week?
AUBREY: Light, mostly. Again. I know I talked about light last time too, but here's the thing, it's ninety percent of the problem for almost everybody in that room. People think their photo is bad because their phone's not good enough. It's almost never that. It's the light.
JESS: You had them all move around the room at one point.
AUBREY: I did. And I want to tell the actual story behind that, because it happened to me, not to a student.
JESS: This is the family dinner one?
AUBREY: This is the family dinner one. So we were all at my parents' house, whole family down for dinner, and I wanted a group photo. Everybody's sitting at the table, I've got my phone up, and I take it, and it's terrible. Everyone's a silhouette. Just dark shapes with a bright white glowing rectangle behind them.
JESS: The sliding door.
AUBREY: The sliding door. Because I'd put everybody with their backs to it, and the camera doesn't know to expose for faces when there's a giant bright window right there, it just averages the whole scene and everyone goes dark.
JESS: So what'd you do.
AUBREY: Moved everybody. Just picked up plates, had people scoot to the other side of the table, so the door was behind me instead of behind them. Reshot it. Worked in one try. And I talk about this one a lot in class because it is so, so common. People sit facing a window, thinking, oh, there's good light in here, that must be good for photos. And it is good light, it's just aimed wrong for what you're doing.
JESS: So the tip is—
AUBREY: The tip is, whatever's bright, you want it in front of the person, not behind them. Window light on their face, not window light behind their back. That's it. You can check this right now, wherever you're listening, next time you take a photo of a person indoors. Look at where the window is relative to their face before you shoot.
JESS: I love that it's something people can just do today. Don't even need to take the class.
AUBREY: Right, and that's kind of the whole point of these classes anyway. It's not fancy. It's one adjustment.
JESS: Did anyone in the room have a moment this week? Like a lightbulb?
AUBREY: A guy named Edwin, older gentleman, real quiet, he'd been struggling with photos of his workshop for some project he's doing. We just walked over to the window with his phone and had him turn around so the light hit his subject instead of hitting him. And dang, it was just a completely different photo. Same table saw. Same everything. He kind of laughed.
JESS: That's the best part of teaching this, right? That moment.
AUBREY: It is. Even though I'll admit, I don't perform much in front of a room. I'm not a big talker at the start of class. But when somebody actually gets it, that's when I loosen up.
JESS: You warm up as the room warms up.
AUBREY: I do.
JESS: Okay, before we wrap, what's coming next session? Because people ask me and I want to have an actual answer for once.
AUBREY: Next time we're doing composition. Getting low, getting close, using the grid lines on your screen instead of just centering everything. I've got a whole thing about how most people shoot from standing height, five feet back, every single time, and that's why the photos feel flat and boring. We're gonna practice breaking that habit.
JESS: Bring your knees.
AUBREY: Bring your knees. Wear pants you don't mind getting a little dusty, because I will have people kneeling on the classroom floor.
JESS: I love this class.
AUBREY: It's not fancy. But it works.
JESS: That's Phone Photography Basics with Aubrey Frank, next session same time, same place. Thanks for listening.
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