5 Ways to Take Great Street Photos with your iPhone

The first step to taking great photos is getting outside and taking a lot photos. I know it’s scary to step away from your Apple control station and out into the cruel world, but I know you can do it. We can do it together.

1. Capture the Big Picture

When you arrive at a location try to take a picture that captures the entire scene. Take a step back and try to compose your shot so that you get all the action in one shot.

Empire State, FX: Hipster + Vintage border.

2. Take a lot of pictures.

This seems like an obvious point, but I meet a lot of people who only take one or two shots of at a time and wonder why they didn’t get a great shot. To give you some perspective, I took over 500 photos a day on my recent trip to New York. In the 500, I probably got 20 great photos and the rest were meh.

 

3. Pay Attention to Details

Street photography is all about capturing quirky, candid and unexpected shots. This is why it’s almost better to shoot with your iPhone, instead of your dSLR. You can sneak shots in almost anywhere when you are taking it with an iPhone. Try the same thing with a professional dSLR and feel the wrath of angry shop owners, pedestrians and over-protective dog owners :P

 

4. Compose your shots

Taxi! FX: Redscale.

Composing your images is the key to getting images. With the iPhone you don’t have to worry about setting your aperture, shutter speed or white balance, so it’s the perfect opportunity to focus solely on the composition of your shots.

5. Process your images

Before I started working on Camera+, I used to process a lot of my iPhone pictures in Photoshop. No joke, I’m that much of a control freak :P Now I just tap the one-touch FXs and share directly from my iPhone to Twitter, Flickr and Facebook. Obviously I’m biased since I made the FXs, but I’m having so much fun adding them to my photos. I can’t wait to see your shots!

I am starting a Mostly Lisa Photo of the Week contest to encourage you to share your best Camera+ photo and win great prizes!!

The first contest’s theme is street photography. Any images taken outside in urban environments will be considered for the contest. Photos must be taken with the iPhone using the Camera+ app.

Here are the contest details:

1. Follow me, @mostlylisa on Twitter.
2. Share your photos on Twitter using the Camera+ Share button and include the hashtag #MLPhotoContest in your tweet so we can find you.
3. The contest ends June 22, 2010 at midnight EDT.

There is no restriction to the number of entries, so feel free to enter as many times as you like! I will announce the winner on Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010.

This week’s winner will receive a $100 iTunes Gift Certificate.

I can’t wait to see your shots!