Spring is finally here. The sun's shining, flowers are blooming, and wildlife’s waking up. That means it's time to get outside, enjoy the warmer weather, and take some glorious snaps with your phone!
What's great about most modern smartphones is that they're packing some really flashy cameras. Making it super easy to point and shoot great pics whenever inspiration strikes or it's time for that spontaneous selfie.
But you can really up your photography game if you follow our top photo-taking and editing tips below. You'll be lighting up your friends' social feeds with colourful spring pics in no time…
Make the most of that natural light
Natural light is a photographer's best friend. And that soft spring sunshine will perfectly illuminate your subjects for vivid, detailed pics that’ll really stand out. Use the longer days to your advantage, and don’t forget to capture some stellar sunrise and sunset shots too. Everything looks better at “golden hour”, with larger shadows and dramatic colours in the sky making those big landscape snaps look amazing.
Just make sure you’re paying attention to where all that light is coming from. Whoever or whatever you're photographing is always going to look best when lit from the front rather than from behind.
Get up close and personal
A big countryside shot filled with stunning wildflowers will always bag you plenty of likes of Instagram. But if you want to truly capture the intricate beauty of vibrant spring plants and colourful critters — don’t be afraid to get up close.
Instead of zooming in on the texture of a flower petal or the wings of a bee, try the macro mode on your phone instead. The camera will adjust its settings to provide a narrow depth of field, so it’ll blur out the background and really bring your subject into focus for pro results.
Use the rule of thirds
This is a classic photography trick. Rather than having your adorable pet, other half, or that gorgeous cherry blossom tree right in the middle of your frame — place your subject in the left or right third so that they’re slightly off-centre instead.
It’s a simple but effective technique that’ll make your photos look a lot more natural and balanced. It’ll draw your eyes to the subject but allow the background to provide plenty of space and context
— especially if you get low to capture all those details behind. And if you want to be super precise, try turning on grid lines on your phone to help you square things up.
See more colours with HDR
If your smartphone has an HDR (High Dynamic Range) mode, you can use it to really bring your springtime photos to life. This neat setting will take multiple shots at different exposures and combine them to create an image with better contrast, brightness, and colour accuracy. Giving you an even truer picture of the scene you’re capturing.
This HDR tech is super useful when there’s a wide range of light present, so experiment with this mode when taking snaps of landscapes with bright skies and dark shadows. Just make sure to keep a steady hand when using HDR mode, as it usually takes longer to capture a photo. You could always invest in a little phone tripod for the crispest, blur-free HDR pics.
Use filters to spruce up your spring pics
Have you ever taken some stunning photos, got home ready to share them online, but realised they’re looking a little… dull? Yep, it can really take the spring out of your step. But with the photo filters built into your phone, you can easily enhance your shots in just a couple of taps.
Filters tweak things like colour saturation, contrast, brightness, and temperature to really make your pics pop. You can adjust just one or two things if you like, or even use a special photo editing app to get even more creative (there are loads of them out there!). And remember, social platforms like Instagram and Facebook let you play around with filters before hitting the ‘share’ button too.
Rely on AI for fast and smart edits
Plenty of top smartphones are now packing AI to help you edit your photos in record time. Got a photobomber ruining an otherwise perfect shot? Devices like the Google Pixel 8 and Samsung Galaxy S24 use AI to cleverly cut them out like they were never there!
You can also use these AI-powered phones to unblur your pics and give them a good once over. The Samsung Galaxy S24 even recommends some handy edit suggestions — teaching you which settings can change the look of your photos so know what to look out for next time.
Snapped some cracking spring-themed photos with your smartphone? Share your best pics below and we'll shout-out the one with the most likes at the end of the month!
And if you’ve got some more top spring photography tips, we’d love to hear them in the comments too.