Once upon a time not everyone had a phone on their camera, shocking right? For those of us that did, the images were terrible and almost ALWAYS blurry. That didn’t matter though, you were just excited to be able to take pictures on your phone!

Fast forward to today and most phones come with a great camera already built in. It is truly a wonderful thing! As a parent, my phone has become my go to camera to take pictures of my children with. Sure I own a professional camera, but the best camera is the one you have readily available to you at all times! I wanted to share 5 lessons I’ve learned along the way about owning a camera phone!

1. Take pictures without the intent of posting them on social media.

There is a pressure that comes with taking a photo of yourself or child. We immediately feel like we HAVE to post it on social media. Thoughts like “I have to get the perfect photo of my child smiling” or “oh no they look so dirty and I don’t have a cute outfit on them” can crowd our mind. As silly as it might seem, we can begin to worry about how may “likes” a photo might get. This can cause you to not even take pictures at all! My wife is not a fan of having her pictures taken and put on social media. She will usually only let me take a photo of her if it is just for “us”, meaning that this photo is for our family to look back on years down the road. So take photos for you! You are more likely to whip out that camera if you don’t feel the address pressure of social media.  (btw, I wasn’t supposed to post the picture above…lol, don’t tell Lara!)

2. Don’t be afraid to use “burst” mode.

The great thing about using this mode is that you are able to capture multiple movements and facial expressions in a matter of seconds as they unfold! This is great when you are taking photos of your kids running around and playing. To use the burst setting, you just hold down your shutter button on your screen. It will actually take photos back to back until you let go of the shutter! Check out the example above!

3.Use “Portrait Mode” on the iPhone 7

This is a game changer for taking photos on an iPhone and is actually the reason I upgraded to the 7. When used correctly, portrait mode adds a shallow depth of field (blurry background) to your images. Check out the example above of the normal mode and portrait mode. 

4. Cut the selfies and hand the camera to someone else!

Does anyone else get freaked out when they accidentally turn the camera on themselves? Moving on to the topic! There is usually one parent who leans more towards taking photos of the family than other. The downside to this is that the parent taking all of the photos is never in them! You may be thinking “Yes! That is part of the plan, I HATE being in photos”. There will come a day when you look back and wish you were in those photos (regardless of the 10lbs you were hoping to lose before being in the photo). Handing off the phone to someone else also gets you a more flattering photo of yourself!

5. Back-up your photos! 

Backing up your photos brings 2 huge pros to your life!

 1. Nobody likes to have the dreaded “not enough space” notification pop up  as you are getting ready to capture your child doing something adorable! When you back up your photos, you can keep your camera roll clear because you have your images stored on a hard drive or in the cloud. 

 2. You would be devastated if your phone malfunctioned and all of your precious images were forever lost! This is more common than you would think. I myself have been victim to not backing up an losing images of my sons first birthday. Totally heart breaking! Protect your memories and back them up!