Lifestyle Photography

Join Jack Hollingsworth in the series of Picture Perfect as he shares some of his personal experiences and knowledge on how to take the best Lifestyle Photography with your iPhone.

Tech Notes From Jack:

1. If my subject stays in the same relative position then I LOCK my exposure
• You lock your iPhone exposure by long-pressing on the exposure reticle: you see a yellow graphic at top of screen that says, “AE/AF LOCK”
• Keeping the exposure locked means you don’t have to fiddle with it after each capture
• The exposure will stay locked, regardless of you moving the iPhone, until you tap the screen again.
• I prefer to shoot most of my lifestyle shots, in a locked position, so they have all the same color and exposure values

2. In Lifestyle photography, a series of photos rather than a single photo will better tell your story
• Shooting a healthy amount of both verticals and horizontals
• And shot from different camera-to-subject distances by zooming with your feet and not your fingers
• Don’t hesitate to use BURST mode when you are shoot Lifestyle photos of people that are moving around

3. Analysis leads to paralysis
• It’s best not to overthink things.
• Frame it up and fire away.
• Listen to that still small voice inside you and let that voice be your final guide

4. The key element is to get your model engaged in some sort of activity
• Giving your model something to do or something to think about often relaxes their face muscles and makes the photography look more natural.
• If subject is engage in an activity then you can just follow the action rather than having to direct the action
• This approach is more like being a Fly-on-the-Wall:

5. In Lifestyle photography is often comes down to Styling
• Styling has to do with hair, wardrobe, props, and location
• Styling is any intentional action you take to improve the overall aesthetic of the photographic

6. In Lifestyle photography, I rarely shoot in auto-focus mode.
• I prefer to shoot in manual-focus mode.
• Simple tap the screen and tell the camera where, in the scene, you want the focus to be
• Like exposure, you can lock your focus too by long-pressing the reticle

7. It’s marvelous to see what your subject looks like in slow-motion.
• For this kind of photography 120FPS is probably slow enough
• You have control over your FPS in Settings app so make sure you activate before you start shooting

8. The iPhone camera has built-in Face detection which is awesome for people and Lifestyle photography
• This is not something you need to activate. It is on by default
• The iPhone will detect up to 10 people in a scene-great for group shots.
• The new iPhone models also have cool blink and smile detection built is to help you capture that perfect shot

9. Shooting in the shade lowers the dynamic range of the scene.
• The iPhone only has an 8 stop dynamic range
• Shooting in the shade is generally more flattering for Lifestyle photos

10. Live Photos, if activated, will record 1.5 seconds of video before and after your shot.
• You have to toggle on Live Photos if you want to use -top of screen-
• It’s best to keep the camera still when shooting Live Photos-give is a few seconds on each side to get what it needs to get before racing off to next shot
• You can create some really cool moments with this feature
Photos by Jack Hollingsworth