Nowadays, people are “drowning in photographs,” National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yüyan told me.
But there are ways to make yours stand out — even if you’re just shooting on your phone.
Yüyan tells visual stories about how different cultures relate to the environment, from the Amazon to the Arctic seas. He gave me four useful tips for taking pictures with my phone, and one of them made me think about photographing nature in a whole new way.
Put something between your camera and the scenery
When it comes to making phone photos stand out, Yüyan said natural landscapes are especially challenging since they’ve been photographed so much. His best advice is to find a foreground subject.
“Great backgrounds, such as mountains or waterfalls, are easy to find because we’re always looking for them,” Yüyan said. “On the other hand, a good foreground subject, such as blooming wildflowers or a craggy tree, can be much harder to find in the right location.”
Yüyan recommended searching for an interesting foreground subject and framing your shot so you can see the scenery in the distance.
“It’ll give your images depth, intimacy, and make your photos unique,” he said.
I had never thought about foreground in this way before, but his tip reminded me of when I photographed a beach across the street from mountains in Santa Cruz, California. I started by photographing the beach from the shore. I thought the mountains looked nice, but the foreground was just sand, which made the bottom half of my image look boring.
Then I took my phone across some ocean rocks and into the tide pools. The rocks and the reflecting water spruced up my foreground, giving my image more layers. To me, this made my second picture feel more interesting and dynamic.
I also thought about a time I took some photos on my phone during a hike in Prescott, Arizona. When I first arrived at the Watson Lake parking lot for my hike, I thought it looked stunning with rock formations I hadn’t seen before. But photographing the scene from the lot didn’t seem to do it justice.
Once I immersed myself in the landscape by hiking the trails, I found foreground subjects such as shrubs and trees that better framed the lake scene. The inclusion of these elements in the second image gave a better sense of what it was really like to be there because it had more layers showing what actually surrounds the lake.
Some images in my camera roll already seemed to support Yüyan’s tip, but the National Geographic photographer helped me identify what makes certain pictures stronger than others. I’ll go into my next nature trip feeling more inspired to shoot from my phone and scout for interesting foregrounds.
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