Photography tutorial: how to take creative photos with your cell phone

2 simple tricks to take original photographs in highly photographed spaces and succeed on Instagram, by photographer Emilio Chuliá

We all want to immortalize our trips and be able to share them with our family and friends: the immediacy of social networks, such as Instagram, has made things much easier and nowadays we can almost make a live visual diary of all our adventures.

However, it is difficult to find an original angle in those places that everyone visits, so many times you end up taking photos very similar to the other hundred, thousand or hundred thousand that have already been taken there. To activate your creativity and look for a new perspective, photographer Emilio Chuliá has two simple tips that will help you get special and original photos using only your cell phone.

1. Change the time to take the picture

Before taking a photograph, it is interesting to know when is the most frequent time (photographically speaking) of that place and try to go when the rest of the world is not going.

For example, if it's a place especially known for its sunrise or sunset photographs.... what if you're encouraged to photograph it at midday, or some other time? You'll find nuances and visual ideas that are different from the usual.

2. Take a photo that nobody would do

In this case, it's about trying to go a little bit further in terms of composition and choice of subjects to photograph, moving away from the established path. Normally, what is out of the ordinary is what ends up standing out on the Instagram grid, so the basic question to ask yourself would be: what photography can I do here that is different?.

Think, for example, of a typical monument, a certain construction, a square, a very popular landscape... surely you have already formed in your mind a certain perspective of that place, built with the hundreds of photos you have been seeing throughout your life. The objective now is precisely to escape from that usual perspective, and look for a new, unexpected, original angle or composition.

In his online course 'Introduction to minimalist photographic composition', Emilio Chuliá teaches you the basics of a technique that will allow you to show in photographs the beauty of the everyday, filling your social networks with original and unique compositions.

You may be interested in

- Photography and composition for Instagram, a course by Héctor Merienda.
- Photography for social networks: Lifestyle branding on Instagram, a course by BOND.
- Creative photography for social networks, a course by Anna Devís and Daniel Rueda.
- Architectural and urban photography, a course by Nicanor García.