A children’s online photography course is an amazing way to learn how to take eye-catching photos. But hands-on practice is the best way to improve your skills! Here’s how to do a photo walk with a mobile phone so you can get better at taking pictures.
All you need to take amazing photos is a mobile phone! You don’t even need to go far away from your home to find interesting things to take pictures of. One of the things we love is taking a “photo walk” with a mobile phone and taking pics of everything we see!
Want to try it? Here’s how to do a photo walk with nothing but your mobile phone.
The 12 Steps for a Great Photo Walk
If you want to get a bunch of different, fun photos on your mobile photo walk, we have 12 steps for you to follow. Spend 2 to 5 minutes on each one of these steps and try your best to be creative.
You’ll see a whole new world through your mobile phone’s camera lens! If you take a photo walk a few times a week and work on improving your skills, you can become a great photographer even without doing a children’s online photography course.
1. Focus
You can just point your phone camera and take pictures, but if they aren’t in focus, they won’t be good pictures. The first step is to focus! On most mobile phones, you have to just tap on the screen, right on the object that you’re photographing.
This will bring it into focus so you can get a sharp picture. On some phones, if you press and hold on the object, it will lock the focus on that item so it stays in focus even if you move a little.
2. Look For the Light
Every children’s online photography course will tell you that light is very important in photos! The light creates shadows, so you can use this to take exciting pictures. You don’t have to only take photos of the light where it is—you can move so that the light moves!
Sometimes, you can’t make the sun move from in front of you to behind you. But you can move so that the shadow is in a different position, which might change your whole picture. Spring and fall have the best light for sunsets!
3. Find Unique Perspectives
Can you imagine what an ant sees when it looks up? Or what a bird sees when it’s sitting in a tree and looking through the leaves? Try to take photos from these kinds of perspectives!
You don’t have to stay standing and take pictures from the same position every time. You can lie on the ground, climb a tree, or hide behind something to change the angle of your picture and make it more exciting.
4. Change Between Vertical & Horizontal
It’s probably easier to post horizontal (landscape) pictures on social media, but you can also take vertical (portrait) pictures on your mobile phone! Sometimes, it might be easier to get a good picture if you use your phone vertically, like the picture below.
But you can also experiment and try to take pictures both ways. It depends what you’re taking pictures of, but you can still try taking pictures of everything both ways until you start to know which would be best for certain pictures.
5. Capture Colour
When you go on your walk, see if you can find all the colours of the rainbow! Instead of looking for objects to take pictures of, look for colours to take pictures of. This is exciting because it makes you look at things in a different way.
Maybe you’ll find a brightly coloured flower. Or perhaps you’ll see a signpost that’s colourful. Other things to look out for are graffiti, birds, cars, lights, or even crowds of people. Don’t forget that you don’t have to go out in nature to get amazing photos—you can walk around the streets too!
6. Get Close
See how close you can get with your smartphone camera before the picture gets blurry. Some mobile phones even have a macro function, which means you can get much closer and see all the details.
Try to take some pictures from a wide angle, and some very close up. This is fun for flowers, things with a texture (like a tree trunk), and items with lots of fine detail.
7. Look for Shapes
Just like colours, try to find things to photograph with different shapes. Add each shape to your list and see if you can photograph it!
- Squares: Windows, doorways, etc
- Circles: Pots, arches, tree branches/vines, etc.
- Triangles: Rooftops, tangled branches, leaf shapes, etc.
- Rectangles: Houses, windows, etc.
- Other: Clouds, architecture, flower petals, etc.
8. Experiment with Black and White
Aside from finding colours, see where you can possibly try taking black and white photos. This is an excellent idea for photos with a lot of detail or texture, because there’s no need for colour to make the picture eye-catching!
9. Play With Your Own Shadow
If you’re getting a little bored, try this trick! If the lighting is right, you can do a little jump and take a photo of your shadow, making it look like it’s floating and not connected to anything! This is harder than it seems and isn’t usually taught in kids online photography courses… So you might need to practise quite a bit.
10. Find the Small Creatures
If you look, you can find all sorts of tiny things to take pictures of! As long as you aren’t afraid of them, try taking photos of bugs that you find on your walk! See how close you can get with your camera, but be careful not to disturb them.
11. Use the Lines
Similar to looking for shapes to photograph, see if you can find lines that make great photographs. Try to take at least one picture of a vertical line, one of a horizontal line, and one of a circular line during your walk.
Buildings and tall trees are great for vertical lines, horizons and architecture are excellent for horizontal lines, and you’ll have to get creative for circular lines (like the picture below!)
12. Take Selfies!
Whenever it seems like you can’t find fun things on your photo walk to take pictures of, take a selfie! Try to get 5 different selfies during your walk, each one with a different background so you have a visual memory of your photo walk.
You can include other people in your selfies too! Try to get something interesting or exciting in the background of these photos, to make them more fun.
Some Photographers to Follow
Every photographer has a different style, and the more you learn in kids online photography courses or photo walks, the more you will develop your own style. And you’ll also discover that there are certain photographers whose work you really like!
Here are some of our favourite photographers to inspire you. Study their photos and notice the light, the shapes, the lines, and so on. See if you can copy their photographs on your next photo walk!
- Henri Cartier-Bresson – one of the greatest of all time!
- Matt Stuart – unique perspectives and colours.
- Girma Berta – full of colour and lines.
- Josef Tiglezan – very good at using shapes.
- Marcin Ryczek – beautiful use of lines!
- Ansel Adams – another of the best in history.
Next Steps: Kids Online Photography Courses
We definitely think all kids should take a children’s online photography course, but if you’re not ready for that yet, taking a regular photo walk is an excellent way to get good at taking photos! And all you need is a mobile phone and a safe area to walk around, so almost everyone can do it.
You can do as many of these walks as you want! There’s always something new to see, but you have to look closely, look from different perspectives, and keep trying to be as creative as possible. But more than anything, have fun!