You Don’t Have to Be a Pro to Be Behind the Camera

Photographing landscapes and gardens has become an integral part of our smartphone-led lives; whether you are a landscaper or a homeowner, sharing images from your beautiful garden or landscape can bring a lot of joy as well as giving examples of creative garden design.

That’s why iScape has made it super easy for anyone to snap a picture of their yard or landscape, and design away like a Pro! All you have to do is take a picture on the app or upload a photo from your camera roll. After that, you can draw a ground area, upload your own yard features, or add from our database on the app. All from your own fingertips!

Here are a few more tips for taking good photos with your mobile device:

  1. Stop Centering – Most people see a tree or flower and want to make it the very center of the photo. However, placing your subject off-center can be the secret to truly enhancing a photo. Practice centering a flower, then put it far off to the left or right of  your focus and you’ll discover that sometimes straight on is not as interesting, creative, or as flattering as off-center.

  2. Use Gridlines to Follow the Rule of Thirds – Another way to avoid centering with more of a guideline is to use your camera’s grid line tool, which superimposes a grid over your image. According to the “Rule of Thirds'' any photo is broken down into thirds, either vertically or horizontally, giving you nine boxes. When you are taking your photo, place the points of interest along the lines, then your phone shot will be more interesting to the eye.

  3. Tap Into Focus – Do you want the focus of your photo to be close up, in the middle, or far away? If you tap the phone screen when you are focusing the camera, you will see a small icon come up, which should allow you to focus precisely. Tap again and it will automatically adjust to focus on the area you have tapped on.

Use Natural Light – Smartphone photos that use a flash often look overexposed and can alter colors in an unrealistic way. When taking landscape and garden shots, work to use natural light without a flash as much as possible. Direct sunlight or too much sunlight can also look overexposed in a shot, so practice with shade and light in a way that captures full-color without blasting the image out with too much light.