Smartphone Photography

So says Jeanette “Jet” Lendon, a professional photographer specialising in smartphone photography courses, who visited us on 23 April to teach us how to use our smartphone cameras properly.  She did not wish to “convert” us from our “big cameras”, just show us what we can get out of our phones.  Showing people how to get the best photos from their phones is Jeanette’s passion.  She believes that photography should be available to everyone and not just those who have a “fancy camera”.

As she pointed out, we used to have phones that took photos.  Now, with the exponential growth in smartphone ownership and huge technological innovation, we have cameras that make phone calls.  Vast numbers of pictures are being taken yet many of them are awful.  She aims to give people the skills to utilise their smartphone cameras better and release their full potential.

Jeanette was previously a primary school teacher.  But she retrained as a photographer and ran her own corporate photography business for 14 years.  In April 2020, realising that there was a gap in the market – “most posted photos are crap” – she refocused her business towards smartphone photography workshops.

She distinguishes between “snaps” and “photographs”.  But regards both as equally important.  And she wanted us to stop thinking of our smartphones as phones and instead think of them as cameras.  She herself has an iPhone.  But that is only because she is a Mac user (and a technophobe) – they are no better than other smartphones just different.

So Jeanette showed us all how to set up our smartphone cameras (all types, whether Apple, Samsung, Google, or something else).  Such things as how to turn on the “grid” (so we could get things straight, upright, level, etc) and how to engage the different lenses.

She also showed us how to control exposure with a stroke of the finger and how to use the different modes (eg, Night, Macro, Portrait).

Displaying an array of her own images, Jeanette demonstrated that high calibre photographs can be achieved in nearly all types of photography.  Her pictures included architecture (internal and external), nature (dandelions, insects), macro, and reflections, as well as action, fashion, street, long exposures, night shots, and even underwater shots.  And helpfully she revealed the techniques used to make these images.

These included turning the phone upside down, under-exposing to emphasise textures/tones, using the selfie camera and putting the phone flat on the ground to shoot straight upwards, using puddles and windows to create reflections, and much more.  There were tips and tricks galore.

Jeanette has some extra lenses for her iPhone.  But, other than a particularly good macro lens (“you can get a clip-on macro lens for £10”), she does not use them much.

She also has several helpful apps on the phone.  She uses Snapseed (the free photo-editing application produced by Nik Software, now owned by Google) for most of her post-processing.

Jeanette’s talk gave everyone plenty of food for thought.  The quality of her images proved that great results can be achieved with smartphones and “you can photograph what you see as and when you see it”.  And she is a most engaging and enthusiastic speaker – all without a scrip – who provided lots and lots of really helpful information.

Everyone seemed to learn a great deal.  And the entries for next season’s Mobile Phone Competition should now be astounding!

More of Jeanette’s marvellous images, and details of her “Smartphone Safaris” and other workshops, can be found at https://www.jetblacksquares.com/

She is also on Facebook, X, and Instagram.