Alison Chino wants to live in a world where the adventures are new every day, the soups feed a crowd, and the kids still play outside. Her travel musings, stories about expat life in Scotland and yummy recipes can be found at alisonchino.com. Or follow along on Twitter or Instagram.
I am going to let you in on a little secret. Sometimes people call me a photographer and I don’t even own a camera.
Except for the one that is in my phone.
Here are a few reasons I love using my phone to take pictures for my travel blog.
1. Small and Simple
I love taking pictures, and sometimes I think about getting a bigger camera, but the block for me is not purchasing the camera. It’s the idea of carrying it around, and learning how to use complicated editing software. I would have to come up with a storage system for the bigger files that bigger cameras hold, and I would rather spend more time wandering the world than figuring that out.
2. Phone Editing Apps
Everyone has their own favorite photography apps, and there are new ones being made all the time that make the pictures on your phone look amazing.
For me, it’s like this:
Snapseed + VSCO Cam = Life Changed
The drama filter on Snapseed makes the textures on your photos pop, and will add light to a picture that is too dark. It’s like magic!Also I love Instagram like a thirteen year old. Seriously.However, sometimes I want an Instagram filter on several photos for a blog post, but I don’t want to put them all on Instagram. In that case, you can turn off your data (or wifi on an iTouch) and Instagram all the photos you want. They will come up in your feed as “failed” but they will save to your photos. You then delete the failed photos and turn your data back on. Voila!
I often run a picture through all three of these apps before I’m happy with it.
3. Pictures go straight to my blog via the WordPress App
One of the handiest parts of using my phone for all my pictures is that I can upload my photos to where they need to go through the apps on my phone. When I had a camera, I had to store the pictures on my computer, resize them and then upload them to a website.
Now you can use the apps for WordPress or Etsy or wherever your website is hosted to upload your photos directly from your phone. So easy!
4. Work on the go.
Using my phone for photography means I am getting more work done when I am on the road. If I take, edit and upload pictures while I’m traveling, when I get home I can open up my computer, sit down and just write. The pictures are already there. All I have to do is use my journal to fill in the stories.I have to say that I do have a huge appreciation for gorgeous DSLR photos. We have our family photos done every year by a professional photographer and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. But for every day blogging, I am finding that using my phone works beautifully!
I’ve been trying to decide if I want to buy a DSLR camera. I finally found one that I really like, but I’m just not sure I want to fork out that kind of money yet. I do want to get into travel writing for magazines, so I’m sure having my own camera would be useful anyway, but I always hesitate when making big purchases like this because it’s an investment I have to make sure I’m committed to.
I really don’t think you need one! I regularly get compliments on the photos I take while I travel - and I use a $100 point and shoot I store in a sock!
Thank you for posting this! I bought a dslr camera earlier this year with the intention of taking really awesome photos for my blog but in actual fact I hardly ever take it with me anywhere because it’s far too big to cart around.
I got an iphone for Christmas and already I’m editing, adding filters, words & pretty borders to my pictures and I find it so MUCH easier than my dslr which made me want to do my photos for my blog from my phone instead but I didn’t know if it was ‘okay’ or not. Silly I know cause it’s my own blog! But now this post has completely given me the permission to do so. Thank you so much Sarah and Alison!
Elise
Awesome! So glad to hear it!
Thanks for this post! I’m without a good computer for awhile and need to edit my pics on my phone, perfect.
These are all great reasons. I don’t know about that Instagram photos for saving them without sharing them - I could use that one. I use both my iPhone and my DSLR for photos, but I do find the iPhone much easier to use and to edit with. I too love to combine Snapseed and VSCO. Before I edit any photo I go through Snapseed.
I use both my DSLR and my iPhone, each for different things. There are just some things that look better with the good camera. But I totally agree with snapseed, best photo editing app ever! Love it.
Good to know about instragram. I over flowed it one day trying to get the pics with the filters I wanted.
Thanks for sharing!
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I have a DSLR, a point and shoot and an iPhone camera. I find that I use the iPhone out of sheer convenience and I don’t have to fear losing it at the school that I work at.
I do, however, miss working larger photos but it’s too inconvenient when you have very little time.
Totally agree with Snapseed! It has been my absolute favorite since I got my new phone!
Great post! I totally agree that most of us don’t need a DSLR; I use my mobile for pretty much everything these days, including blogging.
However, I think it’s worth noting that there are many smartphones out there besides iPhone, and some notable ones with a better camera than the iphone has. Although Apple currently has about 40% of the US smartphone market, they only have 15% of the global smartphone market, so I find the title of the post kind of odd.