Six tips for taking great indoor photos

There’s an oft-quoted statistic that three quarters of the photos taken on smartphones are never looked at once they’ve been saved to the device’s memory or the cloud.

That’s a damning indictment of the disposable nature of photography, which used to be something people valued and cherished.

Although the world has moved on from the days of nana’s dusty photo albums, our digital images do deserve a bit more recognition and appreciation.

In truth, a key reason why historic pictures aren’t viewed more frequently is their variable quality – particularly when taken indoors.

Without direct sunlight, great indoor photos can be hard to light. And without a wide-angle camera lens, it’s often challenging to fit that much into shot.

Fortunately, there are ways to ensure even a photo of your Saturday fry-up looks good enough to view at a later date…

1. Decide what you’re capturing. Photos with lots of foreground or background clutter dilute the reason you wanted a picture in the first place.

Take a moment to view the shot through your smartphone screen. Try to remove any blurry foreground items, or angle the camera down to minimise unnecessary background detail.

2. Adjust available light sources. A smartphone flash is no substitute for the pools of brightness created by lamps, spotlights and other internal illuminations.

Turning on multiple light sources creates additional colour, gentle shade and more character. Crucially, it also ensures whatever is being photographed is lit as naturally as possible.

3. Never shoot towards a window. Property photography is taken towards a window, because professionals use powerful flash guns to capture great indoor photos.

Without a flash gun, the light from a window often floods the shot, making foreground objects very dark. This is particularly true on sunny days, or if the window is south-facing.

4. Avoid photos leaning to one side. Outdoors, you might be able to get away with a lopsided image. Indoors, it’ll look like the room is sinking in one corner.

It takes practice to ensure vertical lines look vertical and horizontal lines appear horizontal, but this is arguably the single biggest attribute underpinning any great indoor photo.

5. Avoid reflections. Great indoor photos make the photographer invisible. They don’t show someone crouching in front of a mirror, or standing by a window.

Eliminating yourself from shot takes practice, especially while using a camera flash, which has an annoying habit of bouncing off glass surfaces like dining tables and shower screens.

6. Review the picture before moving on. If your subject isn’t about to move, take a moment to look at the picture and ensure you’re happy with it.

If you’re not, try to retake it while addressing any areas of concern. If you are happy, there’s a higher chance it won’t simply be stored on your device and never looked at again…