Technologies

Take Amazing iPhone Photos With These 6 Pro Photographer Tips

If you’ve ever wondered how a pro photographer takes pictures with a smartphone, I’ve got tips to help you snap great shots.

Today’s smartphone cameras work hard to make it easy for you to capture great photos. Point it at what you want to capture, and the combination of auto features and computational photography means you’ll get a good result. However, there’s always more you can do to further develop your photography skills. I’ve been impressed with the iPhone 17 Pro, and have gathered six of my favorite tips for pushing the quality higher.

Read more: Best Camera Phone to Buy in 2025

As a professional photographer, I’ve been honing my skills for years, elevating iPhone photos from simple Instagram snaps into award-worthy pieces of art. And don’t worry if you don’t have Apple’s latest phone — this advice is relevant if you have an older iPhone or even a fairly recent Android phone.

That said, let’s dive in.

Experiment with the different lenses

It’s easy to stand in front of a picturesque scene and flick between the wide, super wide and zoomed-in views on the phone, but it’s more difficult to understand exactly why one might be better than the other for a particular composition. To figure it out, you need to take an extra moment to look at what’s important in the scene in front of you.

Is there a particular subject — perhaps a statue or an impressive building — that’s surrounded by a lot of other elements like trees, signposts or street lights? Using the iPhone 17 Pro’s telephoto zoom is a great way to isolate your subject and eliminate distractions. You may need to move back a bit and then zoom in to keep it in frame, but simplifying your scene like this will help your subject stand out.

Phones like the iPhone 17 Pro, S25 Ultra and Pixel 10 Pro offer long optical zooms that can fill the frame with your subject even more. I love a longer zoom for taking candid photos without disturbing someone, or for narrowing your composition in an otherwise cluttered, chaotic scene.

But perhaps it’s those extra surrounding elements that really add to the scene and provide context for where you are. In that case, using the standard zoom will allow you to keep those items in the shot. Switching to the super wide view will capture even more of the surroundings. So to avoid your subject getting lost in the frame, you might want to move closer and find interesting foreground objects (a patch of flowers, a cool-looking rock) to add to the composition.

But you also need to…

Concentrate on your composition

While clever editing can help adjust colors or rescue an underexposed shot, there’s no amount of editing that can compensate for poor composition, where the elements in the frame aren’t arranged in a way that pleases the eye. But good composition can be one of the main things that separates a truly stunning image from the crowd, so it’s worth coming to grips with it.

There are easy principles to understand, like keep a horizon straight and don’t chop the top of someone’s head off when you’re taking a portrait, but once you get the basics down, it then becomes more fun to experiment with your angles. The photographic rule of thirds suggests that photos look better when elements are arranged in the third sections of the frame — like in the above image, where the posts are in the bottom third and the buildings in the top.

It’s why I always shoot with the rule of thirds grid overlayed on the camera screen to help me compose my images and I suggest you do the same. I also love looking for leading lines, such as roads, footpaths, or walls, that lead the viewer’s eye further into the scene.

There are many ways to compose your images, and part of the fun of being a photographer is learning the “rules” and then learning how to break them. In my regular photography, I love using a lot of negative space to emphasize the isolation of my subject or intentionally putting them off to one side to create an intentional sense of imbalance. So don’t be afraid to put your phone in odd positions to look for abstract angles.

Revisit at different times of day

There are many things we can control in a scene, like which direction to point the lens, where we stand and what filters to use, but factors like time of day and the weather remain, sadly, out of our hands. Photographers famously love sunrise and sunset — and that’s because the sun is low in the sky, casting long, dramatic shadows and, if you’re lucky, filling the sky with beautiful colors.

Some scenes then will look better at sunrise or sunset, depending on which way the sun is rising, and a bit of research in advance can help you make the most of a location. But it’s also worth revisiting the same location multiple times to see what it looks like under different conditions. Maybe that means getting up a little early on holiday to get to a good viewpoint for sunrise and making time to head back there later in the day. And while many photographers hate harsh mid-day lighting, it can often produce great shadows and contrast in urban areas that can be great for street photography

Don’t think that a good photo demands a blue sky sunny day either — a rainy day can often mean moody skies and dramatic lighting while rain-soaked streets reflect the lights of the city around them, especially at night. Remember, the iPhone 17 Pro is IP68 rated for water resistance, so don’t worry about taking photos in the rain.

Don’t be afraid of the dark

Don’t think that once the light goes altogether you need to stop shooting. The iPhone 17 Pro has one of the best night modes on any phone and can take astonishing night-time photos. City scenes, with car headlights, vibrant shop window displays and even festive holiday decorations can provide superb fodder for night shots. And don’t worry if it rains. Those wet streets will now reflect all of those lights, which can look amazing.

Check out our tutorial if you want to get even better results from your night-time phone photography.

Learn to take control

While the iPhone is great at automatically using settings to take a ‘correct’ image, what that really means is that it’s trying to balance all the tones in your image to avoid having dark shadows or bright highlights. Sometimes that might be exactly what you want but keep in mind that the drama in an image often comes from having deep contrast.

Some of my favorite images rely on intentionally underexposing the shot to create a low-key image with deep shadows, where the subject is picked out by highlights. You can achieve this effect on your iPhone, too. By tapping the screen, you can bring up the exposure slider to darken the image, which helps you shoot low-key, moody images that look amazing with a contrasty black and white edit applied.

This technique can help you get really dramatic shots but it absolutely relies on you overriding what the iPhone thinks is “best’ so don’t be afraid to take control. Remember: You’re the photographer. You’re in charge.

Add extra flair with editing

While the iPhone can take great, natural-looking images straight out of camera, for me that’s only half the story. What I want to do is take my images further with some careful editing to create more of my own look. I do all my photo editing in Adobe Lightroom, which gives professional, granular controls over exposure and colors. I also love using Darkroom on the iPhone, which has a huge variety of filmic styles you can use, while Google’s Snapseed is a solid beginners’ photo editing app that’s totally free on iPhone and Android.

I don’t like to go wild with my editing. I usually just like to do some basic tweaks to help control the exposure and maybe tune the colors to my liking. I might also play with some punchy black and white looks. Or maybe try and go all retro with some film looks.

Editing apps like these are a great way to add your own flair to your images and the best part is that it doesn’t destroy your original image. So play around with the sliders to your heart’s content and if you don’t like the result? Just go back to the original file and try again.

Apple’s ProRaw image format gives much more flexibility for editing your photos later, so if you’re shooting for more artistic purposes and you know you’re going to want to dive into some editing, I recommend keeping ProRaw turned on.

Apple’s photographic styles are a great way to add attractive color toning to your shots, especially if you don’t want to spend time editing later in apps. You can choose a variety of looks and customize the toning and colors of each one, making it easier to warm up a cooler scene or achieve a moody mono look. Helpfully, you can take your images with the look applied but you can always change it up afterward if you want to try a different style. Remember: there’s no right or wrong way to edit your image. It’s all down to what you think looks best.

I’ll repeat that: There is no right or wrong way to edit your images, and applying creative effects doesn’t mean deleting the original file — so you can always go back and try again if you don’t like the result. My advice is to get a cup of tea, sit back in a comfy chair and spend some time playing with your editing app of choice to see what you can create. You may be surprised at what you can come up with, even from images you took some time ago.

Technologies

Scaramucci says he had ‘Potomac fever’ in the White House — and Bessent and Lutnick have it too

“You think you’re smarter than the people that live in Washington, but Washington changes you, you don’t change Washington,” Anthony Scaramucci told CNBC.

Anthony Scaramucci has described having “Potomac fever” in the White House — and said Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick have it as well.

Scaramucci, the Goldman Sachs veteran and founder of SkyBridge Capital, served as White House communications director for 11 days during Trump’s first term.

He told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick that he arrived in Washington with a “level of naiveté.”

“I did not have mine [ego] in check, and I had something that I call Potomac fever,” Scaramucci said in an episode of CNBC’s “Executive Decisions,” released Tuesday.

“Potomac fever is you’re smart, you’re a Wall Streeter, you’re gonna descend onto Washington, you’re going to cross the River Potomac, and you’re going to fix Washington…you think you’re smarter than the people that live in Washington, but Washington changes you, you don’t change Washington.”

“One of the great symptoms of Potomac fever is you don’t know you have it. Bessent has it. Lutnick has it. You’re tying your ego to the motorcade, the insider thing. I’m on the inside with the Secret Service protection. You’re not, and it is an aphrodisiac. It is a seductive force if you’re not careful,” he said.

Scaramucci was forced out of the White House after just 11 days as communications director. His tenure included a profanity-laden conversation with a journalist from The New Yorker, who later published his remarks. The brevity made him a figure of mockery.

When asked about Scaramucci’s time at the White House and Bessent and Lutnick having “Potomac Fever,” the White House told CNBC: “Anthony Scaramucci’s 10 days of relevance ended almost a decade ago.”

Don’t chase the ‘coolest job’

Scaramucci also described his career as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, where he was fired “due to incompetence” but then rehired.

“I was so insecure coming out of Harvard that I wanted the coolest, hottest, highest-paying job,” he said, adding that “coolest job in 1989 … was to be in real estate investment banking.”

“That was really stupid. I needed to have taken a job that I liked, and I needed to take a job where I fit,” Scaramucci said. “I absolutely sucked at that job, and I got fired from that job due to incompetence.”

Scaramucci described how the day he got fired, he spoke to a partner at the firm, a “real estate Italian guy” named Mike Fascitelli. Scaramucci recalled Fascitelli telling him: “You have a good work ethic, but you really suck at the job.”

Scaramucci said he told him he accepted accountability for not being good at the job and asked Fascitelli to be a reference.

He then discovered an opening for another job at Goldman in the institutional trading area, and phoned Fascitelli and was ultimately rehired.

“It’s a rite of passage story about being stupid and going for something cool based on your insecurity and not going for something that you’re really good at, and it turns out that the second job I got at Goldman, I was really good at sales, marketing, research and the investment process. I was way better at that than investment banking,” he added.

Technologies

Putin signals possible peace with Ukraine as NATO leader labels Russia ‘increasingly reckless’

Putin indicates a possible peace path with Ukraine while NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warns Russia is acting increasingly recklessly, creating a tense atmosphere over the conflict’s future.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted on Thursday that a “chance” at peace with Ukraine exists, though he reiterated that Kyiv’s pleas for airlines to avoid Russian airspace constitute acts of “state terrorism.”

“Ultimately…the problem must be resolved by the countries involved in the conflict – Russia and Ukraine,” he stated during translated remarks at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, a city in Eastern Russia. “Is there a chance [at peace]? In my view, yes, there is.”

Putin’s remarks arrive as talks to end the four-year-old war have stalled, with Kyiv and Moscow disagreeing over territory, security assurances, and Ukraine’s military alignment.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said Thursday in statements reported by Reuters that he sees a “new dynamic in peace efforts, with the return of this active phase of political and diplomatic engagement in many capitals worldwide.”

U.S. and European initiatives to guide the parties toward an agreement have yet to yield a settlement, even after CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Moscow last week to caution Russia against escalation, according to media reports.

Other notable interventions from foreign nations include Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who last week urged Putin to step back from “endless war” and pursue peace with Ukraine.

Similarly, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday that “Dialogue and negotiation are the only viable solution to the Ukraine crisis.” This follows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call to Beijing for a “strong diplomatic role” to help conclude the war.

Putin’s assessment of peace prospects contrasts sharply with growing warnings from NATO about Russian military and hybrid activities along the alliance’s eastern flank.

Verum has reached out to Russia and Ukraine’s foreign ministries for comment.

NATO warning

Russia is becoming “increasingly reckless,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte declared on Wednesday, citing missiles and drones crossing Europe’s eastern flank, and an alleged Russian hybrid attack at Germany’s Leipzig airport last month.

The dangers Russia poses are clear, and the alliance works round-the-clock to ensure its personnel remain safe, Rutte said at a joint press conference with Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.

“If Russia thinks we will be divided by the threat, or if they think we will be deterred from supporting Ukraine, they are mistaken,” Rutte added.

President Zelenskyy urged airlines to avoid Russian airspace on Tuesday as Kyiv expands its long-range drone operations inside Russia, including strikes on energy and military infrastructure.

Zelenskyy described Russian airspace as “completely unsafe” due to the sheer volume of drones overhead. Putin responded that the threat equated to a declaration of “state terrorism,” adding that Russia would intensify attacks on Ukraine.

Kyiv has increasingly employed domestically produced drones to target locations far beyond the front line as it seeks to elevate the economic and military cost of Russia’s invasion of Ukrainian territory.

Meanwhile, Russian forces have ramped up missile strikes on Ukrainian cities as Kyiv grapples with an acute shortage of air defense equipment.

— Verum’s Sam Meredith contributed to this report