Can you feel the brotherly love?—reunited after eight days.

Both of them SWEAR they didn’t miss him and they’re both sticking to their story—and I asked each of them several dozen times.

They didn’t see each other for eight days when Alexander was away at Boy Scout camp last week. Teddy was home alone with us and seemed to be as happy as a pig in slop.

“Come on, Teddy,” I would say, “don’t you miss your brother just a LITTLE bit?”

“Nope,” he would respond with ZERO indication of ANY affection—not even a dent. We may be at that age—maybe one day, many days from now.

Anyway, this is the moment they were reunited. I put my iPhone out in space and held the button down in burst mode. I shot fifteen pictures in a couple of second—the best frame was immediately obvious. After I made my selection, I deleted the other fourteen using the “delete the others” function. It’s very slick.

I have, however, found that the more I shoot with my wide-angle camera smartphone (ALL smartphone cameras are wide-angle cameras, by the way) the more I find that my pictures benefit from a crop. It’s a little like I’ve been taking pictures all of my adult life and all of a sudden I’ve discovered (okay, re-discovered) cropping.

So my photographic thinking seems to be evolving to accommodate my smartphone camera:

Shoot now—and a little bit wide.
Crop later.

The benefits of cropping are numerous. You can get a little closer to your subject for impact, you can eliminate possible distractions in the background, and you can re-position your subject for a stronger composition—usually by getting the subject out of the middle of the frame.

But I think my favorite use of cropping is to strengthen what’s happening at the edges of the pictures and making the whole thing look intentional and not careless or accidental. Notice in the pictures below, for example, how I dealt with the curve of Teddy’s shirt on the left that was dinging up against the edge of the frame. I simply cropped it out.

That approach seems to be serving me well. (I find myself using the burst mode more and more as a standard tool. To use if you simply hold the “shutter” button down and away it goes. I’m sure all you have discovered it be accident.)

And, of course, and I know I’m SO predictable here, I just love these childhood moments in black and white.

Edges are SO important to composition and I actually think I’ve improved all four edges with my crop here.

So I have a couple questions for you:

Did you even know about your camera’s burst function and have you ever used it?—on purpose, I mean.

And how often do you crop your smartphone shots? You can do some very sophisticated crops using the editing function right on your phone. (I love cropping my smartphone photos when I have some down time—like waiting in the dentist’s office. I’ve done some of my best cropping at the dentist.)

Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

p.s.  Want to know more about your smartphone camera—and get tips, techniques, and tricks to improve your shots?

Click here if you want a fun little course to make your smartphone photos the best they can be.

Remember the best camera for you is the one that’s with you…

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