While they’re called “smartphones,” the devices most small business owners and managers are walking around with in their pockets and bags these days may as well be called “smart cameras with a phone.” The technology now packed into iPhones and Android phones make them capable of capturing high-quality images in all sorts of conditions and situations. (One smart phone, the Sony Xperia Z1s, can even shoot photos underwater.) Taking and sharing photographs is quickly becoming a significant and valuable marketing activity–we call it photo marketing–for many small businesses, so becoming a better photographer is an important skill to develop. (That’s why we make photo marketing tips a regular topic on SmallBusiness.com.)

It helps also that there are lots of talented photographers who are always trying to push the envelope on what someone can do with a smartphone camera. Exhibit 1: Lorenz Holder (website|instagram). In the video below created for The Cooperative of Photography, Lorenze demonstrates some tricks for doing things with a smartphone that seem like magic, or at least end up with magical photographs. After seeing it, you’ll doubt there’s anything a smartphone camera can’t do. (We’ll get to those in another post.)

(via: The Cooperative of Photography)