Interior Design Photography on a Budget: How to Use Your Smartphone Like a Pro

If you told me you could take professional interior design photos with just your phone, I wouldn’t have believed you—until this conversation.

In this episode, I’m joined by Linda Holt, a former professional photographer turned educator who’s flipping the script on what it means to get great photos as a designer. She’s here to tell us that smartphone photography for interior designers is not only possible—it’s actually a smart move.

Linda shares why our phones are more powerful than we think (hello, 24 megapixels!), the must-know elements of lighting, composition, and editing, and how owning your own images could save you from costly copyright headaches. We also chat about how newer designers can level up their portfolios without dropping thousands on a professional shoot.

This episode is packed with practical advice, real-life examples (including some jaw-dropping legal stories), and the tools you need to get started today.

episode highlights

1. Why your smartphone might be better than your old DSLR

2. The 3 pillars of professional-quality smartphone photos

3. The real risks of not owning your photography

4. How to edit easily (even if you’re not techy)

5. Affordable lighting gear that actually works

6. Linda’s journey from fashion photographer to design educator

Episode Resources

• Connect with Linda on her website at lindaholtcreative.com or on Instagram at @lindaholtcreative

• Check out Linda’s workshop: Smartphone Photography for Interior Designers

• Linda’s favorite gear & lighting: Smartphone Accessories

• Editing app: Snapseed

Read the Full Transcript ⬇️

00;00;00;00 – 00;00;29;10
Linda Holt
They think of their cell phone as a subpar digital camera when they should be thinking of it as a $1,200 high end camera and treat it as such. Take the same amount of time composing the shot. Thinking about the lighting with their smartphone as they would if they had some big digital camera on a tripod and not think about the smartphone, is just this cheap, subpar camera because it is not all right.

00;00;29;12 – 00;00;58;14
Rebecca Hay
I’m Rebecca Hay, and I’ve built a successful interior design business by trial and error. Podcast, online courses and so many breaking books. Over the last decade, I’ve grown from an insecure student to having false starts to careers. And now I’m finally in the place where I want to be. Throughout my journey, it’s been pretty obvious that I’m passionate about business and helping other entrepreneurs do the same.

00;00;58;16 – 00;01;29;28
Rebecca Hay
Each week, I’ll share tangible takeaways from my own experience and the experiences of other badass women to help you build your confidence and change your business. Hey hey hey, it’s Rebecca, and you’re listening to Resilient by Design. Today’s podcast guest is Linda Holt of Linda Holt Creative. You may have seen her on Instagram. She’s the lady teaching all of us interior designers how to take professional photographs with our cell phones.

00;01;30;01 – 00;01;56;18
Rebecca Hay
After 25 years working as a professional photographer and 11 years running a full service interior design business. Linda Holt saw a need in the design industry to help fellow designers and home professionals get better photos using their smartphone. After successfully teaching smartphone photography workshops in and around Boston, she created an online photography class for interior designers and home professionals.

00;01;56;20 – 00;02;27;13
Rebecca Hay
Today, she splits her time between online course creation, public speaking and running education webinars on her favorite topic of smartphone photography and editing. She is a sought after speaker, and she teaches smartphone photography workshops across the nation, including High Point Market, Atlanta Vegas, Dallas Market, and the Design Influencer Conference. You guys are in for a treat today. Linda and I talk about why you can use smartphone photographs, and you don’t need to hire a professional.

00;02;27;13 – 00;02;46;08
Rebecca Hay
This is the first time I’ve ever had this conversation. We talk about some of the drawbacks to working with professional photographers, and she even shares a couple examples of lawsuits. So you guys are going to love this conversation because it’s very eye opening. I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation with Linda. Of course. Please hit me up in the DMs on Instagram.

00;02;46;10 – 00;03;06;03
Rebecca Hay
Let me know what you think because I was a little blown away by this conversation. Enjoy my convo with Linda. Linda. Welcome to Resilient by Design. I’m so excited to finally have you on the podcast. We’ve been trying to get you on it. Just, I don’t know, for one reason or another. It didn’t happen. But the stars align and here we are today.

00;03;06;04 – 00;03;07;17
Rebecca Hay
I cannot wait to chat.

00;03;07;24 – 00;03;12;24
Linda Holt
Thank you so much and I totally agree. It’s been way too long and I’m very excited to be here.

00;03;12;25 – 00;03;21;05
Rebecca Hay
So how about before we dive in? Why don’t you just give our listeners a little bit of a summary of who you are and what it is that you do now?

00;03;21;06 – 00;03;49;21
Linda Holt
My background is I was a 25 plus year professional photographer. I had a big studio in downtown Boston. I photographed actors and models. I did commercial headshots and model portfolios, actor portfolios. Then in 2008, we had a big recession. It was really bad, and I took that opportunity to go back to school for my second lifelong passion, which was interior design, because a photography business literally crashed overnight.

00;03;49;21 – 00;04;10;19
Linda Holt
Nobody was getting pictures done, went to design school. And then in 2011, I opened up my current business, Linda Holtz Creative. I did that for 11 years, full service interior design. And then I was always photographing with my smartphone. And, you know, when I’d go to shows or High Point or cables, people would say, oh my gosh, that’s so beautiful.

00;04;10;19 – 00;04;29;12
Linda Holt
How did you do that? And everybody kept telling me I should create a course just for interior designers. So during Covid, I could not work with my clients. I spent that entire year creating my course, and it was definitely a journey figuring out how to do that. I knew nothing, but I created my first class during Covid and I loved it.

00;04;29;12 – 00;04;45;21
Linda Holt
I loved teaching, I found out it was a passion I didn’t know I had, so I am no longer working with clients. I’ve stopped that about two years ago and I’m now I’m all in and I have multiple online smartphone photography classes and they’re all geared for interior designers.

00;04;45;26 – 00;05;05;15
Rebecca Hay
I love your story. I can see some similarities in myself and before we hit record today, Linda and I were chatting about our mutual passion for teaching how we’ve just sort of had this calling. So I love that we share that in common. So you’re a professional photographer, so that’s really cool. I actually didn’t know that part of your story that like models and all that jazz that’s very different.

00;05;05;15 – 00;05;23;13
Rebecca Hay
Photographing like portraits and people is different than photographing spaces. And so you must have a real a real breadth of knowledge that you bring to the table. But what’s interesting is you’re not teaching designers necessarily how to use like an SLR and set up a whole professional photo shoot. Am I right? You’re using what we have on us.

00;05;23;14 – 00;05;43;03
Linda Holt
Exactly. And, you know, five years ago, really it was I would say it was not possible to get a portfolio worthy shot using your, your iPhone or your, you know, your smartphone. But that is all changed. And today I can’t stress this enough. The smart phones are as good as a dSLR camera. So what we need it for?

00;05;43;08 – 00;06;09;00
Linda Holt
Obviously you’re not going to go on Safari with your iPhone and think you’re going to get that close up of the lion, you know, way, way in the distance. But for interiors, for going to trade shows or behind the scenes of a job, the smartphone is more than sufficient to get a really high quality shot. It’s just really learning how to use it and knowing some basics composition, lighting, editing, a photography.

00;06;09;06 – 00;06;15;24
Linda Holt
I have friends that are professional photographers that are now using their smartphone. One of my friends is shooting weddings using her smartphone.

00;06;15;25 – 00;06;18;03
Rebecca Hay
What? So you just blew my mind.

00;06;18;07 – 00;06;25;11
Linda Holt
You do not need a digital camera and it’s really true. The smartphones today are amazing.

00;06;25;13 – 00;06;56;23
Rebecca Hay
Wow. Okay, Linda, I’m just I feel like we talk, especially as coaches, you know, as us interior designers that are now coaching interior designers. We always suggest to hire a professional, you need professional photos of your spaces that you design or the homes, your client spaces, what have you, so that you look professional. So it sounds like I’m hearing you say yes, you need professional photos to look professional, but what you’re saying is you don’t actually need to fork over several thousand dollars to a professional photographer.

00;06;56;23 – 00;06;58;27
Rebecca Hay
Or you could do it yourself.

00;06;59;02 – 00;07;16;05
Linda Holt
That’s exactly what I’m saying. Even if you hire the professional, I mean, it’s definitely an investment in time of your own time to learn how to do this. It’s not. I’m not saying you go into a finished space point, shoot point, shoot point and shoot. There you go. It is time consuming. You need to learn how to do it.

00;07;16;05 – 00;07;48;10
Linda Holt
I use a tripod. If it’s a dark space. I bring in lighting, all of which I teach in my class. But a new designer especially, they don’t have necessarily the budget to hire a professional. So I really initially created my course for sort of the new designer because I don’t know, depending where people live in, in Boston, just to have a professional interior photographer show up to the job, you’re looking at $3,000 minimum, and a lot of new designers are that maybe their profit on their first job, especially if they’re doing one space.

00;07;48;12 – 00;08;11;24
Linda Holt
So I even say I are the professional, maybe for the for the money shots, you know, the hero shots. But there’s no reason why you can’t go in and do the detail shots. The vignettes save some money, you know, and do that part yourself because you absolutely can. So I’m not saying don’t use a professional. If you can’t do it so it looks professional, then yes, you need to go hire the professional.

00;08;11;28 – 00;08;17;19
Linda Holt
But if you have the time and maybe not the budget, then it’s worthwhile to learn how to use your phone to do it.

00;08;17;20 – 00;08;35;09
Rebecca Hay
I love this, I love having this conversation because a lot of my listeners are early in their design business journey, or they haven’t even launched yet. And so they hear me say, you need to hire a photographer. But at the same time, to your point, I love that you said that. Linda, like some some people are lucky to have a $3,000 profit.

00;08;35;09 – 00;08;39;04
Rebecca Hay
I didn’t have that as a profit when I was starting me either.

00;08;39;08 – 00;09;05;13
Linda Holt
Another part of my story that I didn’t tell you. Another reason why I ended up having to leave photography is after 25 years of lugging really heavy lighting equipment, lenses, cameras and all the gear I had developed some really serious spinal issues, specifically neck. I had to go see a spine specialist who told me I was going to have to have spinal surgery if I didn’t put down the heavy equipment and stop lifting like that day.

00;09;05;19 – 00;09;18;14
Linda Holt
So that along with a recession, I’m like, okay, this is done. I literally did not pick up a heavy camera again. And now today, I don’t even own a digital dSLR camera. I only have my my smartphone.

00;09;18;14 – 00;09;19;00
Rebecca Hay
Wow.

00;09;19;04 – 00;09;35;01
Linda Holt
When I got out of school and my first job was like, you know, do a bedroom for a friend of mine or, you know, a small family room. And I would charge, you know, I think I was charging $75 an hour and it was all said and done. My profit may have been, you know, this is the early days, 1500 bucks.

00;09;35;08 – 00;09;57;26
Linda Holt
So I didn’t have the money to hire a professional. But I knew nothing about interior photography, literally nothing about it. So that’s when I started kind of going on this journey of learning how to use my smartphone. Because my early smartphone photos were terrible. They were dark, they were out of focus. They were crooked. I literally did not know how to use the phone, but I had to force myself to learn how to use it.

00;09;57;26 – 00;10;14;07
Linda Holt
And that’s when I thought, okay, I figured this out. It’s really easy with the phone or the phone does pretty good exposure. Pretty good, you know, with figuring it all out. So that’s when I decided I could really teach designers how to do this, because I basically started where they were knowing nothing about interior photography.

00;10;14;12 – 00;10;30;26
Rebecca Hay
Yeah, this is really great. I’m trying to think back to my first project. I definitely didn’t hire for my first website. It was my house. It was pictures of my house, which I hadn’t actually quote unquote done. There was like a few things, you know, and I remember taking pictures. I did use a digital camera at the time.

00;10;31;02 – 00;10;42;29
Rebecca Hay
I did my best, and that’s what I used for a while, until I had a project where I thought, okay, it’s worth the investment. Yes. But I mean, smartphones have come such a long way since then. Like, the cameras are amazing.

00;10;43;04 – 00;11;10;15
Linda Holt
They really are. And I think that one of the problems is really with designers. It’s their mindset. They think of their cell phone as a subpar digital camera, when they should be thinking of it as a $1,200 high end camera and treat it as such and take the same amount of time composing the shot, thinking about the lighting with their smartphone as they would if they had some big digital camera on a tripod, they wouldn’t just like point and shoot.

00;11;10;15 – 00;11;22;03
Linda Holt
They would take the time and they need to spend that kind of time thinking about the shot and not think about the smartphone. It’s just this, you know, cheap, subpar camera because it is not it is amazing.

00;11;22;03 – 00;11;29;17
Rebecca Hay
And I actually think, and this is what you teach, I imagine, is that these smartphones that we have are capable of so much more than we’re using them for.

00;11;29;18 – 00;11;48;00
Linda Holt
Absolutely. That’s the number one thing I find is when I teach my classes, people are like their mind is blown because there’s all these hidden features that they don’t even know that’s inside the phone. That can help designers. And you know, when you buy your phone, it doesn’t come with like a camera manual. You have to figure this out.

00;11;48;03 – 00;12;10;21
Linda Holt
And I spend really about 18 months when I went down this deep dive of trying to figure out how to use my smartphone, I watched YouTube videos, I read all these blogs about using it, and, and I kind of had to teach myself I’m not a technical person, and I was so used to controlling everything with my digital camera that the whole point and shoot thing, just none of my photos looked good when I didn’t shoot.

00;12;10;26 – 00;12;21;24
Linda Holt
But I had to learn how to use all those hidden features. Then you can use your phone. Just like a digital camera. You can control the focus, you control the exposure. You know you can use all those features.

00;12;21;25 – 00;12;34;01
Rebecca Hay
Even some of the basic settings. I mean, I would not call myself techie. I am not somebody who even really like thrives and gets excited about it like I get. I knew like my mother in law is more techie than I am. And she’s 73. She’s like, well, why aren’t you doing this and why aren’t you using that?

00;12;34;02 – 00;12;46;29
Rebecca Hay
I’m like, I don’t know, I just don’t think about that. Yeah. But then once it’s shown to me, it’s amazing. And I was recently somewhere I’m trying to take it. I was in Worcester, I was on a retreat and I was trying to take a picture or something. I was like, oh, the color. It’s just not telling the story of the color, right?

00;12;46;29 – 00;13;01;12
Rebecca Hay
I’m I have a good enough eye to see that when I took the picture, I’m like, it’s looking so yellow. And that wasn’t the point. And I wanted to the point of the picture was the color of the fabric or whatever. Yeah. And this girl was like, oh, well, didn’t you know you can change, like the type of light or whatever.

00;13;01;12 – 00;13;24;10
Rebecca Hay
I don’t even remember what it was that she showed me. Yeah. And I’m like, oh no, I’ve never I’ve never tried that. And we found the one that was the perfect color match. And it was just like the simplest little thing that I never would have thought about. I know it exists and I actually I’ll be honest with you, Linda, I think for someone who’s like me it feels overwhelming.

00;13;24;13 – 00;13;45;04
Rebecca Hay
I’m looking at my phone all the things it can do. It’s like these cars nowadays. My dad is 81. He got this new car because he had an accident. So they put him in a new car. It’s the same car, but it’s the new version. And now everything is touch everything, like there’s no bus. And and he’s like, comes to our house on a weekly basis asking us to help him with the car.

00;13;45;04 – 00;13;55;27
Rebecca Hay
And, oh, I can’t listen to the radio. And what happened to this? And now it’s gone. And I get in the car, and I don’t even know if I can help him. I know, and I’m 44 like I know half his age, so.

00;13;55;28 – 00;13;56;11
Linda Holt
Right.

00;13;56;16 – 00;14;03;25
Rebecca Hay
It can feel intimidating. I know that might sound silly to some who are like just an iPhone. Rebecca, do you find that with your student?

00;14;04;01 – 00;14;32;24
Linda Holt
I totally agree with you. Not now, but I remember when I, you know, early in the day when I got my phone and I didn’t know how to use it, I was too scared to even go into the settings because I didn’t know anything about what the phone should be. I didn’t know what the settings should be, I just assumed the phone came like out of the box, ready to go, but you have to go in and actually change some settings to make it more favorable for what we do, which is photographing mainly interiors.

00;14;32;27 – 00;14;45;29
Linda Holt
But I was like you, not techie. I was scared of the phone. I was afraid I was going to break something in the phone. I totally get it. I don’t feel that way anymore, only because it’s been so long and now I’m very familiar with the phone.

00;14;45;29 – 00;14;47;04
Rebecca Hay
Well, you’re an expert now.

00;14;47;09 – 00;15;02;27
Linda Holt
Well, now I am. But I started not knowing anything. I had nothing. I mean, I was making the most ridiculous mistakes with the phone because I was too scared to, you know, my friend once showed me that she did this large text and I’m like, oh my gosh, how did you do that? And she wanted.

00;15;02;27 – 00;15;04;14
Rebecca Hay
To show me that she went into.

00;15;04;14 – 00;15;23;10
Linda Holt
Settings and I’m like, oh, she said, my daughter did it for me. And I was like, wow, that’s I mean, still, there are so many things I still don’t know about it, but the camera, I know, but all the other settings. So, you know, like making the font big and there’s something you can do with a magnifying glass in settings that I don’t know about.

00;15;23;10 – 00;15;31;15
Rebecca Hay
So my goodness, it is intimidating. And also like you said, there’s that fear. Oh, what if I do something and I mess it up and then I don’t know how to go back and fix it?

00;15;31;15 – 00;15;32;16
Linda Holt
Yeah, that was my fear.

00;15;32;22 – 00;15;49;03
Rebecca Hay
I want to talk about the pros and cons a little bit. Not so much. Maybe the cons. I mean, the cons are obvious. You know, it’s you have to you have to put in your own time to do it. And that might be a deterrent for some. Sure. But when you have, limited resources, why are some of the other reasons?

00;15;49;03 – 00;16;02;12
Rebecca Hay
Why would designers want to use their mobile phone, their cell phone, to take pictures instead of a professional photographer? We mentioned already money. That is like probably the most obvious bonus is that you’re saving thousands of dollars.

00;16;02;12 – 00;16;29;29
Linda Holt
Absolutely. But for me, even bigger than that is that if you don’t take the photo, you don’t own the photo. The designers have to be empowered to own their copyright. There’s so many horror stories right now what’s going on, because professional photographers have figured out how easy it is to register their photos. Now, there are companies that do this for them, and they are suing designers left and right.

00;16;30;04 – 00;16;33;18
Linda Holt
And I can just give one quick example of a good friend of mine.

00;16;33;18 – 00;16;38;26
Rebecca Hay
Oh yes, please do, because people are listening. They’re like, what? This can happen. Your photographer can sue you.

00;16;38;26 – 00;17;01;25
Linda Holt
Oh my gosh, you have to have an ironclad contract knowing exactly when you can use your own photos and when you cannot, because those photos don’t belong to you. They belong to the photographer that took them. So a very good friend of mine, she posted a photo of one of her projects on Instagram and she tagged a vendor.

00;17;01;28 – 00;17;36;03
Linda Holt
So it was in her contract that she could use those photos freely on social media, you know? So that was all fine. But what happened was the vendor had an intern who took that photo and put it on their website lawsuit. It was such a nightmare. $10,000 is what she ended up paying to settle that. And another story of a very A-list designer that I heard her photographer took her room photos and put them on his own website on that.

00;17;36;03 – 00;17;46;16
Linda Holt
You might like it or whatever that shopping is. He tagged everyone and but made it something similar so people could shop the room. All of that is legal.

00;17;46;17 – 00;17;47;13
Rebecca Hay
Oh my God.

00;17;47;15 – 00;18;08;24
Linda Holt
So it’s getting really scary because there’s so many lawsuits right now pending. I did a talk, I went down to New York and I did a talk it it’s Long Island. There was a photographer who came, a professional who came up and told me that he’s making more money suing photographers for unauthorized use of his photos than he is on the jobs he’s doing.

00;18;09;00 – 00;18;24;27
Linda Holt
So that tells you something right now. And all the photographers have wised up to this because it’s so lucrative. They can make a lot of money if they find their photo being used. And it said in the contract, you can use it for social media in your website. Anything outside of that, if they use it, they can be in trouble.

00;18;24;27 – 00;18;47;04
Linda Holt
So to me, owning the copyright and also when you take your own photo, it’s yours. You can like instantly post it. You don’t have to wait for the photos to get edited from the professional and then sent to you. And you know they may take 50 and you get four. You know you have them all. You can take as many as you want from as many different angles.

00;18;47;04 – 00;18;53;28
Linda Holt
Use them however you’d like to. So it’s just really, I think, empowering yourself to own your photos.

00;18;54;04 – 00;19;16;01
Rebecca Hay
I think that’s something to the designers don’t realize. And that’s something I didn’t realize when I started out in the industry. And I think things have changed in the last decade. But I’ve worked with various photographers and I have had the experience never, thank goodness, any lawsuits, but multiple situations where I’ve had a photographer email me to say, I saw this contractor used our photo on their social media.

00;19;16;06 – 00;19;17;18
Linda Holt
Oh, it happens all the time.

00;19;17;18 – 00;19;42;24
Rebecca Hay
Blah blah blah. I was like a whole thing. Then they had to pay a licensing fee to that photographer, or I’ve had it where I’ve used the photos in my own social media, but didn’t tag the photographer. And I maybe that was a stipulation in her contract, I don’t remember, but it was got to the point where it was so annoying because every single time that photographer would send me an email saying you posted a picture, I wasn’t tagged, you posted a picture, but I wasn’t tagged.

00;19;42;24 – 00;20;04;09
Rebecca Hay
And I thought, oh my gosh, this is my work, right? Posted before it got to the point where then I stopped using those photos. It was just a pain. It was a burden. It was annoying. Yeah, and I did find a photographer. There’s there are some photographers still out there who allow you to have full licensing. And the dangerous photographer I work with does, and that’s one of the main reasons why he is so busy.

00;20;04;10 – 00;20;12;24
Rebecca Hay
Yeah, because I don’t have to worry about that. I can pitch to a magazine, the magazine can use the photos. I don’t have to go back to him. And then he would make extra money.

00;20;13;00 – 00;20;21;27
Linda Holt
He is a rare 99.9% of photographers do not give up their their copyright for YouTube. Yeah, so that’s very rare. You have that.

00;20;21;29 – 00;20;48;10
Rebecca Hay
It is very rare. And you know that’s it takes a certain type of person. But it is it becomes annoying and becomes annoying. I’m going to be totally honest. Like I’m thinking back to that time where I got kind of annoyed that I paid for the photo, right? So say I paid like 3500. Sure. Great. Then that photographer is taking those images and is now pitching them sure to vendors and whoever to make more money.

00;20;48;12 – 00;20;49;09
Linda Holt
Absolutely.

00;20;49;09 – 00;20;52;25
Rebecca Hay
So you got paid for the work and now you’re trying to get paid again, right?

00;20;52;26 – 00;21;24;08
Linda Holt
You know, you can take two years to design a room, and yet you hire someone, you pay them good money, but then you can’t. You can’t do with the photos what you want. So to me, that made me angry. And now I was a former professional. And so I’ve seen both sides of this. But doing headshots I think which which would I did for models and actors was a little different than a two year project where we chose every single thing in the room and worked so hard on it for the photographer to think they own that room, they don’t.

00;21;24;08 – 00;21;48;20
Linda Holt
It was maddening for me. In the very beginning, I hired an interior photographer because I thought, I don’t know what I’m doing and I can’t use my dSLR camera. I wasn’t good on the smartphone. I hired somebody. Not only did it cost a lot of money when he sent me the digital photos, his had a watermark on the bottom of every single image with his copyright and name, and I said, I can’t use these.

00;21;48;20 – 00;22;09;17
Linda Holt
I’m not going to put my photos on Instagram with your copyright on it. I had to fight him to take off the watermark. It was really frustrating, but that was years ago. They don’t do that anymore. But again, it was just an example of how photographers firmly believe they own your photos, which they do legally.

00;22;09;19 – 00;22;19;13
Rebecca Hay
It does feel like it’s something that needs to change in our industry, and we’re not here to fight that fight, but right, right. It does feel a little wrong, but that’s my personal opinion, and I’m happy to have that debate with the photographer.

00;22;19;15 – 00;22;22;08
Linda Holt
Yeah. Oh, they’ll be happy to debate you on it. Oh, I’m.

00;22;22;09 – 00;22;49;12
Rebecca Hay
Sure I actually did a photography and publishing workshop a few years ago with a magazine editor and a professional photographer, and we had that conversation. It was a really healthy debate about why, and everyone came at it from a different angle. There was no one. No one got angry. But it is certainly it’s a healthy debate topic. But if you want to steer clear of all of that, and you don’t want to deal with those headaches and the potential of a lawsuit like you mentioned, you can just take them on your phone.

00;22;49;14 – 00;22;50;08
Linda Holt
Exactly.

00;22;50;10 – 00;23;00;06
Rebecca Hay
I mean, I’m curious your thoughts on without going into teaching all the technical, but what makes an iPhone photo look professional?

00;23;00;10 – 00;23;20;06
Linda Holt
It’s really three things. It’s composition. And a lot of designers don’t really know how to compose a photo. I think the biggest mistake designers do is they just use the lens that it opens up to that default lens, which is pretty wide angle, and they try to get the whole room in. A professional photographer would never approach it like that.

00;23;20;12 – 00;23;40;19
Linda Holt
They think, what is the focal point in this room? What do we really want to show the viewer? They’re not just going in and capturing the whole room. That becomes a real estate shot. But I think too many designers approach their room like a real real estate photographer and just shoot the whole room and we see ceiling. We see too much floor, we see too much furniture.

00;23;40;27 – 00;24;00;12
Linda Holt
They need to think about composition. And there’s really two ways in interior photography. It’s called one point composition, which is shooting straight onto your subject, or two point composition, which is shooting at an angle. And so you have to decide, is this room going to be better if I shoot it this way or if I shoot it this way?

00;24;00;12 – 00;24;23;27
Linda Holt
So they need to think about composition. The second thing I think is lighting is a lot of designers just show up when their time allows, and they think they’re going to be able to get a good shot. You have to really time your shoot. You don’t want to show up to photograph the room when sun is streaming through the window, causing all these, you know, bright hot spots streaming across furniture, the floor.

00;24;23;27 – 00;24;45;01
Linda Holt
So you need to time your shoot for when the room is bright, but the light is still fairly even. So, I think composition is important. Lighting is important. Yeah, but the third thing is editing. You know, you said you didn’t know how to, you know, make that photo that looked a little bit too yellow. That is going to happen in probably most photos.

00;24;45;06 – 00;25;17;29
Linda Holt
So you really need to go in and white balance the photo. Very easy to do. I do all my editing on my phone. It takes seconds, but you obviously want to make sure that it looks color correct. It doesn’t look too warm or too cool. You want to fix the perspective, which is really important because you know when you’re shooting an interior, a dead giveaway of a bad smartphone photo is when you have those lines that are bending inward or bending outward, you need a nice straight perspective of the room.

00;25;17;29 – 00;25;47;07
Linda Holt
Again, that depends on several factors how you shoot it, how you hold your phone, but also you can easily fix perspective problems in editing. So I mean, any good photo, whether it’s taken with a $10,000 camera or a $900 smartphone, it’s you want to have good composition, good lighting, and you need to tweak it with editing. So if you do those three things, there’s no difference between a digital camera that you pay a lot of money for or a smartphone.

00;25;47;12 – 00;25;57;04
Linda Holt
It’s just the same principles because the phone basically will do the same thing as a digital camera, you need to have composition, lighting and then edit it.

00;25;57;06 – 00;26;17;11
Rebecca Hay
So a question, a follow up question to that, because I actually I’m hearing what you’re saying and I’m like having these little light bulb moments right now. The first one was when you talked about lighting like duh, obviously good lighting when I’m like, oh yeah. So do you recommend that designers bring their own lighting? Or would that just be unrealistic because you would need such big lights to light interiors?

00;26;17;18 – 00;26;29;07
Rebecca Hay
Or do you recommend designers really kind of time it and plan it around the natural light? And then what happens if you’re doing like a powder room or you know, something that doesn’t have a window, or if it’s like a dark space?

00;26;29;07 – 00;26;47;04
Linda Holt
Yes, this is right out of my class. I have a whole module about lighting, so I use lighting, and if anyone’s interested in what I use, it’s right on my website. It says my smartphone accessories. But the smartphones are amazing, but they’re not a magic wand. They can’t light a room that doesn’t have lighting, and you’d never want to shoot with a lights on.

00;26;47;04 – 00;27;08;24
Linda Holt
And I won’t get into that whole reason, but you never want to have the lights on. So ideally, if I was a professional interior photographer or if I’m just coming with my smartphone, a professional is going to decide if the room is bright enough to use no lights, and most professionals prefer to shoot with natural available light, meaning they time the shoot also.

00;27;08;26 – 00;27;30;17
Linda Holt
But if it’s an internal powder room with no windows and it’s pitch dark, there’s no way a professional can shoot that with his digital camera or her digital camera without bringing in lights, and there’s no way we can shoot it without bringing in light. So I use these very affordable lights. They’re called ProMaster. I get them on Amazon, they come in a set of two.

00;27;30;18 – 00;27;53;22
Linda Holt
They’re just soft boxes. They set up like two quick umbrellas. They’re so easy to set up. They have 20ft long cords. You can just plug them in to a regular outlet, move them around. I would say I use them on maybe 50% of my jobs because now I’m photographing. I don’t design anymore, but my friends still do, so they will have me help them with their photography.

00;27;53;22 – 00;28;19;07
Linda Holt
And I have a friend that lives in London and she designed a patio there in Manhattan. And by the time we were able to shoot, because I was shooting on install day, it was like 4:00 in the afternoon and the light was kind of gone. Thank goodness I lug those lights down with me on the train, because I needed to use those lights to light the room, so but they’re so easy to use and I think people are very intimidated about lighting.

00;28;19;15 – 00;28;37;08
Linda Holt
It’s not like strobe lights. It’s not what your professional would bring in. These are just big square boxes with a soft cover on them to diffuse the light. You just plug them in. You can point them at the ceiling. So the light will just kind of, you know, bounce around the room. You can point them into the room.

00;28;37;11 – 00;28;50;22
Linda Holt
They’re so easy to use. But yes, you definitely if you’re going to really do this seriously for portfolio worthy shots and it’s in the room, doesn’t look really well lit, then you do have to use lights.

00;28;50;27 – 00;28;51;19
Rebecca Hay
Invest in like.

00;28;51;20 – 00;29;09;04
Linda Holt
There are $149 for a set of two and they come with everything. The light stands, the boxes, everything. Only thing they don’t come with are the bulbs. You have to buy the bulbs separately, but the bulbs have something like, I don’t know, 2000 hour usage and they’re the professional video bulbs. So that’s really what you need.

00;29;09;06 – 00;29;22;06
Rebecca Hay
Oh my god. Amazing okay so then they had the second thing that came to mind. We were just talking. So I don’t want to forget it was when you mentioned editing. Because I know that the iPhone like you said has so many settings actually. Are we just talking about iPhones.

00;29;22;07 – 00;29;41;21
Linda Holt
No I have actually three phones but I’m not talking phone specific. I know a lot of most designers have an iPhone, but I teach for all phones and the only different nothing changes. No matter what phone you have. It’s not anything different other than learning the features of your phone. Right? And they all basically have the same features and function.

00;29;41;21 – 00;29;58;01
Linda Holt
It’s just knowing where on your phone they are or how to turn them on. You know, on the iPhone they might be on one place and on the Samsung they’re actually in a different place. So it’s just learning how to use the features. But the features are all the same. It doesn’t matter what kind of phone you have because I remember.

00;29;58;01 – 00;30;10;04
Rebecca Hay
So my husband used to be all Android, like he had a Samsung. He had a Google phone. Yeah. And he really resisted getting the iPhone, even though everything else in his ecosystem was Mac and all that because he said the camera was better. Is that still true?

00;30;10;04 – 00;30;31;19
Linda Holt
I think today, honestly, all the phones have an amazing camera and I test them all. My husband is a pixel user, my kids are Samsung users. I’m an iPhone user and a Samsung user. It really depends. It seems like every time I get a new phone, like when I got my new Samsung, I liked that camera better than the current iPhone I was using.

00;30;31;22 – 00;30;50;17
Linda Holt
But then I upgraded my iPhone and now I like my iPhone camera better. Really, they’re all amazing. I don’t know if I could really say one is better than another. I recently saw I don’t know was Consumer Report or something, did a listing of the best cameras and the camera that they rated best was one that I never even heard of.

00;30;50;17 – 00;31;15;04
Linda Holt
It was a Japanese brand. I don’t even know if it’s sold in this country, but they rated that. It was called the Kiwi or something like that, but that they rated as number one. But all the others were in the top five. Every phone was, you know, they’re amazing. So to put it in perspective, when I was shooting professionally and I was having things published all the time, my camera I was using was five megapixels.

00;31;15;04 – 00;31;36;00
Linda Holt
That was my last professional camera. The new phones today are 24 megapixels, so people worry about the quality that is no longer an issue for publication. My current phone is ten times better than the last $5,000 digital camera I was using, shooting professionally and having on in magazines all the time.

00;31;36;00 – 00;31;53;09
Rebecca Hay
So okay, so interesting. That brings up another question. Yeah, I never thought about that. Are these photos? It sounds like you’re saying yes. But the photos that we take with our iPhone, I always pictured them for you digitally only. You’re saying that the quality is good enough that like a magazine, yes. Would print that photo.

00;31;53;12 – 00;32;11;28
Linda Holt
They would wow the phones today. The newer ones are all 24 bank of pixels and for print you want to have about at least 12. You have double what you need, but also if you want to get really technical, you can shoot in raw mode, which is 48 megapixel.

00;32;11;28 – 00;32;14;12
Rebecca Hay
So yes, I’ve seen that as an option.

00;32;14;16 – 00;32;31;10
Linda Holt
So yeah, there’s no concern about print or digital publication with the newer phones. Now, if you have an iPhone six you have an issue that’s only 12 megapixels. But if you have an iPhone 12 or above, you have 24 megapixels.

00;32;31;10 – 00;32;36;12
Rebecca Hay
And also I will add that if you are using your phone for work, this is a business expense.

00;32;36;17 – 00;32;52;26
Linda Holt
Zactly I buy a new one every year for that reason because first of all, I need to know the new phones because I teach. But also it’s a business expense. You can just deduct this. And I know designers said, well, hold on to their iPhone sixes and their iPhone eight. I don’t know.

00;32;52;26 – 00;32;56;15
Rebecca Hay
Why because there is nothing wrong with that. I’m like them.

00;32;56;19 – 00;33;03;07
Linda Holt
They’re not using the camera, but if they write once they do and they look at the difference in their photos, they cannot believe the difference.

00;33;03;11 – 00;33;35;16
Rebecca Hay
Okay, so the last question I have for you, which came up when you were talking earlier, was that second thing, which was the editing. How much of a successful I’m sorry, I’m saying iPhone X, that’s what I have. How much of a successful Moto has to do with settings before you take it, or while you’re taking it or after, like traditional photographers, obviously there’s a lot that they’re working on as they take the picture for lighting and everything, but I know that professional photographer when when I’m on a shoot with a professional photographer, they are doing multiple exposures, right?

00;33;35;16 – 00;33;49;19
Rebecca Hay
Because then they’re going to do a lot post-production. They’re going to do a lot of editing after the fact. And I’m sure you teach this in your course, but how much of it is getting the right settings from the get go or during the shoot, and how much of it is editing after the fact?

00;33;49;19 – 00;34;10;03
Linda Holt
I think it’s should be done as much as possible while you’re shooting, because you can’t rely on editing to fix a bad photo. So you really want to get the composition right. You want to get the lighting right, and you can fix the exposure manually in your phone. You can override what the phone thinks the exposure should be.

00;34;10;03 – 00;34;35;01
Linda Holt
So if you are taking a photo, say, in a living room and it looks too dark, you can fix that manually. It’s better to fix it in the phone with the settings and take the photo the best you can. Editing should only be relied on to kind of bring it over the finish line. It should look like 90% good, but maybe you want to just tweak the perspective a little bit and fix the perspective.

00;34;35;01 – 00;34;52;19
Linda Holt
Or maybe you want to increase the saturation just a tiny bit. Or maybe the shadows look just a little bit dark and you want to brighten the shadows. That’s where editing comes in. But editing shouldn’t be relied upon to make your photo look good. Your photo should already look good. Editing should make it look amazing.

00;34;52;19 – 00;34;58;28
Rebecca Hay
I like that that sounds amazing because I think people think, oh my gosh, I don’t know how to edit and like do any advanced softwares and programs and all that.

00;34;59;01 – 00;35;13;26
Linda Holt
I’ll tell you, the app I use, I use Snapseed. Probably most of your audience have heard of that. It’s a free app from Google that works on any phone. I do all my editing, all of it on my phone. Even the professional jobs that I shoot. I edit all the photos on the phone.

00;35;13;29 – 00;35;16;18
Rebecca Hay
Snapseed. As I said, I’ve never heard of that.

00;35;16;20 – 00;35;35;29
Linda Holt
Snappy snap said it’s it’s from Google and it’s just a free editing app and it’s so easy. Like you, I’m as non-technical as you said you were. And when I first download it, I thought, oh my gosh, I have no idea how to do this. I learned it literally in like ten minutes. A five year old could use Snapseed.

00;35;35;29 – 00;35;37;19
Linda Holt
It is so easy.

00;35;37;21 – 00;35;51;20
Rebecca Hay
Well, yeah, I mean, kids these days my ten year old is showing me, mommy, why did you do this on your phone? Why don’t you do that on the iPad? He’s arranging? I’m like, what? How do you know how to do these things? I was doing this for years, and I don’t know, it’s just so intuitive. It’s just a different world.

00;35;51;21 – 00;35;52;17
Linda Holt
It absolutely.

00;35;52;17 – 00;36;04;07
Rebecca Hay
Is. Oh my gosh, this has been such a great conversation. I’m so happy to finally, we got to have it. Before we wrap up today, what is your last nugget of wisdom to share with the designers who are listening?

00;36;04;14 – 00;36;28;10
Linda Holt
What I’d like to tell them, especially if they are interested in really going forward with empowering themselves to own their copyright and take their own photos, is to know that this isn’t going to happen overnight. It takes practice. It’s just like starting a business, or working out at the gym, or learning to play the piano. You can’t just like, you know, have someone show you a few things and think you’re going to master this.

00;36;28;16 – 00;36;47;10
Linda Holt
So I don’t want them to get frustrated because it does take a lot of practice. There’s this old saying that you can read every book ever written about swimming. You can sit at the pool all day and watch people swim, but if you don’t get in the water, you’ll never learn how to swim. It’s the same thing with photography.

00;36;47;15 – 00;37;09;08
Linda Holt
You can’t just, like, watch one of my videos or see one of my posts on Instagram and think, oh, I can do that. You really need to practice. And everybody has a home they live in. Whether it’s an apartment or a house, they can start practicing in their own home. But it does take practice. You know, I don’t want people to feel discouraged that, oh, well, she can do this because she was a professional.

00;37;09;12 – 00;37;34;18
Linda Holt
I started where everyone else is starting because I was a headshot photographer. I knew nothing about interiors, so I just don’t want people to get discouraged. I want them just, you know, to keep practicing. They will get it. And also this is possible. It’s not it’s not a crazy, you know, idea that they can shoot their own projects because my students are all shooting their own projects now, and I’m amazed at how great everybody is doing.

00;37;34;18 – 00;37;42;23
Linda Holt
So I just want them to to really believe they can do it. Because these phones are amazing. They are not a subpar digital camera.

00;37;42;27 – 00;37;45;27
Rebecca Hay
I love that you can do it, but you need to practice.

00;37;45;27 – 00;37;46;25
Linda Holt
Absolutely.

00;37;46;25 – 00;37;56;01
Rebecca Hay
It’s like anything, right? We get better the more reps we put in, right? Fabulous. Well thank you for joining me today Linda. Can you let everyone listening know where they can find and follow you?

00;37;56;04 – 00;38;17;05
Linda Holt
I am Linda Holt creative everywhere. Just type in Linda Whole Creative on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest wherever you want to find me. And I’m super easy to reach. I respond to everybody’s DMs or emails, whatever, and my website is Linda Holtz creative.com. And if they’re interested, that’s where they can go see the equipment that I use, the supplemental things, the lights and things like that.

00;38;17;07 – 00;38;20;26
Linda Holt
And also if they want to check out any of my classes, they’re all on my website.

00;38;20;28 – 00;38;23;00
Rebecca Hay
Fantastic. Thank you so much, Linda.

00;38;23;00 – 00;38;28;18
Linda Holt
You’re so welcome. Rebecca, thank you so much again for having me on.

00;38;28;21 – 00;38;49;05
Rebecca Hay
There you have it. What do you think? I’m a little bit sad that I didn’t have Linda in my world when I was starting my business. I totally could have used her course of advice. If you guys are wanting to check out Linda’s offerings, we’ve linked everything in our show notes, so go check it out there. I’m really happy to have had Linda start this conversation.

00;38;49;05 – 00;39;09;16
Rebecca Hay
I asked her after we went off air, actually, if she would be a guest speaker inside designers room and actually do a workshop, and she agreed. So I’m very excited for that one to come to our designers room members soon, because the more we can learn, even if we still want to work with a professional photographer, there’s always going to be those times where it doesn’t make financial sense.

00;39;09;16 – 00;39;31;20
Rebecca Hay
Like you might have a smaller project, or maybe you’ve done some updates to your home, and you would love to have those professional photographs that you could use on Instagram or pitch to a magazine. It doesn’t always make sense to hire and pay three grand, give or take, for a professional photographer. And so I think having that flexibility and having that knowledge to be able to do it yourself is really empowering.

00;39;31;20 – 00;39;48;17
Rebecca Hay
So I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation with Linda. It would mean so much to me if you could make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast. And could you pretty please leave us a review? It’ll bump our rankings so that more designers can find us, and more designers can benefit from all of the knowledge that I’ve shared here on this podcast.

00;39;48;20 – 00;39;59;12
Rebecca Hay
Thank you in advance and I’ll see you soon.