Austin Mann:

As photographers, we’re always looking for new ways to direct the eye of the audience throughout our images.

Our eyes are generally drawn to color, clarity, brightness, and contrast. We can adjust and manipulate each of these parameters to direct the viewer’s eye to different points in our images.

Portrait Mode on the iPhone 7 Plus allows us to radically adjust the “clarity” parameter, giving us a whole new capability on the iPhone camera platform.

Notice the difference in these shots from a professional photographer, in particular, the background elements. Something I teach my students all the time is to look behind your subject to see if there are elements there that don’t add to or even subtract/distract from your subject.