If you follow a few simple guidelines, you can take surprisingly good photos with a smartphone. Clip-on lenses add versatility.
This photo was taken with a High Dynamic Range (HDR) iPhone app, which combines several exposures to create a photo that is not possible with a single shutter click. Even though this photo was shot in an extremely high-contrast situation, the brick, the dark pergola, and the blue sky are all balanced reasonably well. You can also use HDR photography with a DSLR camera and a tripod to produce superior images.
The final landscaping is often not in place when the author takes photos of a finished deck.
The author sometimes adds landscaping to his deck photos using Photoshop. He copies shrubbery and other details from photos that are similar in lighting and tone, and pastes them on the original photo. The result shows off the deck in a better light.
