Do want to get some nice photos of your car for Instagram, Facebook or just looking to sell your car and want to take some nice shots of it and you have an iPhone or Android phone. That's all you need to get some killer shots with your phone's camera.

A lot of these principles apply to whatever you are shooting or what camera you are using, whether it's your Android, iPhone, DSLR or mirrorless camera.
I took this Audi A4 for a spin around town so we could get a few shots to see some examples of what we are talking about.
Why an Audi A4 and not a cool hot rod or muscle car, I wanted this to be about the photography and not the car. The photos on this post were shot with an iPhone but any camera should be fine. The photo's were not post processed, brightness, color, filters etc.

4 things to get killer shots, with your phone's camera

1) Lighting

2) Shadows

3) Background

4) Reflections

Lighting

Morning or evening light
Sunny side of car
Filtered light from thin layer of clouds

Morning and evening light are usually the best lighting when the sun is down low. Try to avoid the harsh light during the day.

Another great time to shoot and my personal favorite is when the sun is filtered by thin clouds, this will be a much more of a softer light will help eliminate hot spots, lessen reflections and ugly shadows. If you are lucky enough to have the sun filtered by a thin layer of clouds and have some cool puffy clouds in the background, you're golden.

When shooting your ride shoot the lightest side with the sun at your back or even better on an angle to your car. Unless you are shooting for artistic reasons of course.

Shadows

Shadows on the car
Shadows on the ground

Our eyes are are great at ignoring shadows but our camera is not, shadows will really show up in your photos and can ruin the shot, avoid the shadows from trees, poles and other stuff in the environment from getting on your car.

Along with shadows on your car, look at the shadows on the ground also, the shadows on the ground can also be distracting.

If you are shooting your car and it's all in the shade make sure there are no ugly light spots coming in through the trees etc. the light spots can be distracting as well.

Background

Nice background
Distracting background

The great thing about our Android or iPhone are that everything will be in focus, so it’s hard to take a blurry shot during the day time, that’s the good, it’s also the bad because everything in the background will be in focus also. So it’s really important to watch what’s in the background.

Watch out for that pole or tree coming out from of the hood or the top of your car this would be a distraction and they are easily missed.

Other common things that might be distracting are signs the background, at car shows you might see road cones or other cars that can take away from your shot.

Buildings or a cool fence can make a nice background, if there’s no cool buildings near by try open areas this can make for a nice shot, shooting in open areas really helps from getting something funky in the background of your shot.

Bushes and other plants can work also but with our phone cameras it can be a little tricky, it really depends on the car and color, you don’t what your car to blend in to the background, remember everything will be in focus.

Reflections

Sun
Environment

Our cars are like big mirrors and will reflect things from the environment and show up in our photos, if your car is out doors you will most likely get some reflections on it, sometimes that can be fine and other times not so fine.

Watch out for reflections on your car, some of the reflections to look out for in the environment, are other cars, especially cars with their hoods up reflecting on to your car like at a car show, signs reflecting on your car are also easily missed. Just take a look and ask yourself do I want that reflection on my car in this shot.

To lessen that big sun spot effect on the side or front of the car, try shooting in morning, evening or when that soft light is out like we previously talked about