FICCI FLO, under the leadership of 43rd National President, Ms. Puja Garg, hosted an informational webinar, “Capture. Create. Share: A Beginner’s Guide to Smartphone Photography & Editing,” with guest speaker, Ms. Hema Makhija, content strategist and visual storyteller. It is the second virtual session in the three-part Digital Skilling series, which aims to train FLO members the fundamentals of Instagram features and its smooth navigation who often stuggle with using technology.
The session began with a welcome address by the National President, Ms. Puja Garg, who emphasized the importance of making women confident in using digital tools for everyday life and small businesses. She said: “digital empowerment is crucial for all women irrespective of their age and experience.” Ms. Hema Makhija taught smartphone photography and editing to women aged 50 and above, by making them use phone cameras more intentionally.
The session included a practical exercise where participants took three photos of an object from different angles to demonstrate the importance of composition, perspective, and finding the best lighting. During this exercise, Ms. Makhija covered basic phone camera controls, including cleaning the lens, enabling the grid, using flash, live mode, night mode, and portrait mode.
She explained the “secret sauce” of photography as the idea behind the shot, emphasizing the importance of planning, experimenting with angles, and taking multiple photos. She taught the five basics of photography: composition, focus, exposure, lighting, and perspective. Ms. Makhija demonstrated the rule of thirds using the grid, explained how to use the exposure slider, and advised against overusing digital zoom.
She showed how to use built-in editing tools like adjust, filters, and crop. Throughout the session, participants engaged in short activities to practice these techniques and asked questions about wide-angle distortion, image resolution, and specific phone features.
Key Takeaways
- The fundamental reasons people take photos, include documenting memories and visual storytelling.
- No expensive equipment or specialized knowledge are required to take better photographs for Instagram.
- Basic phone camera controls are crucial to learn before taking photographs for your Instagram profile, such as cleaning the lens, enabling the grid, using flash, live mode, night mode, and portrait mode.
- Crucial photography techniques such as removing clutter, using the rule of thirds, and leveraging phone editing features like adjust, filters, and crop are helpful in capturing better quality photographs.
- Participants were advised against using zoom in poor lighting conditions.
- Image quality may decrease when photos are shared on different platforms due to app limitations.
- Ms. Hema Makhija advised participants to keep photography settings simple and recommended using HD resolution when needed, while ignoring more complex features like different aspect ratios and formats.
Impact & Outcome
Capture. Create. Share. webinar was joined by more than 100 attendees who learned basic smartphone photography and editing skills. They learned to experiment with angles, take multiple photos for better quality, improve lighting, and build ideas around the shot and subjects.
The next session in the three-part Digital Skilling series will focus on the topic of AI for Beginners on November 23, 2026. The virtual session was hosted under the AI & Digital Skilling Initiative, led by Ms. Dekyi Yangsto Chawla (Initiative Lead) and Ms. Ridhi Jain (Initiative Co-Lead).