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Photography tips inspired by Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rico.

In honour of Bad Bunny’s upcoming performance at the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show, we toured Puerto Rico with photographer (and frequent Bad Bunny collaborator) Eric Rojas. Here we share the apps that helped us capture the island in all its beauty.

In this story:

1. Make colours pop
2. Capture action in stunning clarity
3. Preserve your unique glow
4. Warm up your sunsets
5. Bring on the night

1. Make colours pop

Where we shot: Old San Juan, known for its iconic colonial houses and cobblestone streets.

Our focus: Letting a colourful slushie shine.

The app for the task: Like many photo editors, Darkroom lets you adjust saturation and brightness – but with the app’s one-tap masks, you can easily apply those edits only to specific parts of your image, such as the subject, background or even a colour range. We used it to accentuate the neon greens and electric yellows of a piragua, Puerto Rico’s classic shaved-ice treat.

Darkroom lets you target specific areas of your pic when punching up saturation and brightness. We used the masks to automatically select everything in the foreground and enhance the colours of the piragua. Then we switched to the Background mask to make the earth-tone cobblestone street complement the vibrant gradient of yellow, orange and green.

2. Capture action in stunning clarity

Where we shot: The famed Vega Baja beach, midday.

Our focus: Crisp detail for every sandy kick.

The app for the task: Pro Camera II by Moment’s manual controls make it easy to dial shutter speed on the fly – which is crucial for photographing fast-moving objects in bright light.

To snap the photo above, we cranked the shutter speed up to 1/2000 to freeze the kick (as well as the airborne grains of sand). The app’s live exposure meter and four exposure-priority modes let us decide what to prioritize in the moment.

Pro Camera II’s dials for shutter speed and ISO (the camera sensor’s sensitivity to light) are always within thumb’s reach.
Top: One of the island’s many guagüitas – SUVs packed with oranges and plantain trees. We used Darkroom to make every colour pop. Bottom: The Condado neighbourhood, which Bad Bunny often sings about, through the lens of Leica Lux’s preset.

3. Capture your unique glow

Where we shot: Vega Baja, Bad Bunny’s hometown.

Our focus: Selfies that accurately represent a range of skin tones.

The app for the task: The Camera app’s Photographic Styles do more than intelligently adjust specific colours in different parts of your photo to create a customised look. They also let you fine-tune colour while preserving authentic skin tones.

We used the Vibrant palette in the Camera app to boost richness and saturation. Then we tapped into the fine controls to find overtones that complemented everyone in the shot. (Any styles you apply can be changed later in the Photos app.)
Top: Bad Bunny’s beloved island in bloom. We used Darkroom to selectively sharpen and saturate the petals. Bottom: A piragua salesman at work. (Sometimes a shot is so vibrant, no edits are needed.)

4. Warm up your sunsets

Where we shot: Vega Baja beach at golden hour.

Our focus: Golden-hour sunsets that look as vivid as you remember.

The apps for the task: The pro camera Halide and photo editor Lightroom. Both support Apple ProRAW, a file format that gives you more flexibility when editing exposure, colour and white balance. This is key because sunsets can throw off a camera’s automatic white balance settings, skewing too cool or too warm.

In Lightroom, we used Tint, Vibrance and Saturation controls to dial out cool colours (such as the blue sky) and boost the rich oranges and reds of the setting sun. This approach also works magic when there’s an expanse of cool blue ocean in the background.
Top: Architectural details in Old San Juan, the setting of many Bad Bunny videos. We used Lightroom to increase contrast and accentuate the definition of palm-frond shadows. Bottom: San Juan nightlife photographed in black-and-white with Leica Lux.

5. Bring on the night

Puerto Rico hotspot: El Boricua club, in the Río Piedras neighbourhood of San Juan.

Our focus: Low-light shots with flair.

The app for the task: By meticulously modelling Leica’s vintage lenses, Leica Lux replicates the signature look of the company’s legendary film cameras.

Black-and-white adds drama and hides imperfections from shooting in low light. Leica Lux’s contrast controls shape the grain dynamically, inspired by classic film stocks. For this shot, we used Greg Williams Artist Look, created by the famed celebrity-portrait photographer.

Don’t miss all the Bad Bunny playlists on Apple Music highlighting the artist’s biggest hits, essential videos and deep cuts, as well as set lists from recent tours.

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