Last I checked, I have taken at least 15,000 photos with my various iPhone versions over the years. While there are a lot of gratuitous snaps and recording of serial numbers among them, there’s a subset of images that I still like.
Here’s another one…
Too Snowy for Golf?
This shot was taken at the Wachusett Country Club in West Boylston on the last day of 2015. As I drive by it frequently, I stopped to take a look at the reflections of the Sun in the snow and its interplay with the glistening trees.
This shot was taken with an iPhone 5s and I toned the highlights down a bit and added a bit of sharpening and vignette to get a more pleasing image.
Over the years we gather a lot of pictures on our mobile phones (remember to back them up!), so it’s fun to look back and see what we have.
Here’s an image from April of 2020…
Floral Study
This is what happens when I sit at the table in my sister’s house in the Netherlands and have nothing much to do. If I remember correctly, I used one of the portrait settings that was available on the iPhone Photo app at that time to have stage light simulation on the flower. As it was in a black vase most of the background went to black nicely.
As I was thinking of what iPhone image might be an interesting pick, I looked for something that I shot around this time of year. Then I came across this one that I still enjoy seeing after 9 years…
Slice of the Season
After slicing some of the ice cream cake, the pattern on the knife in front of the cake caught my eye, and it almost begged to be photographed. What could I do?
I hope that you enjoy some ice cream cake with your favorite holiday meal this season!!
I’m confident that many of us have heard the statement ‘That must be a great camera’ when someone sees one of our images. And yes, my Canon EOS R5 is a fantastic camera, but I have a backup camera that is equally fantastic!
On a really rainy day in Iceland, it’s kind of interesting to take a quick shot with your mobile phone and see how it looks. Plus, the reason I take at least one shot wherever I do a shoot is that it provides location data, which can come in handy when you’re trying to remember the spelling of an Icelandic location.
Vatnajökull Glacier
After doing a shoot (see Vatnajökull and Jökulsárlón – part 1) to get some interesting images,I noticed a slightly different angle to take this shot with my iPhone. One of the cool features is that the logic in the camera app is very smart about balancing exposure and making clouds appear dramatic. To be honest, I really like this shot, as it presents a mood that fit the scene.
Jökulsárlón Lagoon
This shot was an impromptu capture, as it was raining pretty hard, making it a bit cumbersome to do another tripod-mounted camera setup (despite rain gear for the camera, it’s always a bit of struggle to deal with fogging, those pesky rain drops on a filter, etc.) . So I pulled my iPhone out of my dry pocket and took this low angle shot. The blue of the ice, drama of the clouds and rain drops on the water came across rather nicely.
Both images were processed using Luminar AI and touched up in Photoshop.
I look forward to hearing about the opportunities that your mobile phone has provided you to capture that special image.
Time for another submission to the 52 Week Smartphone Challenge by Khürt Williams. The theme for week 9 is ‘Mood’: “Your Artistic Inspiration this week is the mood you are feeling today. Take that mood and use it to create art.”
Liverpool – Albert Docks
This shot is from my sauntering through Liverpool after attending a fantastic match at Anfield between Liverpool and Tottenham. For this challenge, I did a B&W conversion using Luminar 4 (Blair Witch Look – Magical Forests by Albert Dros) and cleaning up in Photoshop.
Location: Albert Docks, Liverpool, UK. Shot with iPhone 11 ProMax using the NeuralCam app.
As I mentioned last week’s post, Khürt Williams start this awesome new photo challenge series, the 52 Week Smartphone Challenge, which is described in the link. The concept is fairly straightforward and inspired by the great quality cameras that are in smartphones these days: shoot something that goes with the them and pingback/tag it to have it show up under the challenge.
The second week’s theme is ‘Rule of Thirds’: “You already know what the Rule of Thirds is, now is the time to use it”
Holiday Lights Galore!
This photo is one that I shot over the last week, as kind of a drive-by image. My wife had mentioned that there was this awesome display on a side street. Well, we found it!! The big, bright red lights are flood lights for their mini-ice skating rink! I took this shot with my iPhone 11Pro Max using the NeuralCam app. This app has become one of my favorite photography tools!
In photography, we are all too often looking for the perfect shot. We want to get the exposure just right, catch the ideal light and, of course, create a rule of thirds composition that is by the book.
In principle, I have nothing against taking a beautiful photo, but there have been numerous occasions when I decided to take a slightly different approach. Part of what drives this for me is the desire to experiment with my photography; sometimes I want more than just capturing a scene that has been capture many times before.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about…
The Line
This railway segment runs through the town, where I live, and I used to cross it every day on my commute. One day, on my way home, my eye caught the splash of color next to the steel rails, so I pulled over and went to take a closer look.
The rails looked great going toward the horizon, but I noticed that I was getting some lens flare due to the Sun’s angle. I was about to move my hand to block the effect, when I noticed the look that this created: desaturated on the left and bright color on the right! So I decided to go for this look, as it spoke to me of a deeper meaning in the juxtaposition of the two sides!
Definitely not the perfect shot in the classical approach to photography, but I felt that it created something more interesting!
Oh, and lest I forget: this was captured with an iPhone, as that was the camera that I had with me. But that’s material for another blog post, as the best camera is the one that you have with you!
As I’m sitting here at the airport I figured I’ll write a quick post for the blog today. Work has me traveling to Atlanta, which will be a nice blast of warmth amidst the winter weather that we’ve been having.
Earlier in the week I got myself an iPhone 7 Plus which gives some new and interesting opportunities for photography. One of the new camera app options is portrait mode…
Handsome Ransom
This is our second oldest Cardigan Welsh Corgi, Ransom. He’s almost 14 and loves sleeping in the sun, which makes him a great alternative cat.
As you can see, portrait mode provides a pleasing shallow depth of field, making for a nice additional option in photography.
Morning is certainly one of my favorite times, even though I am not an early riser… It’s always a good thing to welcome another day, particularly when there’s a nice sunrise. Currently, it is the season to welcome the sunrise on a regular basis, as it occurs when I am on my way to work.
One of the features that I pass during my commute is Wachusett Reservoir, where this morning’s image was captured.
Wednesday Color
This reflection was kind of interesting, but I also noticed another possible shot…
A Minute Later
I actually like this one a bit more. Which one do you like best?
Technical Details
Both of these images were captured with an iPhone 6S with the standard Camera app.
