IPhonetography Tips

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There are phases I go back and forth with in my photography such as mobile-only for awhile or a professional camera. This article will discuss my continuing fascination with iPhoneography and tips on ho to make it better.Clean the lens on your iPhoneOur iPhones get stuffed inside pockets, purses, backpacks, etc. You’ve seen how dirty your screen can get, now go show your camera lens some love. A clean lens will give you sharper, higher-contrast images. Make it a habit to regularly clean your iPhone camera lenses.CompositionKeep your compositions simple or minimal. Duh.Shoot from various anglesiPhones are compact compared to a heavy DSLR or mirrorless camera. This makes it far more effective when shooting high, low or at various angles. Put your iPhone on a tripod mount and explore all those options too.Get a new camera (app)The stock iPhone camera app is brilliantly intuitive, but you can get more control with other dedicated camera apps such as Halide or Camera+. These allow you to adjust settings manually, shutter speed, ISO etc. This seems like an appropriate time to mention editing apps.Post-Process FunThere are plenty of amazing iPhone editing apps but only a few are really worth your time as a serious photographer.Adobe Lightroom
Hipstamatic
Snapseed
VSCO
Everything else are just fad apps.With the above apps, you can adjust image exposure, crop to improve the composition, correct image white balance, add beautiful color effects, improve sharpness, and so much more. Many of these apps also offer advanced features, such as vignetting, noise reduction, and masking. If you really want to have fun with editing images, there are specialist applications that’ll remove image backgrounds, objects, and apps that’ll stitch layers images together.I enjoy editing images. It’s a fun way to enhance your photos, and once you’re done with the basic enhancements, you can have fun adding creative effects.Shoot It Until You Get ItDigital photography has an advantage over film in that you can afford to shoot a lot. You can also make a lot of mistakes that can be forgiven quickly. Pick out your best images later. Don’t delete any photos while you are out shooting. Wait until you are done to properly review.Zoom with your feetAll cameras have two types of zoom options: optical zoom and digital zoom. An optical zoom is created by the camera’s lens. A digital zoom is made by cropping an image. The iPhone deletes pixels to create a zoom effect. Digital zoom destroys the quality of your images.Don’t sacrifice image quality, just zoom with your feet. Move closer to your subject if possible. If it isn’t possible, then shoot your image and crop later. The difference in quality is improved and you’ll be happier.Hold your phone like a cameraI always shoot in landscape mode (phone is horizontal instead of vertical.) I also almost always shoot with two hands on the iPhone for control and stability.

Photo Curation

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Not photo “editing”, instead, photo culling and photo curation.

The art of choosing the photos you care for, the art of image selection. If I shot a thousand photos, which few photos will I select that I want to hold on to?

Now that I have all my images organized in the Archives on one external hard drive, it is time to cull and curate. Keep the keepers and remove the rest.

Photographic Progress

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The frustration and anxiety caused by obsessing over what makes a “good” photograph is what prevents the majority of we photographers from evolving creatively.I am learning that the quicker I can focus on a subject matter or a theme, the quicker I can progress.

On Limited Time

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Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

– Steve Jobs

2022-11-25

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7:00am
Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States: ☁️ 🌡️+42°F 🌬️↓14mph

I decided against using Flickr, because again, another subscription. Why bother with that when I already have Adobe Portfolio or any other photography platform like Glass, when I have my main photography website? So, I just created a mobile photography site as an add-on.

I have finally migrated all the posts published so far in 2022 from ChrisDenbow.com into Brainiac.

Proof Of Life

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Your birth certificate proved that you were born. Your death certificate proved that you died. Your photographs proved that you lived.

G. Stanley

Camera Minimalism

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Over the past thirty years, I still struggle in figuring out the ideal camera which will best suit my photographic needs.

I want a camera to always be ready to shoot, but I can’t always bring along a DSLR or mirrorless camera because they are bulky. And who wants to carry a big camera bag everywhere? This leaves out, my Nikon, Canon and Sony professional cameras.

The digital camera that does fit those criteria is the iPhone but it is not perfect, however it is currently the least bad camera which exists for my needs. This is the main reason I purchased the iPhone 13 Pro Max- not perfect but it is portable and does not need a bag.

I don’t plan on printing images taken from the iPhone so I can go ahead and minimize the format and the size of the photographs taken with it. Sure, I could shoot RAW images with the iPhone camera app, but why? Space is a premium, even though I have plenty of storage space on the iPhone and my external drives (future-proofing.)

DAM

I discovered too late, what it means to have a digital asset management (DAM) system. I can create all these photos, and publish/share them to but am currently limited by my hosting plan. This is not sustainable. Should I invest in an unlimited subscription to Flickr or SmugMug again? So for now, I’ll just shoot in a small, .jpg format to save space.

Future Usage

I want to eventually explore other platforms for publication such as audio and or video podcast, e-books, newsletters, digital zines, etc.

WebLog

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A scary thought occurred to me during a 3AM quick stop to the bathroom and back to bed: “Do I want to maintain or keep my 22 year-old website?” I woke up a few hour later and wondered if I dreamt this, but then realized this was an idea worth considering.

I have always considered this website as a public journal. Yes, I have posted a ton of articles regarding my experience with the latest gadget or software. These were designed for me in mind to help look back and think, “okay, this was cool”, or “what the hell was I thinking?” But others throughout the social internet (NOT social media) have come to appreciate these articles as well.

I do not want to give up writing or journaling altogether and am thinking of keeping it local. Keep it simple, private and future-proofed in a .txt format inside Brainiac, the self-built database.

I’ll keep my web domain name and personalized email address, however. Having your own slice of the WWW is fantastic. My server hosting subscription runs out in late February 2023 so I have until then to decide.

That is in the future, I want to look at the present. Today is November 1 and instead of the usual crash and burn delusions of writing a novel every November, I’ll focus on writing a post here every day for thirty days in a row.

No-shave November is off to a great start. The beard is growing out every direction on the compass but it’ll trim up nicely. That’s it for today. Stay tuned for the 2nd of November’s post.