iPhonography

In case you haven’t seen the latest Apple commercial—and Apple is pretty renown for commercials—the computer and phone giant claims, “everyday, more photos are taken with an iPhone than with any other camera.” That’s not hard to believe. Counting all six generations, there are somewhere near 200 million iPhones on the street worldwide. Unlike DSLRs and point-and-shoot cameras, we always seem to have our phones with us. That convenience has equated to billions of photos.

Search for “photography” in the iTunes app store and you will get over 8,500 results. “Cameras” will find 4,700 hits and there are over 1,200 “photo editing” apps. But amongst the Apple hype and the iPhones held aloft at every event and landmark, how many compelling artistic images are taken on phones?

Recently, I attended a conference at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel. Jekyll Island and the club and mansions now making up the hotel were once an enclave for the richest families in America—Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Morgans, and Pulitzers among them—once made this their private retreat. In fact, the members of the club accounted for one sixth of the U.S.’s total wealth by World War II.

But despite the beauty and history here, I was without a camera. Except for my iPhone 5. Sometimes, you just get tired lugging around a thirty pound camera bag. So for three days, I set out to determine if I could take great photos, images becoming of a professional photographer, with an 8 MP iPhone camera. I’ve included a few samples.

I’m convinced that iPhones, and phone cameras in general, have reached a point where snapshots can transcend to art. Obviously, many photogs agree. Adhering to the same rules of composition, exposure, and light are really no different. Controlling shutter speed seems impossible until you realize—well, there’s an app for that.

I must admit that a couple of my images were tweaked a bit using East Coast Pixel’s Photo Toaster.  I’m a big fan of this app. From subtle sharpening or exposure adjustments to radical photo manipulations, this app has a lot to offer.

Product Photography Revisited

This past weekend was a cornocopia of football here in the southeast. There was Dodge County High School, my beloved University of Georgia, and of course the Sunday fallback Atlanta Falcons. And none of them scored a touchdown, let alone won. So I was forced to throw myself at work... and photography.

I was challenged recently to create a photo for the cover of a corporate annual report. I needed to tie some repetitive graphic design elements, in this case an electric outlet, to something modern. Since the body of the document was to discuss smart meters and other high-tech, innovative issues and gizmos, I wanted to have a look and feel that emphasized technology.

I settled on using a photograph of a smart phone, in this case an iPhone, displaying a screen with smart meter data. It would have been much easier to photograph the phone and electrical receptacle and the screen shot seperately, photoshopping them together later. But digital photography gets a bad rap because we so often think, "I'll shoot it like this and just fix it later," instead of doing it right the first time. And I've got a heathy dose of Don Quixote in me, so the hard way was the only way.

Part of the design also required a high key, glassine effect for the image. I wanted the reflection of the phone and receptacle as part of the image. So I took the shot with the phone and receptacle sitting on a pane of clear glass between two supports. I had a softbox in the background and two gridded monolights on either side for some rim-lighting on the phone and to light the receptable. I quickly discovered that getting a proper exposure for the phone screen while achieving a high key effect on the rest of the image was a challenge. In the end, I had to slow the light down by using an aperture of f7.1 matched with a shutter speed of 1/6 second. Needless to say, a tripod was required.

Ironically, insisting that I shoot all of the required elements in one image without any compositing resulted in more trial and error than I had imagined. As a result, the battery in the phone ran dangerously low. I didn't think the red low battery symbol in the top right corner looked good for an energy company, so I had to photoshop in a green battery meter from another image. So much for idealism, huh?

I think the effect turned out rather nice. I guess time will tell as I get to see a printed copy of the report. Until then, I'd really appreciate any feedback.