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Way back in April I popped into Boxgrove Priory while I was down in Sussex. At the time I was preparing for my smartphone photography workshop so while I was there I snapped a few pics on my iPhone. I never got round to doing anything with them at the time and had forgotten all about them until I rediscovered them a few days ago - what a lovely find!
Photos taken 17 April 2023
Every so often we have the pleasure of looking after our neighbours’ cats while they’re on holiday. Cwtch and Sookie have gradually grown accustomed to us and I often use their more relaxed moments to catch some photos of them.
During my second visit they had come downstairs, ready for breakfast and a spot of sunbathing, although initially Sookie decided she would observe me from a chair beneath the dining room table!
Cwtch watching the garden intently for intruders….
Followed by a spot of unashamed lounging in the sun - not always in the most elegant way!
Eventually Sookie gained some more courage and came out into the sunshine.
Photos taken June 2023.
My experience of teaching a smartphone photography workshop last month proved to be a great way of learning more about my own phone’s camera, but not without its temptations. As I researched what the cameras we all carry in our pockets can do I realised just how much more the latest iPhone can do now.
After much indecision I took the plunge and upgraded from my three year old iPhone SE to the latest iPhone 14 Pro and I haven’t regretted it for one moment. Yes, it still does all the phone stuff the same as any mobile, but having a larger sensor and three different lenses to play with brings many more possibilities when I want to travel light. The day after I bought the new phone I decided to use it as my sole camera for our monthly visit to the Barrington car meet and it was strangely liberating.
The super-wide angle lens offers some fun possibilities if you get really close.
On the new phone’s camera it will allow you to use the portrait mode on subjects which aren’t human which allows for all sorts of creative possibilities.
A beautiful 1948 Healey.
Photos taken 2 June 2023
It’s often said that the best camera is the one you have with you. I almost always tend to have a camera in my bag, but I know for most people the one they have to hand is their smartphone. I recently agreed to teach a short workshop on smartphone photography at St. John’s Church, Duxford, so it only seemed sensible to do visit this lovely church again and do some more practical research on the subject.
I wanted to create a selection of photos I could print and share with my students to show what’s possible with a phone camera. I’ve learnt a lot while preparing for the workshop and, even with my basic iPhone, the camera is capable of much more than I realised before.
To try and tell a story about the church I looked for smaller details to photograph too.
You can always rely on St John’s for beautiful shafts of sunlight.
I made prints of all the photos I’ve shared here, but I made the finally one into an A3 sized print to show what a phone camera is capable of producing.
Photos taken 19 April 2023
As I learn how to make better photos with the camera on my iPhone I’ve been using it more on my travels, figuring out what works best. During February I’ve experimented with all sorts of subjects and I thought I’d share a selection of them on my blog.
My first few images come from a stroll along the River Thames when I was staying overnight in Cookham.
Click on any image to see it enlarged.
Next came my visit to Bristol and this photo comes from St Mary Redcliffe. I have a mini-tripod which magnetically attaches to the back of my phone, allowing me to capture this low angle and to control the settings better in such a dark building.
Another photo from my Bristol trip - this time one of the plants on the windowsill in the house where I stayed overnight.
A stroll around our village and some beautiful snowdrops by the church.
Naturally I went inside the church - another moment for my little phone tripod to come into its own!
My final photo comes from a long wait on the platform at Twyford Station. As I patiently waited for my train to Paddington to arrive a freight train came thundering through. I quickly opened the Lightroom Mobile app to grab this 1 second exposure of ghostly blur as the yellow engine whizzed past me.
Photos taken February 2023
Every so often I encounter a sight which just calls to be photographed. As I sat in the bar at Halsway Manor, doing some work between workshop sessions, the play of light through the leaded light windows was just beautiful.
Photo taken 5 February 2023.
As I pondered where to go with my camera on my second morning in Somerset I rediscovered a pin I’d previously saved in Google Maps marking St Audrie’s Bay. This is a private bay which is access by a steep path down the side of the cliff from a caravan park. Fortunately non-resident are allowed to park there so I headed down to the beach with my iPhone and two pinhole cameras.
This was the sight which greeted me - miles of sand and layered rock formations and with high tide several hours away there was no chance of be getting cut off here.
Continuing my mission to learn more about the abilities of my phone camera I snapped away at any details, small or large, which caught my eye.
My main reason for visiting St Audrie’s Bay was the waterfall which tumbles off the cliffs. A stream runs across the hills above and, judging by the incessant stream of water, there had been plenty of rain to feed it recently.
My other focus that morning was pinhole photography so I also took a few behind the scenes images to share in an Instagram story about my adventures. I’ll share the photos from my wooden pinhole cameras in a separate post.
Photos taken 3 February 2023.
I’ve recently agreed to run a photography workshop focused on shooting with a smartphone rather than a traditional camera, so when I visited Somerset earlier this month I decided to travel light and begin learning more about the camera I carry in my pocket.
I’d recently watched a video showing how handheld long exposures can be taken on an iPhone using the camera in the Lightroom app so I was eager to try this out around the harbour at Weston-super-Mare. I was frankly astonished at how good it was - the static parts of the view are pin-sharp, while the waves gain drama as they’re blurred during the course of a second long exposure.
Click on any image to see it enlarged.
Elsewhere there were a couple of scenes where I just couldn’t bring myself to remove the colour.
Photos taken 2 February 2023
The Kingley Vale nature reserve is a place I’ve wanted to revisit for many years and Christmas Eve finally brought me an opportunity - about a quarter of a century since my last walk here. The yew trees here are simply astonishing - many of them over 500 years old and contorted in the most amazing shapes.
My intention was to take pinhole photos of these wonderful trees, but I snapped some digital images along the way too. I’m not very good at multitasking with two different cameras simultaneously as the process of pinhole photography is so immersive. Although I had a digital camera in my backpack I ended up taking some snaps on my iPhone as it was easier to wrangle, alongside my tripod, and I’m pleasantly surprised how well these came out in such gloomy conditions. I’ll share the pinhole images here in a day or two.
Click on any image to see it enlarged.
A behind the scenes image as I photographed a beautiful fern
An iPhone panorama - the only way I could get close to photographing the whole of this astonishing yew tree! Click to see it larger.
Photos taken 24 December 2022
