Last December I bought a book called The Art of iPhone Photography by Bob Weil. The other day, nine months later, I decided to read it. I got as far as maybe five pages into it when I saw it mentioned various camera applications.
One of the apps mentioned was "Camera Plus," which I've also seen as "Camera Awesome" and, simply, "Camera!".
And that's as far as I've gotten in the book.
I went to download the app and discovered I'd already downloaded it into my camera, but had never used it.
Are you sensing a pattern here?
So I played around with it, completely ignoring the book. I walked around the house, trying this, trying that. I used it at the local nursery to photograph the leaves of a banana plant (or maybe it was a giant bird of paradise).
The app does a lot, has a lot of different features, but I just worked with one effect, something called "Lone Star." All of these were taken using that effect.
What I'm showing you here are the photos that I particularly liked. There were a lot of dogs. I threw away a photo of a fern, a hydrangea blossom, and a number of out-of-focus gerbera daisies. A pathway leading into the woods from my yard looked horrible with this app.
What I like about the app is the softness, the sepia toning, and the texture.
My definite favorite is the banana leaves up at the top. I like the repeating lines, the various diagonal lines, and how it just looks artsy to me.
Next is a shot of a fishnet float given to me by my late friend Juanita, who actually found it floating past her and her husband's boat north of Seattle. I have it sitting on the windowsill in a bathroom and I like the slight texture of the window screen behind it.
The two ceramic glove molds took on an eerie appearance with this app. They sit on a brick mantel of sorts and I shot slightly up at them.
Then I went over to a wall where I have a "gallery" of eight of my photos, some are photomontages, some not. I zoomed in on a photomontage, taking a photo of a photo, which is a photo of an actual collage, isolating just a section of it. I like how that one turned out, too.
Then, late yesterday afternoon, I went out to the front porch where I have a funky old chair in one corner and where I've placed things I've collected here so far, such as a bird nest, a crow feather, some driftwood sticks, and some dried seed pods from the summer's columbine plants. Nothing's artistically arranged; I just throw the stuff there because I've nowhere else to put it at the moment.
The light was lovely, the chair is a rustic one (another gift from Juanita), and I liked how the composition came together.
Would I make prints of any of these and frame them? Yes, I think I would. Not the chair photo, but some of the others, yeah. Will I think the same in a few months? Maybe the banana leaves.
But this could easily become a "what the hell was I thinking?" sort of situation. (I remember an enhancing filter, the Celestron 1000mm mirror lens, the Vaseline on the UV filter for soft effects trick.) Happens all the time!
And that's the fun of it. This is TOTAL PLAY. No expectations. Lots of surprises. Cool results. I'm a happy photographer right now.
©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!
