The Adventures of Rob & Lauren

One of Rob’s iPhone images from Jasper, AB, Canada.

The iPhone has opened up a whole new world of photographic potential! Of course cameras have been on phones for a long time, but the iPhone brings something really special to the table - the ability to process and upload photos directly from your phone! While the iPhone may not produce the highest quality photos what it does do is remove all barriers to photography. It is a tool that amateurs and professionals alike can use by pressing the same single button. And best of all, it’s always with you so you’ll never miss a photographic opportunity again!

Here are a couple tips/apps to get you started.

Make sure the lens of your iPhone is clean, it’s easy to get smudged and dirty, just remember to give it a quick brushing on your shirt every now and then.

When you’re taking a photo remember that the picture is taken when you release the button, not when you press it. Therefore the best strategy is to compose your image with your finger on the button and then let go when you want to take the photo. You’ll cut your number of blurry photos in half!

Check out a free program called Mill Colour. It’s the program I use for all my iPhone photography (iPhonography!). Basically this program lets you perform a few different color effects to an image you’ve already taken. Golden, Print, and Noir (black and white) are my my favorite presets. 

This image was taken with an iPhone 3GS, and processed with Mill Color’s Noir preset

Another fun program that I use less frequently but is still amazing is the free program DXP. Basically it allows you to overlap a couple images on top of one another for some creative results. 

This image was taken with an iPhone 3GS, and processed using DXP 

You might also want to check out CropForFree which does what it says! Although when it comes to iPhone photography I tend to shoot things exactly as I want them to be. I use the iPhone almost like a visual sketchpad and like to spend the least amount of time processing images and more time actually taking them! After all, if you’re going to spend all that time tweaking an iPhone image you might as well have broken out the dSLR and shot it in RAW :)

Once I have an image I want share, I have a few options. Sometimes I’ll use a Twitter client app like TweetDeck to post the images on my Twitter account. I usually do this for more news related photos (“Look! It’s me with my cat Scooter!”). For more art related photos I usually want them posted on my blog. For that I just e-mail the photo to myself, and upload and post it to my blog (though my main computer). You can also use the Facebook app to post photos directly to your Facebook page. Or try directly e-mailing or MMSing them to friends. There are really so many options!

Keep it simple. There are a ton of iPhone photography apps out there, I’ve paid for pano ones and tilt shift ones, and other multi effect ones, but I barely use them. All you need to do is keep an eye out for great shots!

Also check out using iPhoto to make iPhone photo books. I ordered one last year and it turned out beautifully. It’s easy to design and order your own books and you can get them in different sizes. Your friends will be blown away with how impressive iPhone photos look in print.

If you develop film definitely pick up the Dev Chart app. It’s a steeply priced app at $5.99 but it makes developing film a joy. You enter your film type and speed, what you rated it at, and what developer you’re using and it does all the calculations. I cannot speak highly enough of this app!

With the exception of the above film developing app, all the other photography apps I’ve listed are free in the App Store! Go get ‘em now! and create some iPhonography!