Yesterday I attended a conference called 1197.is The number is important as it marks the date in 1997 that the first cell phone photo was taken (well more of a kludge setup as described by Phillipe Kahn who took and transmitted the photo).
Well we've come a long way and there are a ton of really talented artists using the iPhone in many different ways. This conference was a way to bring people together with a shared interest, to learn from each other and to meet others with a similar interest.
I think the big takeaway was just to keep experimenting and that the people doing the most interesting artistic work are using a number of different applications and moving the pictures from one app to another.
I also got the sense that the best talents don't try and do too much at once. Many try and just get the best results they can from the initial shot and then work the picture from there. It is hard to do the post processing right when you take the picture (i.e. trying to add filters and effects as you take the shot).
The Apps just keep getting better and better. Also, the ecosystem of different products is getting larger and very interesting.
The morning session was more of a workshop hard to give a recap but it was about using apps and showing how to layer on different effects. Sometimes it is simple processing and other times there is major manipulation. No right or wrong.
The afternoon featured a number of very interesting speakers:
Laura Randolph (
www.photolauren.com and @laurenlemon on instagram/twitter). She does portraiture and explained how she uses twitter (and iPhone shots) to augment her professional shoots and to give people more of a behind the scenes view of what she is doing.
Dan Maroclina - Author of the book iPhone Obsessed which is a great resource for using apps to process. He was using Photoshop Touch in his demo and it has a lot of functionality....so I eagerly await that release.
Teru Kuwayama - who spoke about a large scale photo project with photojournalists embedded with US soldiers in Afghanistan. All of the photography was done on the iPhone. He did say that for the dusty conditions gaffers tape over the dock connection made the phone impervious to dust and one of the best devices you could use over there.
Great talk and you can read about the project here:
http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2009/08/31/teru-kuwayama-working-in-a-war-zone/
Products:
Schneider was there with their lens set. I still think it is pricey for fish eye and wide angle because I can't see the fisheye being used that much. However the wide angle looks ilke it has very little distortion. I still like the way the Olloclip works (size and the way you attach the lenses and is less than half of the price).
Postal Pix - I was very impressed with their aluminum prints. The 4x4'' looked great. They will be adding 12x12 in the next couple of months Their regular prints also looked quite nice. It is an app and you can order directly from your iPhone.
Postagram - Sends a postcard of your shot and the postcard is perforated so that the person you send it to can pop out the picture and save it. The printing is nicely done. Again the App is set up to print direct and it looks like they are about $1
http://postagramapp.com/
One of the best resources on the web for all thing iPhone photographic is:
http://www.iphoneography.com/
Finally,
I grabbed two different shots that I took of HOLTASÓLEY the national flower when I was in Iceland (not on iPhone but in my photo roll) and layered them and then manipulated them using several different apps including Filterstorm, Picgrunger, Snapseed
Here are two after I layered them and then after I added some more post processing.
(not wild about this border....need to look for one I like better - more app shopping
)