Some iphone pictures

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Marylin

My wife is a dedicated iphone ‘snapper’. She’s also a big facebook user. Anything that she thinks interesting enough to share is photographed and immediately shared via facebook. I occasionally use the iphone camera (e.g. if I have nothing better to hand), but I tend to avoid it unless I’m desperate thinking “it’s not really much of a camera after all” (I should say that my iphone is an ancient 3GS with a broken screen). However, yesterday I was in Barnes and Noble browsing through some of the books and I came across this one:  The Art of Iphoneography.  There were some interesting photos in it and it occurred to me that I might have a few pictures that might be worth sharing. Some of them were taken indoors or in poor light so the image quality isn’t great ((too much noise, blur etc.). Those taken in good light outdoors however are much better. I’ll certainly try to use the iphone more, but I think it’s time for me to upgrade my shattered iphone. I imagine the camera on the iphone 5 is much better.

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Hermance on Lake Geneva in Switzerland

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Woman on a train

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Jackson and his bones (I must admit slightly staged. I arranged the bones)

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Boat docks, Terrace Club, Mahopac

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Lake Carmel

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Saratoga Battlefield

Converted to black and white using Silver FX pro.

Inside Cappello’s Auto Repair

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From time to time I become paralyzed. I want to go out and shoot but I can’t think of anything worthy of picture taking. Part of it is laziness. I can’t immediately think of anywhere clever to go so I find excuses not to go out and shoot. It’s too early. The light’s not right. The weather might be bad etc. When I force myself to go out I always enjoy it. There are picture taking opportunities everywhere, even in the most mundane places. I just have to go out somewhere (doesn’t really matter where) and look for the opportunities.

A case in point. I went to my regular automotive service station: Cappello’s Auto Repair in Ossining, NY. As an aside they’re really great. We’ve been using them for about 14 years and I can’t imagine anyone better. Back to the story. I was going into NY city to meet up with some friends. One of my headlights was out and I wanted it to be fixed before I drove back home in the dark. I had also noticed that I was having to top up coolant rather more than normal and suspected a coolant leak somewhere. One of the Cappello brothers (there seem to be a lot of them) said that it would take about 10 minutes to change the light bulb. However, on checking for the coolant leak he figured out that there was a crack in the radiator and it would have to be replaced. After a few calls he determined that fixing everything would take about two hours. As this would still allow me enough time to get into the city I told them to go ahead.

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Santa Monica 2003

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Incoming Waves.

I was reading some articles about Garry Winogrand. One of them mentioned that he never developed film right after shooting it. He would wait for some time (maybe even a couple of years) so that the memory of taking the photo would have faded. Supposedly this allowed him to be more objective in judging his images: “If I was in a good mood when I was shooting one day, then developed the film right away…I might choose a picture because I remember how good it felt when I took it, not necessarily because it was a great shot. You make better choices if you approach your contact sheets cold, separating the editing from the picture taking as much as possible.” (from an interview with one of his students).

With this in mind I took a look back at some of my old pictures. I wanted to see how I felt about them now. Then I re-edited a few. These are the results. They were all taken in 20003 with a Canon Sureshot S-50, 5 megapixel camera at the Santa Monica pier in California.

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Santa Monica Pier

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Seagulls

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Cyclist

A tale of two ceiling fans

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Here the fan is a secondary player. I was lying on the sofa in our living room reading and I happened to look up. I was struck by the pattern of light cast by a table lamp onto the ceiling. The fan just adds a bit of visual variety to the image.

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Again a chance image. I was having lunch at a nearby restaurant: Holy Smoke – it’s a great barbecue place with a large selection of beers, many of which I’d never heard of. I was waiting for my food to arrive and playing with my camera. I glanced around to see if there was anything “picture worthy”. Eventually I looked up and saw the fan with its static light fixtures and spinning blades. It took a few different shutter speeds before I got the kind of blur that I wanted.

Around the lake – some black and whites

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As is often the case I took these while walking the dog one day. I didn’t have too many winter pictures so I thought I’d take a few before all of the snow and ice disappeared. The first one is of ‘Children’s Beach’, one of several beaches around the lake. In summer it’s often full of people swimming, boating etc. Kind of desolate in winter though. I liked the boat in the foreground and the tracks across the icy snow.

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