Smartphone cameras have quietly overtaken dSLRs in many
everyday situations simply because of convenience and
computational power. They're always in your pocket, ready to
shoot in seconds, while a dSLR requires carrying equipment,
setup time, and enough social tolerance to point a
conspicuous lens at something, and so on.
Beyond accessibility, modern smartphones pack sophisticated
AI-driven processing — night mode, HDR merging, multi-frame
stacking — that produces polished results automatically,
without the user needing to understand f-stops or RAW
editing. The best photograph is usually the one you actually
took, and smartphones make taking it far more likely.
You should always strive to do your best -- and show your
best. Great photography is not necessarily about equipment,
but how you approach capturing an image. Knowing the basic
controls of YOUR camera helps you capture what you see.
iPhone Camera Basics (apply to Android Phone Cameras too)
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/camera-basics-iph263472f78/ios
Save camera settings on iPhone (set the defaults the way YOU want)
Settings > Camera > Preserve Settings
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/save-camera-settings-iph62000de98/ios
Some user-selectable aspect ratios. The Golden Ratio
(√5+1)/2, favored by the Greeks in architecture, lies just
between the green (35mm file format) and blue rectangles. You
can choose which aspect ratio YOU prefer at any time and even
set it as your default with Preserve Settings.
When should you consider using a tripod for iPhone photography?
Example of High Quality Secure MagSafe iPhone Mount for Tripods
The most basic tools (with any camera) are:
1. Choosing Where to Focus (Tap)
2. Locking Focus (Tap & Hold)
3. Exposure (Slide Finger to lighten or darken)
4. Locking Exposure
Demo on an iPhone
Use iPhone camera tools to set up your shot
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/set-up-your-shot-iph3dc593597/ios
iPhone Camera basics
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/camera-basics-iph263472f78/ios
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210571
iPhone Camera Features For Perfect Focus (9 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBdH-bttN-c
https://iphonephotographyschool.com/
How To Set The Correct Exposure For Stunning iPhone Photos (19 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h1qFnsCTzE
https://iphonephotographyschool.com/iphone-photography-tips/
https://iphonephotographyschool.com/iphoneography/
Apple unveils the best photos from the Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/04/apple-unveils-the-best-photos-from-the-shot-on-iphone-macro-challenge/
Photo Assignment
Each of these weekly photos assignments is meant to encourage
you to try something new, or different, or be challenged, and
yet to have fun doing it. Be creative. Make your images about
something that pleases you, that you want to keep looking at.
While photographing something of interest to you, choose a
perspective that has something close and something far. That
can be objects on a table or in a room or out of doors.
Prove to yourself that you can focus on something near and
something far without changing what your camera is looking
at.
Creative Exercises for Photographers
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/tips-and-solutions/13-creative-exercises-for-photographers
Sometimes creativity can use a jump-start, an artificial
method to get the photographer to start looking at the world
in a new way in order to facilitate, restart, refine, or
improve your photography.
Book Recommendation
John Berger
About Looking
Pantheon (1980)
ISBN: 0679736557
As a novelist, art critic, and cultural historian, John
Berger is a writer of dazzling eloquence and arresting
insight whose work amounts to a subtle, powerful critique of
the canons of our civilization. In About Looking he explores
our role as observers to reveal new layers of meaning in
what we see. How do the animals we look at in zoos remind us
of a relationship between man and beast all but lost in the
twentieth century? What is it about looking at war
photographs that doubles their already potent violence? How
do the nudes of Rodin betray the threats to his authority
and potency posed by clay and flesh? And how does solitude
inform the art of Giacometti? In asking these and other
questions, Berger quietly -- but fundamentally -- alters the
vision of anyone who reads his work.
sam.wormley@icloud.com