Remember way back when in, like, those long-ago hazy years of 2011 and 2012 when there seemed to be InstaMeets every weekend and a global event every few months? One of the cool things about the meets was seeing how others looked at and shot the same subject. Sometimes, that’s called “shooting over” someone and it’s not always a good thing. But at the InstaMeets where there could be hundreds of iPhoneographers shooting a relatively few subjects, shooting the same subject becomes part of the event and gives everyone a different perspective (no pun intended).
Photographer Thomas Moore and Life In LoFi Publisher Marty Yawnick
One of the cool things about shooting in a meet with other photographers is that despite the number of people in the building, most were very aware of each other’s shots, which made for a really nice shooting experience. Even though we only had an hour to shoot the galleries, if you could see your shot, odds are you could get it with a minimum wait. Nice.
Here are several of the iPhone photos I shot at #emptymodern, presented as they were shared on Instagram. I’ve also included a few notes on any apps I used to process. Because we only had an hour or so, I didn’t spend too much time apping each image. Most of the time, the photograph didn’t really need to be overly processed. I’ve also included a link to additional images that other mobile photographers have shared of the event. You know… for perspective.
InstaMeets, photo walks, or just hanging out with a few friends to “go shootin'”… I highly recommend you shoot in a group whenever you have the opportunity. It’s fun. It’s good to get out of the house. And either you’ll learn to see things a little differently or possibly help someone else to do so.
I mostly shot with Apple Camera today. I used Cortex Camera ($2.99) for images where I wanted to hold higher detail after cropping or just a little bit more definition in 3/4 tones. The lede image of the Reflecting Pool was shot with Cortex Camera. I enhanced the shadows and saturation in Snapseed (Free).
Convergence #emptymodern @themodernfw
A photo posted by Life In LoFi (@lifeinlofi) on
The Modern building has such great lines, contrast, and open space and I love how this corner of the foyer so geometrically converges with building and sky. This image didn’t quite turn out the way I’d planned. The windows were filled with an early morning blue sky and the photo I saw was a vivid blue sky contrasted with the darkened gray of the concrete in the shadows. As often happens, my iPhone 5S didn’t quite see the same photo I did. The sky was blue but not the vivid, deep blue I wanted it to be. I applied a slight overall blue tint in Gélo ($0.99) which instead had the effect of applying a light blue photo filter to the image. This did some pretty cool stuff with the texture of the concrete. I brought the image into SimplyB&W (Free) to remove the color and really bring out the contrast and detail.
Big thanks to @dtrannosaurus for letting me steal a little bit of her soul. This is raw. Not processed at all. If I were to do anything to it, I might crop the top in a little bit. Sometimes, your camera is ready, you turn your head, and the shot is there — it all comes together for an instant.
A photo posted by Life In LoFi (@lifeinlofi) on
Lines, light, color. I used SKRWT ($1.99) to skew the perspective of this photo adding height and scale to the gallery. I then used Snapseed to saturate the hell out of the image, which really enhanced the blue in Jenny Holzer’s “The Weight of Words”.
Another image with almost no processing. Shooting fluorescent lights (neon as well) is difficult because the light oscillates at frequencies that don’t always mesh with the iPhone’s camera. I got lucky with this capture. The iPhone saw and captured the colors of the installation better than I’d have hoped without blowing out the highlights in the bulbs. That it also captured the glow of the light on the wall behind it was an added surprise. I amped up the colors to 11 using Snapseed’s saturation tool.
A photo posted by Life In LoFi (@lifeinlofi) on
This is my favorite piece in The Modern’s collection and it’s tough to photograph in this gallery during regular hours. The piece itself is very surreal and visually it has a lot of forced perspective by design. With all of the improvements in the iPhone’s camera over the years, it’s easy to forget that mobile photography is an art form chock full of limitations. One of the things I love about iPhoneography is knowing what my camera can and can’t do and the challenge of shooting around those limitations. When it all comes together and you get your shot, that’s a “yesss!” moment. I took dozens of shots to capture just the right balance I was looking for. I think the shadows from the gallery’s lighting are as much a part of Martin Puryear’s “Ladder for Booker T. Washington” as the piece itself. Again, I used Simply B&W to convert to black & white, experimenting with the different color filters until I found one that gave the walls weight and the ladder contrast. There is a cropped version on LoFi’s Instagram feed, but this is a classic example of how even a fairly minor crop can change an image.
Other Images from #emptymodern
To see more images from today’s event, visit Mixagram/#emptymodern
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