Life in LoFi: iPhoneography | iPhone Photo News, Showcases, App Reviews

The first episode of the new web-only talk show iPhoneographers Talk is online now. Hosted by Guy Yang from The Beginners Lens and Commercial Photographer/iPhoneographer Jack Hollingsworth, the show covers a wide range of iPhone Photography topics, including apps, workflow, interviews, portfolio reviews, tips, resources, etc. The show will also feature guests from time to time.

Jack Hollingsworth talks about the idea behind the show:

“Guy and I had this simple idea of creating an iPhoneography talk show roughly 15 minutes per episode; 2-3 episodes per month. The plan is to keep the content and conversation light, lively and inspirational. This episode is a good start.”

In this episode, both photographers introduce themselves and discuss how their more traditional photographic backgrounds have effected their iPhoneography. Stick around for the end of the episode; Jack shares a great iPhone photography tip.

If the video embed above doesn’t work, click here to watch the episode on YouTube.

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Life In LoFi is a media partner of iPhoneographers Talk.

Frolic by =M=

In case you missed this, Digital Photography Review recently posted a good basic introduction to square format photography. It gives a brief history of the format as it relates to photography, as well as some good image composition theory. It’s a very camera-neutral read and applies to pretty much any device capturing square-format photography.

With more iPhone users discovering artistic photography through square format apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic, this is a good read to get a quick background and some good tips on shooting better square format. The rules of composition for rectangular formats don’t always apply to square format photography.

“Having a single subject is even more important in a square format than in a rectangular one. Don’t try to split the viewer’s attention. Including some background for context is okay, and may even be important, but make sure that the background stays in the background.”

Click here to read “Square Format: not so weird” by Doug Pardee on dpreview.com.

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Since posting screenshots of my iPhone 4S on my most recent “My Camera Bag” page, I’ve had several requests about the Blueprint background wallpaper I use on my iPhone. While not iPhoneography-related, I’m sharing it here.

On your iPhone, simply tap and hold on the image above to save it straight to your camera roll at full size. Or, on your desktop or laptop, right-click to save it to your computer. Email it to yourself and save it to your iPhone. The file is full size at 640×960 pixels and should look great as the background on any iPhone or iPod Touch.

According to Beautiful Pixels, the Blueprint wallpaper was created by Brad Hellyar. They’ve also got several other really cool wallpapers to download here.

=M=

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We love Photojojo and we know they love us back because of all the fun toys they have for us. Check out Photojojo’s new Tumblr blog, Photojojo (hearts) Phoneography! It features, weekly reviews of both iPhone & Android photo apps, a daily dose of phoneography eye candy, the latest camera phone tech news, and cool Photojojo swag and/or fame a la phoneography contests.

The blog just launched a day or so ago but has easy to digest news bytes and mini reviews of some cool phone gear as well as mini-features on several Android photo apps.

Photojojo is always a fun read (you have explored other areas of their site besides the gear pages, right?). Photojojo (hearts) Phoneography! looks to be a good new resource on all things mobile photography and already looks to fill a huge void in the Droidography blogosphere especially.

=M=

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Over the weekend, one of our local papers ran an excellent editorial about photographer’s rights. If you photograph in public often as many iPhoneographer do, the chances are good that someday you will be stopped and questioned by security or law enforcement. Unfortunately, in these times, this is something that as artists we must be prepared to face.

We’ve covered this before, but it’s always a good subject to revisit, both as a refresher and for those who’ve just discovered iPhoneography and mobile photography.

Read the rest of this entry →

Dangerous Method star Keria Knightly. (CP/Chris Young)

Who says the iPhone can’t be taken seriously as a camera? With recent combat photography making news, that argument has already lost a lot of its momentum. Now, Canadian Press photographer Chris Young has been making the rounds at the Toronto International Film Festival and got some great portraits of some of the celebrities there using Hipstamatic and his iPhone.

MetroNews in Canada recently posted 15 of them. Director David Cronenberg looks great in the stark monochrome of BlacKeys. Here’s the link to the entire gallery on MetroNews.ca, “In Pictures: TIFF celebrity portraits by Hipstamatic and an iPhone”

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Big thanks to Shannon Watts for the heads up on this one.

“Best Served Cold” – FiLMiC Pro Action Promo from FiLMiC Pro on Vimeo.

Click the embed above to watch a short film — a fake action film trailer that was shot entirely with an iPhone 4 and iPhone videography app FiLMiC Pro. It’s a cool short film that does a great job of showcasing many of FiLMiC Pro’s capabilities. Honestly, it’s also better than a lot of the theatrical releases I’ve seen recently.

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Photo by Instagram/@twayne_photos

Texas has been hit this summer with its most serious drought in over 30 years. We nearly broke the record for consecutive days over 100° and we still may break Texas’ record for the hottest summer overall. Most of our lakes are low to seriously low, with many lakes here at less than 50% capacity. At my house, we’ve probably gotten less than an inch of rain here since May (we live in a weird, rain-resistant area of the DFW Metroplex). We’ve been under an Extreme Wildfire Alert here in North Texas all summer long.

Recent wildfires across Texas have destroyed thousands of acres, hundreds of homes and claimed several lives.

Users of Instagram have been posting some very striking images of the Texas fires under the tags #centraltxfires, #txfires and #bastrop. For some striking photos of the fires, search out those hashtags in the Instagram app of your choice.

There are more images and info on Instagram’s blog here.

These fires are tragic in the loss of life and property. Those who are effected by this tragedy are in my thoughts.

The Washington Post has an excellent article on ways you can help the wildfire victims.

=M=

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How could I resist sharing a MacWorld post with a title like that?

In case you missed it a couple weeks ago, MacWorld’s Lauren Crabbe published a story online about using an iPhone for higher-quality image capture and editing – something that many of us already know about our cameras of choice, but might be of interest if you haven’t yet discovered some of the higher-end photo editors.

I agree with many of her choices, including using both PhotoForge2 and Filterstorm. Both apps have different uses in my toolbox. Her choice of ComicBook in an otherwise hi-fi-oriented article left me puzzled. Also, noting one of her oversights, Cogitap’s excellent Slow Shutter Cam () does support full resolution on an iPhone 4.

“Yes, it is possible to take good photos on your iPhone without shoving it through a lo-fi app. And as cool as it may seem to make your party photos look like they were taken in 1976, one can’t help wonder what we will think of them in retrospect.”

Click to read the entire post, “iPhone photo apps that go beyond the lo-fi” on MacWorld.com.

=M=

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The editors of Blogs.com, “the best in blogs,” have just released a list of their top ten iPhone photography blogs. I’m happy to say that Life In LoFi was included in their Top Ten. With the large number of iPhone photography websites and blogs (and that number growing rapidly), I’m honored that this blog was chosen for the list. Reading over the list, Life In LoFi is in some great company and there are some excellent blogs to add to your bookmarks to get your daily iPhoneography fix.

“Whether you’re using Instagr.am, Photoshop Mobile, Hipstamatic, TiltShift or PhotoPaint, or any of a hundred of apps for taking and editing photos, check out these blogs for inspiration.”

Click here to read the entire post, Blogs.com’s “Top 10 iPhone Photo (iPhoneography) Blogs.”

My very big thanks to the editors of Blogs.com. And my bigger thanks to you for stopping by. It’s a big Internet and I’m grateful that you share part of your time here.

=M=

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And many thanks to iPhoneographer Jack Hollingsworth (Twitter/@photojack) for the heads up on this one.