* the camera roll *

VERY COOL video of this father and son in new york who stuck a video camera and an iphone onto a giant helium balloon and let it take off into space, all the while recording the entire trip:

tugging at my heartstrings.  i gotta do something like that with my kiddo once he gets older…  too bad i’m a photographer and not a rocket scientist.

a few more iphone/shakeitphoto pics.

the dude’s just damn good, and such a nice guy too!

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/essay-17/

sorry it’s been a while since i’ve posted last.  i’ve been busy for the past month on a big project (more about that in a future post), and is only now finding some time to mess around with this blog.  below is an assortment of iphone+shakeitphoto randoms from the past few months:

so wardrobe stylist rachel esterline turned me onto this iphone app for photo:

www.shakeitphoto.com

it’s billed as a polaroid emulator for the iphone camera.  i’m kinda digging it.  no, i’m REALLY digging it.

i’ve always had a thing for shooting in squares.  my mind sees differently when composing in squares.  that’s why i’ve been devoted to hassys for just about my entire photo life thus far.

up until recently, i was a bit schizophrenic when it came to picture-taking.  when i would shoot with a 35mm-style camera (horizontal aspect), i would default to photojournalism.  but when i would switch to a square camera, something just clicked.  i became a different photographer.  i’m sure it had something to do with jiggling my mind around a bit, forcing my eyes to confront the change.

i’m sure it has absolutely nothing to do with the years and years of television that i watched growing up.  years and years of looking at a flickering horizontal screen.  nah, that had no effect on me whatsoever…

nevertheless, it’s taken me about 4 years to break myself of this habit.  i think i’m about 95% cured.

well, when i started taking with the iphone, i initially approached it from a “purist” point of view.  or at least as much as one can be a “purist” while using a cameraphone.  i didn’t want to crop, i didn’t want to do too much manipulation beyond basic toning.  if it wasn’t full frame, it was crap.

so this shakeitphoto app is me sorta breaking my own rules.  well, but only sorta, since i’m now forcing myself to shoot iphone pics with square in mind.  i’m such a rebel.

here are some pics con shakeitphoto:

video shot from my iphone.

drum

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so i got one last week.  the big bugger.  the 32gb one.  holy hell is this thing sweet.

one thing they definitely improved on is the camera capability.  it’s a bigger file size now, i think at around 3 megapixels.  but as we all know, megapixel size is all relative, because there’s plenty of pixel inflation with crappy cameras, so i don’t put too much stock into this improvement.

but what they did do was add an autofocus and exposure adjustment function that really rocks.  it now focuses sharply down to almost macro.

you can also adjust the exposure by pointing on the iphone screen to the spot of the picture where you want the exposure taken from and then set it that way.  for instance, you’re taking a picture of a dark person against a white wall.  the old camera would expose for the wall and the person would just be a silhouette.  but with this new feature, you move the little square cursor thingie over to the person, and voila!  the pic is exposed for the person and the wall stays white like it should.

it also has this pretty amazing video thing.  i didn’t take too much interest in it until i decided to mess with it while i was at sports illustrated photog brad mangin’s party last night.  he had legendary rock photographer jim marshall over holding court in the living room, talking about pictures he shot.  it was this amazing moment of about a dozen people surrounding him, listening to his every word about his jazz pictures.

here’s an iphone video of jim talking about him and miles davis.  (if you happen to have a slight audio/video synching issue when viewing, my apologies.  i think it’s a wordpress issue when uploading to them)

Jim Marshall at Brad’s

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