And seeing as I was putting silly constraints on myself anyway, I would not only take the photos on my phone but also edit and share them from the phone. Time to put device convergence to the test.

The Tools

First and foremost, my iPhone 3Gs. I don’t think a lot of the image processing would be tolerable on older hardware. And, after a bit of informal research, the following apps:

• Best Camera
• Photogene
• ColorSplash
• TiltShiftGen

They cost about $10 altogether, so no big investment there if you decide you want to play around. For the super cost-conscious folks out there you can get by with just Best Camera and Photogene. ColorSplash and TiltShiftGen have much more niche uses, but they are pretty fun apps and can produce some cool results.

A Few Tips

After shooting, editing and tweeting for a few days, I ran into a few snags that can be overcome with some settings magic.

• Make sure that Best Camera is set to save a copy of the original image to your photo library (Settings > Auto-Save Original > On)
• Set the “Working Size” to “Original Size” in Best Camera (Settings > Working Size > Original Size)

The first setting allows you to completely replace your iPhone camera app if you are planning on shooting and editing at the same time. If you are shooting first and editing later, stick with the built-in camera app, it’s a bit snappier. The second setting ensures that your edited photos save at the same resolution as your originals. This is important if you plan to use them for something other than display on your iPhone, or sharing via Twitter.

The Results

Just to give you a better idea of the quality using default settings, I am using the on-phone compressed versions of the images in the gallery below. In general, the uncompressed images are better, but I haven’t synced all of them with my computer just yet. So, that show-and-tell will have to wait.

Conclusions

The limitations of the camera made me think about ways to get closer to my subjects, and I wound up with some pretty interesting photographs. The on-camera editing meant instant gratification whereas some pictures have languished on my compact flash cards for weeks before editing. It was kind of a game to take, edit, and share the photos (via Twitter) as quickly as possible. The prize being getting feedback from people that liked the photos just as quickly.

I was also more engaged with my surroundings. I find the when I have my SLR, I spend a lot of time looking through the lens and framing shots, adjusting settings, and just thinking about photography ’stuff’. The act of taking a photograph engages a lot of the technical bits of my brain, and I lose some of the sense of being present. That was mitigated in a noticeable way shooting with a one button camera and editing with my thumbs.

The limitations of the iPhone took some of the pressure off and made for some happy accidents (the lights in the picture of the Pike Street Market). I did miss the fidelity of a really good camera for some of the photos, as well as the flexibility that good glass can bring to low-light shooting. In general though, I was happy to pay that price. In fact, I am seriously considering doing this again for my next trip to San Francisco to attend the Business of Software conference.

All the leaves are turning and falling. I went back through my photos from this summer and found this one. It was about 80 degrees and a bit humid. I remember thinking, “It could be a little cooler, and this would be perfect.”

Unfortunately, the fall in the northeast has been rather yuck. Lots of cold rain. Not a lot of crisp clear fall days (my favorites). There is still some time left. Fall, don’t fail me!

My new camera was enough inspiration to get out and take the night-time shots of West Point that I have been threatening to take for the last year or so. I shot these with my mono pod. Bad move. This kind of shooting requires a real-deal tripod. The results were really pleasing in their own way, however, and it gave me a chance to mess with the D300’s admirable arsenal of shooting tricks.

Here is another shot from the same series, with a different treatment.

The Winooski river runs through the center of Montpelier, and the buildings that live right above it are hundreds of years old, in some cases. The thing that struck me after I took this, is that it seemed like it was somewhere else. New Orleans? It just breaks away from my comfy preconceived notions of what Vermont looks like.

Ran across this old drain on a *mostly* defunct dam in the middle of the woods this weekend. For context, here is the “dam”:

This is the HDR version of a black and white photo that I posted a while back. I appreciate both versions, but this one is so much more like I remember it.

We took an extended trip out today to get various things done. Phoebe accompanied us. Partly for her sake, and partly to make sure that we wouldn’t be tempted to go anywhere that doesn’t like dogs (nothing inside). It was pretty perfect.

This was the first shoot in what I hope to be a series of location shoots around my area. There are a whole host of old cemeteries in the northeast with some rather amazing artwork in them. I am hoping to capture a bunch of images from them for a series on religious iconography.

Taken at the river front in Cold Spring. I went there for a completely different shot, but I bungled it badly. On the way out, I thought, “that’s a neat piece of drift wood.” No tripod. HDR shot from the hip and it came out better than I could have hoped.

I know it’s impolite to toot your own horn, but I really like this one.

This a shot from the river-side of the Glenclyffe building. It was built in the 20s for the Franciscans. It is owned by OSI now, and is semi-public. Even in the warm sunlight it was creepy.