Abstracted by iPhone, #4 
2
iPhone
Abstracted by iPhone, #4
Abstracted by iPhone, #3
Art is everywhere. Even if all you have at the moment is just an iPhone camera…
The method? Shade to slow the shutter speed way down, a little camera movement, some interesting fabric, and then tweak the color balance in post – and voilà!
Jury Duty in Riverside, California
I’ve never served on a jury before. It’s not exactly something I wanted to do, but it’s definitely a civic duty and I believe in our judicial system, and since Riverside County seems to summon citizens exactly once a year without fail, it was really only a matter of time before I was selected.
Honestly I enjoyed the trial itself – it was a quick one, only a few days – and the process was fascinating. But once the trial was over, and jury deliberations started, that’s when it got ugly. I was sort of stunned by how easily some of my fellow jurors threw the judge’s instructions out the window – and how some were more interested in following their gut reactions, rather than just rely on the evidence. To say it was an eye-opening experience is to put it mildly. I still believe in our system, but I’m even more grateful that it’s 12 jurors, and not 6 or 8!
I took these images on the first day, with my iPhone at lunch. The courthouse was built in 1904, and was modeled after the Grand and Petit Palais in Paris – so it’s absolutely beautiful! And it has orange trees growing in front, reminiscent of Riverside’s heydey – and they were in full bloom. Orange blossoms may be my all-time favorite scent – just pure heaven. And the area around the courthouse is equally as beautiful – it’s right in the middle of downtown, just blocks from where I used to live.
Overall the experience was stressful and not fun, but I’m glad I was able to do it. It felt good to see the system working, and it felt good to be a part of it. But if that was my one and only time behind those closed juror doors, that would be fine with me!
Oh, and the newspaper headline in the image above is NOT from the trial I was on. That was the headline on the local paper the first day I served, and it just jumped out at me, so I shot the image in front of the courthouse. I am extremely thankful I wasn’t a part of a trial with an ending like that!
My current favorite iPhone Apps
I finally found an iPhone To-Do List App that I may like for more than five minutes…
It’s called Done, and it’s very very simple, which is exactly what I wanted. Just a simple little To-Do List that’s easy to check off, and has categories of tasks. I didn’t want to assign contexts, or due dates, or anything else complicated – and I really didn’t want to have to pay a monthly fee to use it. And this is important, I wanted it to be elegant in how it worked, and look like a native iPhone App – so many of the new Apps look like the interface was designed in the dark, by a first-grader. No thanks! I wanted a simple elegant interface that fits in with everything else on my iPhone. And I think I found it! It would have been nice if it was able to sync with my MAC, and the developers claim that’s a future feature, but in the meantime it’s not a deal breaker for me.
Oh, and it’s only $.99 in the iTunes App Store. You really can’t beat that!
And while we’re talking Apps, my current favorite is Shazam. If you hear a song and want to know who the artist is, just launch Shazam, hit the Tag Now button, and and Shazam will “listen” and then deliver up not only the name of the song and artist, but also links to purchase it on iTunes, and maybe even a link to the video on YouTube. Very, very cool and you can download it for free!
My other favorite App is only of interest to photographers. It’s called PhotoCalc and I love it for the Sunrise and Sunset times! But it also has a really handy Depth of Field calculator. I can input f/1.2 with a 50mm lens, with the subject 3 feet away, and find out that my total depth of field is exactly 0.1 feet – in other words, just a little over one inch. My focus better be spot on, if I’m shooting under those conditions, and knowing exactly how narrow the depth of field, instead of just guessing, can be really helpful. I’ll admit it, most of the time I just go on instinct – I mean I know 1.2 is extremely shallow, and that in a close up portrait if the eyes are in focus, the nose will be out of focus – that’s a given. And I know that if I want the nose and lips in focus, I should back away from the subject just a little, or else go to 1.8 or 2.0. I know all that. But sometimes it’s cool to know exactly how many inches, or feet, you have. There’s also a Flash Exposure calculator and a reference section with info on the Zone System, the Sunny 16 Rule, and film types – very old school, and I like that! PhotoCalc is $2.99 and totally worth it for the Sunrise and Sunset times alone – if knowing when the light is best is as big a deal to you, as it is to me…
Abstracted by iPhone, #2
So, what is it? Or does it even matter…
Ocean by iPhone
I’ve said it before, when I don’t want to carry my real camera, I love my iPhone! It’s fun. And sometimes I get images I love – like the one above. I love the ocean, so that helps – and today was beautiful – there were grey clouds hovering, with patches of sun peaking through. Just the perfect fall day to visit the beach!
Abstracted by iPhone
Yeah, these were shot with an iPhone! It’s a great little camera and you can do some super-fun things with it…
A Day in Toronto With an iPhone
I spent a day in Toronto at the end of my trip with absolutely nothing planned – my favorite kind of day! I slept in, ordered room service, then hopped on a tour bus and let someone else drive me around the city, while I shot with my iPhone. I had fun playing with movement – the camera doesn’t have any settings to manipulate, but you can still get some fun stuff with moving subject matter.
If you look carefully at the images below, you’ll see when the bus went over a bump – because there’s a funky dip in the sidewalk. Or when other vehicles were moving fast, because the body of the vehicle gets stretched waaaaay out.
It was fun, and I saw a lot that day. I liked Toronto – it reminded me of New York City, and as the tour guide pointed out, that was partially because so much film production happens there, and the city often subs for NYC in the movies.
Lust won out…
…and I’m the happy new owner of an iPhone!
I tried so hard to resist – really, I did! I’ve never been an early adapter. I’ve always bought into the old, “it’s better to wait and get the second generation of any new product so the manufacturer would have time to work the bugs out.” Yeah, right. Sounds smart…
But I trust Apple and the iPhone is the phone I’ve been waiting for – it’s got all the features I’ve wanted. I’ve heard other people say they’ll wait until it comes out with more memory, or it’s G3 enabled, or whatever – but for me, it’s exactly what I wanted, as is.
That’s not to say it wasn’t a purchase driven by pure lust. Sometimes you’ve just got to give in, and let lust win…