One Year of iPhoneography and Instagram

 My twelve favourite photos shot on my iPhone… so far!

Over the last year I have had a ton of fun with what I now say is my favourite camera; My iPhone.

Now I’m not saying that it’s better than my professional gear, but it is more fun for me for a few reasons. For one, I feel no pressure when taking a photo on the iPhone, it’a all just for kicks and I don’t take it all that seriously. This fun and light sense of freedom I have when using the iPhone makes me relax and just go with the flow. You can never have too much fun, right?

Another reason why I love using it is to share with friends and social media followers where I am, what I’m seeing, and what they can look forward to in terms of the “real’ photos that I’m working on. Instagram is a big reason that sharing iPhoneography photos is so easy and now thanks to Statigram, you can follow any Instagram user you want and see their whole library of images. Let’s take me for example, shall we?

You can now follow my Instagram adventures by clicking on the Instagram button on the sidebar of my blog.

Most of the photos I take on the iPhone take less than five minutes to create. If they took any longer than that it would be a bit of a waste of time so I try to keep it to a five minute maximum.

Now you don’t need to use an iPhone to do great mobile phone photography as my friend Kirsten Alana shows in her recent blog post. What you do need is a creative vision, some cool apps and the willingness to take some time to learn how to use them. Android users are now also getting more choices in terms of apps and so no matter what platform you use now, you have some very creative tools at your disposal.

Like Kirsten, I don’t use the filters in Instagram but I do love it as a social media network for mobile photographers. What I hate — absolutely HATE — about Instagram is that they allow people to upload images shot with DSLRs that they worked on in Photoshop on a computer. There should be another app for those people in my opinion, or just stick to Flickr or some other service.

Kenk514 is my handle for Instagram if you’d like to follow me there. iPhoneography and Instagram… they go hand in hand.

What are some of my favourite photography apps for my iPhone?

My top 5 iPhone photo apps

Camera+

This has been my go-to app for most of the year and the “clarity” effect alone makes this app worth getting.

Snapseed

Maybe the best overall app out there form the people at Nik Software who make absolutely awesome plugins for Photoshop. These guys and gals know their stuff when it comes to digital post production for both professional and mobile photography.

Pro HDR

As an avid use of the HDR technique I thought I’d stay away from this in my mobile photography. I was wrong! This is a great app and gets a thumbs up from me.

AutoStitch

Thanks to my buddy Patrick DiFruscia using this app in Iceland on our recent trip, I ditched all my other stitching software. For seamless panorama images that you stitch together, this app has become my favourite.

FatBooth/AgingBooth

Now you have to have a sense of humour about yourself to be able to love this app. I LOVE it! The app allows you to instantly transform head-shots of you and your friends into not so flattering examples of what you’d look like with some serious extra pounds and a few decades of extra living. I’ll let you guess which photo is before and which is after

Love – Hate

I can’t stand it when the developers of an app make certain features available as upgrades and charge for all these new features. While I don’t mind a free version and a paid version of the same app, I find it utterly annoying to buy an app and then have to keep paying for more and more features. The Smug Mug and Hipstamatic apps are the worst ones I have found yet in terms of asking users to keep paying more and more. Make it good and I’ll buy it… ONCE! More that that and you’re just a pain and I’ll delete the app and never buy another one from that developer.

iLove this thing!

On a parting note I have to mention my all time favourite photo accessory for my iPhone. The iPro Lens system from Schneider Optics. I had this baby with me on my recent trips to Italy, Sweden, and Iceland and i used it all the time. The wide angle lens was my absolute favourite. I did not have the telephoto lens, just the wide angle and the fish-eye. The lenses are built solidly and take crisp images, which is what I would expect given the price tags on these items. You really do get what you pay for and if you are even somewhat serious about taking photos with your iPhone, then the cost really is nothing compared to buying a point and shoot camera. Schneider has been making quality lenses for pro cameras for decades and their expertise shows in the iPro Lens system. It is well thought out and easy to use. I would even go so far as to say that it is perfect companion to your iPhone and along with a few great apps will make you absolutely love taking photos on your iPhone. Look for a full review of this system from me in the next few months.

Hope you enjoyed this looks back at my first year of of iPhoneography and Instagram. I’ll have a lot more to share with you soon as I’m working on a big project that includes iPhoneography which I’ll be announcing in the next week or so.

For more fun photography and stories from the road, check out these previous posts:

Ken Kaminesky is a Canadian lifestyle and travel photographer. Follow him in his quest to take over the world, one photo at a time! Ken Kaminesky Travel Photography Blog

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