Cellphone Inspiration

Saturday night my wife and I were driving home from a Christmas party and as we crossed over the Ravenell Bridge the fog was engulfing the tops of the suspension towers and they looked downright mystical. I was armed only with my iPhone for the evening, but that’s never stopped me before. The idea of iPhonography (or any cell phone with a camera and the ability to edit photos directly on it) is to exploit the scene using the strengths and weaknesses of the cameraphone to your advantage. If I had my NIkon with a tripod and remote shutter release I would have taken a more traditional long exposure of this scene. Because I was sitting in the passenger seat of a minivan and only had my iPhone, I attacked it with a much different style.

I knew the resolution and low light capabilities were going to be less than ideal, so this is an instance where I need to embrace the onslaught of digital noise. I wanted the suspension wires to come at me like laser beams while still fitting the first tower into the frame. I tilted the camera sideways and shot through the windshield. The light from the lamp posts reflected unpredictably in the dirt on the windshield, but I think it adds a bit of excitement and unpredictable movement to the shot. The fog is better defined towards the back tower, and the green tint from the lights are contrasted sharply by the brake lights of the car in front of us. All of these elements came together in a matter of seconds in my head and then in my hand.

After I “tapped” the shot, I used an app called Camera+ to brighten and saturate it a bit, and then applied the cool frayed border that I feel accentuates the grittiness of the shot. I did this before we made it to the entrance of i26. Within minutes, I was uploading it to Flickr. This is the kind of creativity that just wasn’t possible a few short years ago. I’m not saying that it is necessarily better than what could be done if you take your time and use “the right” equipment to capture this scene, but it is something different and new. It’s a sign of the times – many of us have this ability nowadays and it can be used as a way to quickly express ourselves with little room to second guess our intentions. For me, iPhonography is raw, bold, and beautiful.