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.
Creek Ranch in Florida
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?
Dome of the Karlskirche (St. Charles’s Church), Vienna, Austria
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?
Delicious porchetta on the wine and food tour from Walks of Italy in Florence
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.
My lovely and very pregnant friend Melanie in her 8th month
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.
Flag throwing ceremony at the TBU conference in Assisi
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.
Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico from wayyyyyy above
KenKaminesky 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?
Waterfalls near Kirkjufell mountain at Grundarfjorour in iceland
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.
My little buddy Monster
Snapseed
Maybe the best overall app out there from 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.
My friend Gaby took me to see Cirque du Soleil on my birthday!
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.
Stunning sunset in Florence
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.
Gullfoss waterfalls in Iceland
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 :D
Time to cut down on my pie intake!
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.
Wow! I never get tired of looking at your pics… and that before and after pic rocks! :)
Some great photos. I have just discovered Instagram. Loving it so far. How did you make the big collage at the top of your post??
Wow that is gorgeous photos considering you are using the iphone :)
Thanks for sharing your favorite apps!
Katherine,
Sign up with http://statigr.am
then go to: http://statigr.am/promote.php
Bottom of the page:
PROFILE COVER – follow instructions
Ken, Love this set of images. My favorite os the flag throwing shot, followed by… well… the rest of them :) C.
Gaby, Well… I blame the piefor making me look soooooo sexy!
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Lisa, I’ll have more apps to share at a later date… enjoy these for now :)
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Carlos, Do you shoot with a mobile phone?
Hey Ken, great blog, love your work.
Just curious which autostitch app you mean, 2 come up in the app store, is it the one by tony peter or the one by cloudburst research?
cheers :)
Wonderful! Great.
awwww sweetie… i love that you think you look sexy :)
you crack me up! one of the thousand reasons why i love your blog!
This has been a visual delight! Each photo has a unique sensual appeal, So glad to connect with you—
joanny
This is a wonderful photograph.
I liked ur pictures, truly they are treat..thanks for suggesting me on twitter..lets stay in touch..ALL THE BEST
Did it and checked your site – great work – I will stay tuned!
Wow the waterfalls in iceland look incredible – doesn’t look like it was taken on an iphone. Awesome pictures, can’t see what you manage to come up with in the next year.
Ken, thanks for post. I’ve been using Snapseed for awhile and love it, can’t wait to try the other apps!
Totally drooling over the Schneider system. I have the olloclip and I like that it has macro. But it’s not as sharp as Schneider’s lenses. That being said, olloclip has been all I could afford.
What’s this big iPhoneography project?? Fill a fellow colleague in ;)
Great post! I’m just starting to get into the whole iphoneography thing and I love it, so I’m glad you shared your apps. Everyone raves about Camera + so I’ll get that next. It’s crazy my iphone takes better night shots than my Olympus. Love seeing your photos as per usual.
Ken: usually with my Nikon D5100. Just started messing around with Instagram on a Samsung Exhibit 4G.
Jonathan, It’s the Autostich by cloudburst. Super easy to use!
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Joanny, thanks for the nice comment :)
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Gaby, You gotta love laughing at yourself, right? :D
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Izy, this is going to be a fun year with all the cool new iPhone photos I’ll be doing.
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Rhonda, let me know what you think of the other apps.
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Kirsten, the Schneider system is awesome! I’ll be announcing the new project next week!
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Thanks Natalie… Try the other apps, you’ll love em .
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Carlos… Share your Instagram handle!
How did I miss this post?? I love love love the second shot of Dome of the Karlskirche. Funny about the Camera+ and clarity, that is for sure what most of my photos pass through first. I like your other recommendations too except maybe Fatbooth – no chick wants to look fatter than she already is ;)
Have you tried PictureShow? Kind of looks like it in the second shot. That is one of my favorites as well as Pixlromatic+! REALLY excited about your new project, it’s going to be fun to follow.
Is there any chance that you would share the “recipes” that you used to create your photos?
Your iPhone photos are really stunning. It’s almost become and art to itself I think, but some people are really amazing with it. I just got an iPod Touch about three months ago. I wanted an unlocked iPhone for so long, but I was worried about spending so much money on it and then it not being able to work in one of the countries I visit. So for now-I’ve stuck with an iPod and one of those crummy drug dealer type phones. That’s good for me though. I find myself posting a lot more photos, because with other cameras I take ages to edit and actually upload my work. I will definitely be checking out the apps you mentioned!
Larissa, the Karlskirche pic is one of my favourites too! It was such a beautiful day in Vienna and a nice way to spend my last day in such a wonderful city. I did use Picture Show quite a bit back then and you are correct, this is a Picture Show image.
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Cyndi, I never take notes on my so called recipes and to be honest, half the fun is in the playing around and finding new apps and ways to edit the iPhone images. Start by getting the apps i mentioned and learn how to manipulate the photos with them. I’ll have a new post about my favourite iPhone apps in a few months.
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Bobbi, Thanks and the iPod touch is good too. I always turn off my phone’s 3g and data connection when I travel; unless I’m doing a specific project for a client where I need it. The roaming charges are criminally high!
I have fallen in love with an app called Marblecam. I have a couple shots using that app and my iPhone on my website and they’re so cool (at least to me)!
http://bit.ly/R7M2bw
Thanks so much for your tips – I downloaded all but one of the apps and can’t wait to try them! I’m going to go one my first trip abroad without my DSLR in September and going to rely on my iPhone. Scary but sure won’t miss lugging that thing around! Because my website is a travel/humor blog I need good photos so this will be my big experiment.
Great article! I find the app list very useful, and your pictures are great. I specially like “Creek Ranch in Florida”.