By Ian Hollidae, 2024/10/10

A couple of years ago, I got a notice that AT&T was upgrading their network. no big deal. Upgrades happen. However, the upgrade would require me to get a new phone. Up until then, I hadn't really jumped into the higher end smart phone market. There simple wasn't a need. But I decided to conduct a due diligence and realized iphone had done a lot to improve their camera capabilities. Some were saying the iphone camera was approaching DSLR level performance. Not sure I bought into that at the time, but it's quite a statement.

So why is any of this significant?

For a long while, I had wanted to give photography a second try but I didn't want to spend a ton of money on equipment only to have my interest fade. Since I needed to buy the phone, I saw an opportunity to start a photography project that I had sketched out. I set up a few ground rules so the project wouldn't just drift aimlessly. The main framework of this project revolved around the following guidelines:

1. Use only an iPhone

This would be my "primary" camera. Nothing fancy. No lenses, no equipment bags, no tripods. Nothing. My effort at "good" photography would be limited to whatever iPhone could capture.

2. Take photos in only mundane areas (office park, playgrounds, walk along the street, etc.)

Since I didn't have the time to travel around to the interesting locations you see on photo sharing sites, and only had an iPhone anyway, I decided to keep it simple. The idea was to capture photos from places that weren't photogenic. If everyone (photographers) ignored the place, that's where I would go. And if I could get decent shots under this condition, I could probably get them anywhere.

3. Shoot whenever you had time regardless of light or weather

Countless Youtube tutorials will tell you to shoot only in good light. Occasionally, there are tutorials about shooting in less than ideal situations but they seem to be an exception. The goal here is to just deal with whatever light is available.

4. Basic editing only

This is about keeping it simple. Apple photos, ocassionally GIMP. It also means i would have to focus even more on composition upfront as opposed to rescuing the shot in post-production.

5. Do this for six months or more

Since I would have this phone for a while (I tend to hang on to phones), it gave me plenty of time to practice and learn.

Once I worked out the guidelines, it was simply a matter of finding the time. Initially, I set aside two total hours a week. Then I started getting in shots time permitting. I started this project in spring of 2022 and ended it summer of 2023. Unofficially, I'd say it's still going on. And while I've yet to commit to buying a "real" camera, it seems pretty inevitable at this point.

I think the next phase of my photography project, beyond sharing the photos, is to share the learning experience. For whatever reason, there aren't a lot of outlets simply for photography discussions. I can't be the only one learning and wanting to hear other peoples learning experiences. I do have a social media account but another one of my other projects is to start moving away from it in favor of a dedicated website.

In the meantime, I'll post the standard photos here and the interactive presentations (2D and 3D) at the sister site, Glinting Pixels. I hope my future posts about this project is helpful to someone.