Via iPhone

On my recent trip to India I chose to shoot with only film cameras for the bulk of the photography that I shot but I did sneak in a Canon Rebel and my iPhone as alternate means of shooting. While the Canon lived in my pack the whole time, the iPhone became an unexpected photo and video companion during the trip and I found useful for both casual photos along the way and a few that were in positions where a tiny unassuming little device came in handy to sneak in a photo. While not every photo was anything to write home about there were a handful of images that I thought were really nice and I wanted to share them here with anyone interested. The phone is the newer version with the newer camera and while yes its quality is only roughly as good as many other phone cameras there is something really simplistic in tricking the camera to focus and expose the way you want it to simply by tapping any point on the screen.

Then there is the obvious post processing here that you see and its all coming out of one app which is the only app that I really stuck with of the ones I know of that are available because most out there for the iPhone are usually nothing much more than gimmicky photo filters (heh, not to say this isn’t just a gimmick too). The app I have been using and really enjoying is one that I continually get asked about and I am happy to share it with you here on the site so all can see. Its name is TiltShift Generator and its only a dollar so really anyone interested that has an iPhone has no reason not to give it a shot. Its a breeze to use, you simply choose the range of focus on the image using two fingers to move it or make it bigger or smaller and use a little slider to choose how drastic you would like the blur to affect the image. There are also basic controls for saturation, brightness, contrast, and vignette and while its not perfect these simple few controls give you plenty of room to play and get a nice image from just about anything. It is meant to emulate the focusing tricks that are possible with a tilt-shift lens or lens with bellows allowing you to throw the focus in creative ways but used creatively you can use it even for subtle things.

Anyways here is a link that will take you to the iTunes app store page for the app.

So with all that said, I pulled 40 or so images from the phone for those interested to look a little closer into my trip, I could tell stories about each and every image but really that would take me all day so I will simply let them be. To see all of them just click the read more link here and enjoy. Feel free to leave a comment with any questions about india or the app or anything really. I will have more images and thoughts on the trip sometime soon, I just continued to get questions about the phone photos so I thought I would take care of that with one post here so stay tuned for more. (and I will start shooting for some new desktops soon as well!)

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And Then…

Well I have returned from India safely although its taken me a few days to get back on my feet because of course as soon as I return I come down with a flu/cold kind of a thing that keeps me in bed asleep for the most part the whole time I have been back in the states. But I am finally on the tail end of the illness and ready to push forward and catch up with everything. I have a dozen or so things to catch up with so it may take a few more days to get things up to speed around here but I wanted to check in, say hello and mention that I made it back alive and well(ish).

Being back here in the US is more of a culture shock for me than going to India to begin with, there were countless little things that I really admired about the way life was lived there and coming back here some things seem a bit backwards to me and coming back sick has sort of messed with the momentum I usually have after traveling but I will hopefully get back on track here this week as I feel better. I know everyone that follows me here and around the interweb are all waiting to see some photos from the trip and I went ahead and pulled out the scanner and scanned a few polaroids to share here.

Honestly I did not end up shooting that much while I was there, I discovered my favorite way to spend time was to pick some random spot on the ground or on some stoop of a closed shop and sit and watch the world go by. While I may have expected to come back from a trip like that feeling humbled and full of future ambition I find that it had a slightly different effect on me, its left me feeling a bit askew emotionally as coming back into a country so firmly rooted in the idea of individuality and personal space and selfish tendencies feels strange after being witness to countless acts of selfless joy and a feeling of community that only living in a country with that many people could bring. Its hard to explain really. But needless to say I did enjoy shooting over there and using the hasselblad pulled plenty of curious onlookers as I pulled it out and went through the process of shooting with it. Many people mistook it as a polaroid camera and expected it to always churn out an instant photo which most people there seemed to expect after every other tourist passing through was shooting with whatever random DSLR they had. I found I had to guard the fact that I was shooting with polaroid when I did use the polaroid back as people would often expect to keep them as a gift or something of the sort.

So anyway, it was an absolutely brilliant experience from start to finnish and I will be happy to share more thoughts on it all as I start to get more into the swing of using a computer and keeping up with everything online again. My mind feels like its coming out of a coma or a foggy dream of some kind and thoughts are still a bit fuzzy but starting to clear up as this flusih cold passes through me and I get used to being back home so bear with me as I settle in. I have to track down the money it will take to develop the 120 rolls I shot to it may be a little while before you see much outside of a few 35mm shots or iphone photos so stay tuned everyone and I will talk to you again soon. In the mean time, enjoy these few polaroid scans from random points in the trip.