The phone camera provides a very different experience than a digital camera does. It has far fewer opportunities for control – no aperture or ISO setting, no special lenses to choose – just that oddly flat rectangle to hold up to a scene, turn this way and that, and lightly touch.
It’s less calculated. I find I’m more spontaneous when I use it. This adaptation to the technology at hand – it’s almost Darwinian!
Here we are, in the car-wash again, floating in a colorworld…
A few days later, during a brief respite between appointments. Downtown Seattle:
I’m not going to switch from digital to a phone camera, but I’m glad I have the phone with me all the time. It opens up other paths.
Life is busy lately so I’m looking forward to getting away next weekend for a road trip I’ve been wanting to do ever since I moved here: a big loop east on Washington Rt. 20 (north of Seattle) through and over the Cascades. This very scenic road is closed much of the year because of the snow and avalanches. We’ll turn south at the little town of Twisp on the dry, eastern Cascade slope. Finally, we’ll head back west on Rt. 2 or I 90, depending on our energy levels come Sunday. There will be two overnights, one at a countryside airbnb north of here, the other at a rather pedestrian hotel in Winthrop – one of the last rooms available in the area when I booked the other day. Hopefully I won’t forget the SD card or the battery charger!
bluebrightly 
Look forward to seeing images from your trip!
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That’s the nicer carwash I have seen! 🙂 I only have an old iphone and I think the camera is not that good, but I’m utterly impressed when I see what a phone can do. Great work! Have a wonderful trip and don’t forget the SD card and the battery charger!
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That car wash was high-end – very colorful! 😉 Thanks, Dina.
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I laughed at the comment about not forgetting the SD card and the battery charger. The other item on my list always is checking the settings on the camera before I set out — lest my first few photos be entirely over-or-under-exposed.
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I’ve had an outing or two where the images all had a bluish tinge; still haven’t figured out exactly why. Settings are important…
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Love the pictures, Lynn, esp those from the car wash, and the one three above the bottom is inspired. But I’m aeons behind you with phones, my mobile is a true antique and very rarely used. But I can imagine that a phone camera is very spontaneous, very useful. A 🙂
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I think you mean the minimalist building & reflection? Something it’s always easier to do in a city than away from the city, at least around here where growth is so lush. Yes, the phone is essential for work and a big plus for the moments in between, when I remember to use it. Thanks Adrian.
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Yes, that’s the one, the building and its reflection – wonderful stuff! And I’ve just spent a blistering hot (for the UK) morning in a city and fired off over 200 frames – so we’ll see what materialises! 🙂
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These are wonderful Lynn. The quality of phone cameras now is superb and the spontaneity they provide inspiring. I hope you have a wonderful trip. sounds superb. Make sure you don’t forget that SD card, I’m looking forward to lots of your beautiful photographs.
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Thank you! This particular phone isn’t very advanced by current standards, but once you figure out the limitations, you can work with them.
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I especially like the two middle carwash photos and the pavement photos. Really nice. Make me want to run out with my camera. Oh, yeah, there are more boxes to unpack . . .
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Of course you like the pavement ones! 😉 Don’t work too hard! Be sure to get out regularly for breaks, and more heart-shaped rocks…
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Wonderful photos, Lynn. I enjoy playing around in the car wash too. 🙂 Have a great trip.
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It’s irresistible, isn’t it? Thanks!
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LOVED the shots from the car-wash, too wonderful. Such rich and striking colours and textures. I trust you shall enjoy your upcoming trip immensely. It sounds divine!
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Nice to hear from you – it’s a very colorful car wash, that one. I have to go back….
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Beautiful abstractions. I’m a huge fan of this. It’s a photographic manner of impressionism.
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Interesting! Abstractions are not what you post, but then we all are more than that, aren’t we?
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As you said, I to cut out some slices of life. It’s not a formal abstraction but an abstraction of content. Otherwise street photography would just be like private picture taking of friends or family.
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A very interesting selection. I suspect that you would not have taken some of them with your digital – indeed, you might even have overlooked their potential – but you seized the opportunity. I don’t belong to the iphone age and haven’t been able to haul camera kit around for years but we learn to adapt to the resources we have available and that process begins with how we see and recognise the creative possibilities in an object or scene.
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Seizing the opportunity – it’s always worth it, isn’t it? We do totally adapt – you do an incredible job within the boundaries of your home, I can tell that – between photographing your garden or various objects, or scenes nearby, and then manipulating them on the computer, you do amazing work. .
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Thanks Lynn, you’re very kind.
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They say the best camera is the one you have with you! Sometimes just using our cell phone cameras forces us to look at things a little differently. Wonderful abstracts!
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They’re completely different to hold and to use – it really does make you take a different tactic, angle, view, whatever…
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That North Cascades highway is my favorite road. Looking forward to it, vicariously.
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I love the land east of it, too. Those blue lakes are amazing up in the mountains, and you don’t have to hike! I love to walk but there isn’t a lot of time, so beauty near the road, and not ten miles in, is a good thing!
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Lynn, the carwash photos are wonderfully vibrant, bordering on the abstract. I began to embrace my phone as camera after seeing a gallery show a few years ago by one of the first street iphonography artists. He also taught a workshop that I wasn’t able to attend, but I was impressed at the freedom of shooting offered by the phone in his gallery work. I’m about to step up to the new smaller iPhone6 after seeing one of my students capture amazing HD video on his. I think of my phone as “the camera I always have with me” 🙂
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I very reluctantly agree ~ and these photos are just the reason why. The iPhone offers an immediate capture of scenes that are a bit rare…and does so in low light, in a rush or simply without a whole lot of thought other than a good photographic eye. 🙂 Used an iPhone shot in a post recently and it bothered me in the sense I never, ever would have considered such a thing last year…
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I couldn’t agree more! I love my phone camera.. It’s my perfect partner in crime, with Instagram as the stage.
Eli
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