To Stand on Broken Ground

I dreamed about this place several months ago... stepping slowly through mud and feeling a little tentative on broken ground. In my dream it was dim. I walked with people I didn't recognize and sensed curious eyes upon me, but I felt comfortable. Like I was meant to be there. I felt peace.

So it was oddly familiar when Jen and I walked with new friends, Renu (pictured above), Mukesh, Subhash and Sabi through one of Kathmandu's largest slums, home to many of Renu's students at Koseli, the school she founded. It was a gift to be invited here. To walk on this ground, step in these homes, and hear "Namaste." To share a glimpse of this reality.

I don't really have words yet to describe all that we experienced throughout Nepal. I could relay the sequence of events, identify the geographic destinations, share the motion sequence of steam lifting from a glass of chai on a worn wooden table beside a bumpy road, and show you the lighthearted iPhone images I made along the way... but the real weight of the experience sits in my images of the people who shared their lives with us. Jen and I are eager to introduce these Nepali people to you over the next several weeks, maybe even months... but for now, I want you to picture yourself standing on broken ground. And I want you to imagine what hope might look like.

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Two years ago I was hard at work on Project 365, hauling around my hefty digital SLR in a backpack that served as my purse each day for 365 days. And while that experience taught me to move through the day in a more observant way, the weight of that camera held me back, though I didn't realize it at the time.

When I saw something that moved me, I'd have to take the backpack off, fumble with it to extract my camera, turn the camera on and take off the lens cap, manually adjust the settings, make a few images, turn the camera off, figure out where I put the lens cap and put it back on the camera, squeeze the camera back into my backpack, and put the pack back on my back. And the images had no where to go. They sat on my camera until I got home and squeezed in the time to plug in my USB cable, download the images to my computer, process them, export them, and then upload them to my blog to share the experience. And if I remembered, I might tweet a link to the post to my Twitter followers. This process could easily take 24 hours or more.

Since January, I'm once again shooting everyday but in a very different way. I'm shooting, processing and sharing images exclusively with my iPhone. Now, don't get me wrong, my iPhone has not replaced my SLR, but it's expanding my creative capacity. It's freed me up to make and share images more spontaneously as I move through the day. So now, when I see that fleeting magic moment, I can very quickly lift my iPhone, shoot, process, post the image to my iPhoneography journal powered by Posterous (via email), and see a link to the image automatically appear as a tweet in my Twitter stream. This entire process takes less than 60 seconds and keeps my creativity firing more frequently each day.

In fact, had it not been for my iPhone, I wouldn't have been able to share real-time images documenting Odette's much anticipated reunion with her daughters from Rwanda and the tenderness of a heroic Jen Lemen with all of you on Twitter. Sure, I made my best images from that week-long documentary experience with my SLR, but the iPhone images served a critical purpose... they connected nearly 3,000 of us in the moment as the moment occured.

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So now it's your chance to document the corners of your world with your iPhone or your cell phone for Ovations Framed Art Race 2010 competition. Upload your most creative cell phone images to the Ovation community for a chance to be showcased in a My Art spot on air. But you've got to move fast, the deadline to get your shots in is tomorrow, May 8! Good luck

iPhone Photography Intrigue

I've always been drawn to artful process of photography. I make my documentary images by selecting lenses and adjusting the settings on my DSLR. Then I rely on Aperture, my photo editing application, to make minor image adjustments. I might increase the definition of edges to emphasize the texture, tone down harsh highlights, trade color for monochrome, or add a subtle vignette to pull the viewer closer to my subject. But I don't use Photoshop and frankly, if someone asked me to smooth out her smile lines, I'd frown. Admittedly, I use a light hand when it comes to digital image processing.

But I am becoming increasingly intrigued with iPhone Photography as a means of exploring my fascination with composition, and have just started experimenting with some clever iPhone apps. I'm finding that because I don't take these images too seriously, I'm eager to try more liberal processing experiments on them - like making quick marks in a sketch book or scribbling phrases in a journal. I'm allowing myself to create a bit of fiction, and it's been really fun. So if you too are looking to loosen up a bit with your iPhone, consider downloading these cool apps in the App Store and share your results with us.

ShakeItPhoto ($.99) - Like Polaroid for your iPhone, this app lets you shoot, retake and shake. Shaking your iPhone gives you a cropped and color washed Polaroid-esque image. (See my image at left, above.) Check out the ShakeItPhoto Best Of flickr group to see some super cool results and this experiment using ShakeItPhoto and another app, Colorsplash.

CameraBag ($1.99) - Quick and easy photo filters to adjust the mood of your iPhone photos. This app gives you 10 image filters such as Helga (square-format, washed out highlights and old-school vignetting) and 1974 (like your mother's camera: faded & tinted). (See my image at right, above, with 1962 filter - high contrast B&W.) Check out the CameraBag flickr group and this fabulous set that inspired me to explore.

Got any other iPhone Photography tips or resources? Do share.

It's Not About the Camera

Shot with my Apple iPhone.

I love most everything about the conversation of photography with the exception of this question, "What do you shoot with?" I say that because for me, photography is not about the camera. It's like asking an artist what paintbrush she used or what brand of paint sits on the canvas. Compelling images are created by people, not cameras. In fact, I'm shooting with my iPhone more and more these days. Clearly, there are limitations when shooting with a camera phone... I have no control over light and depth of field. I have very little control over focus. But I have total control of composition. Imposing these limitations on my vision is actually quite fun.

So let's see what your camera phone or inexpensive camera can do.