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  • iPhoneongraphy showcase – Neill Adamson

    iPhoneongraphy showcase – Neill Adamson

    The South African iPhoneography series that I am doing at the moment is wielding some exciting stuff. We featured Shawn Borcherding earlier this week, and already I have been contacted by 2 seperate publications who would like to feautre his work. It’s defitnatly taking off, and people love the style.

    Today Neill Adamson, who also hails from Cape Town, makes an appearance with some of his awesome iPhoneography.

    Name: Neill Adamson
    Portfolio: http://geniusboywonder.tumblr.com/
    Twitter: @geniusboywonder
    Website: follow “geniusboywonder” on Instagr.am  – http://inkstagram.com/#/users/662695/photos


    1. What are your 5 “must-have” apps in your iPhone camera bag ?

    For shooting pics:

    [list type=”arrow”]

    [li]Pro HDR for that HDR effects[/li]
    [li]Slow Shutter Cam for great slo-mo/bur[/li]
    [li]iTimeLapse or Burst Mode for capturing multiple images/stories[/li]
    [li]Actioncam for quick story composition[/li]
    [li]Light Meter for checking the technical aspects of a shot[/li]
    [/list]

    For processing pics:

    [list type=”arrow”]

    [li]Instagram for its single-click processing and easy sharing[/li]
    [li]qbro for its range of filters & frames[/li]
    [li]PhotoForge2 for fine-tuning and editing[/li]
    [li]Diptic for composing Montages[/li]
    [li]Pudding Camera for simply adjusting f. stops[/li]
    [/list]

    How many camera apps do you have on your iPhone ?

    I’m always downloading and trying out new apps. Many apps handle various shooting, processing & sharing aspects but no single app does it all brilliantly yet. So I have about 20 apps with tonnes of duplicated functionality.

    How did you get into iPhoneography ?

    Early apps like Retro Camera and Hipstamatic introduced me to single-click processing and I saw how they could really make boring iPhone images “pop”. Until that point, I didn’t rate the iCamera, as getting decent image required lots of editing! I develop mobile games for a living, so I live on my phone. After installing those apps, using my iPhone as a camera was an easy extention since it was always at hand.

    What’s your favorite subject to shoot on iPhone ?

    Life. Anything that catches my eye and cross my path. My kids, textures around me, different angles on every-day stuff. The iphone camera is technically simple, and with post-processing becoming single-click stuff, the challenge I like is in the composition of each shot. Anywhere you can place an iphone for an unusual shot.

    Your top 5 favorite iPhone shots ?

    Instagr.am is a great place to learn about good photography and composition (yes, even from the pros who are using pro cameras and showcasing on Instagram)

    Some great peeps to follow on Instagr.am like @homework and their #homework tags or @joshjohnson and his #jj_challenge,  #josh_johnson tags. They set weekly topics for photo assignments which is a brilliant It’s a great way to experiement and improve your iPhonography skills.

    A big thanks to Neil for his contribution. We will be showcasing a few more iPhoneographers in South Africa, and if you have any suggestions, please leave a comment below and I’ll try and get in touch with them :)

     

  • Time for a little makeover

    Time for a little makeover

    Last night I decided to give my site a little makeover by updating the theme, and fixing up a couple of the pages. The awesome beauty about wordpress, is the fact that, you simply select a new theme, and then with a few tweaks and adjustments, you have a brand new looking site.

    The old look

     

    So last night I downloaded the very very cool Spicy Theme from Themeforest, and uploaded it to my site. Within an hour, after all the adjustments & tweaks, I was up & running with a brand new look and feel.

    The new look :)

     

    The Spicy theme is awesome. It has loads of features, and styling it to your needs is simple. Check out the demo to get an idea of how powerful it is.

    If you have any suggestions about the new look & feel, please feel free to leave a comment below, and I will do what I can :)

  • 5 cool instagram tools

    I mentioned the other day about focusing a bit more on iPhoneography in South Africa and highlighting some of the cool apps & iPhone photographers in South Africa. As I pointed out in the post, it seems that the instagram app has taken off in leaps & bounds, and is showing us how artistic flair using photography. I know I have started using it more and more, and I even came across an article the other day that mentioned how instagram is on it’s way to becoming the “new” twitter. They already have signed up 3.75 million users I can see why !!

    So I decided to put a list together of some really cool “tools” which you can use to enhance your Instagram experience. These allow you to view your instagram feed as well as manage your friends & followers from outside the native Instagram app. Much better than having to scroll through the hundreds of images in your feed.

    http://web.stagram.com/

    Webstagram is a really cool web interface allowing you to view your feed in either a Grid or list format. You can also follow new people using webstagram, as well as see the popular feed. It does have it’s downfall though as you have to log in each time, and the images are only presented in 306×306 size. Otherwise a really handy site to see whats happening in your instagram feed.

     

    Car0usel Mac App

    Carousel is an awesome instagram viewer that works as a standard Mac application. You simply log in to the app using your instagram username & password, and it displays your feed. From here you like & comment posts as well. You can also view the “popular” feed as well. The app also notifies you with an update badge as soon as there have been new photos added to your feed. You can also view larger size images, as well as view web links etc. The app costs $4.99, but there is a trial version that you can use for 2 weeks. This is an awesome mac app, and must have if you have a mac & use instagram

     

    http://extragr.am/feed

    Extragram is similar to webstagram, but actually much cooler ;) The layout of the images is clean and simple, and it adjusts how many it displays according to your screen size. You can also manage your followers & friends from here, as well as being able to like & comment on images.You can also select if you wish to see your images in a grid view or filmstrip view.

     

    http://inkstagram.com/

    Another web based viewer with a very plain and simple user interface. Commenting, liking & followers can be managed from here as well. You can also select what size you would like your feeds photos to show up as on your stream. Images are presented in a grid format.

    Postagram iPhone App

    The Postagram iPhone app allows you select images from your instagram photos and get them sent as a postcard to anywhere in the world. the cost to send each postcard is $0.99 and is purchased as an in app purchase from inside the app. I have used the app before and it works like a charm ! Must have if you have loved ones far away and want to surprise them with your artwork

    And thats about it. There are still hundreds & hundreds of other tools you can use to enhance your instagram experience. Check out this post on Photojojo for some other cool instagram tools. If you have any other suggestions for cool instagram tools, please feel free to leave a comment below.

  • Shawn Borcherding iPhoneography showcase

    Shawn Borcherding iPhoneography showcase

    After my post the earlier this week about iPhoneography in South Africa the other day, I started getting in touch with a couple of iPhoneographers in South Africa who I have started finding. The quality of some of these guys & girls is absolutely amazing, and I am looking forward to showcasing them here over the next couple of weeks.

    First up is Shawn Borcherding. Shawn hails from Cape Town, and has some amazing iPhone Photography.

    Portfolio: Facebook Album
    Twitter: @ShawnBorch
    Website: http://www.bluehousefx.com/

    What are your 5 “must-have” apps in your iPhone camera bag ?

    How many camera apps do you have on your iPhone ?

    I currently removed a whole lot, however my usable ones that I have kept is 31!! Then there is my video Apps which I consider is part of iPhonography. The Video app count is 11

    How did you get into iPhoneography ?

    I got into iPhoneography when I saw how versatile and potentially powerful the iPhone and its apps are together. Once I downloaded apps, I discovered that one can really think out the box when creating imagery on the device. As I started experimenting, the techniques, new routines and understanding of what the apps are doing becomes very addictive and exciting. Personally im not into the press a button effect. To create original post processed images is possible because there are such amazing apps. iPhone users are very lucky to have a “realtime” photo processing studio in our hands at anytime. Where the iPhoneography has been a big interest to me is also in my field of work. The post production industry requires very high standards of creative quality media. Having the iPhone is truly amazing to utilize for work and requires me to make sure that what I get out of it is matching up to usable industry standard material for my work.

    What’s your favorite subject to shoot with the iPhone ?

    Definitely pretty girls, however besides that I would say general lifestyle shots and scenes where I can experiment with composition and lighting a lot. I usually take pics of anything that I find is beautiful

    Your  are some of your favorite iPhone shots that you have taken ?


    (Images copyright Shawn Borcherding)

    A big thanks to Shawn for answering the questions. Hopefully this will be the first of many, and I can’t wait to see what else South African iPhoneographers have to offer.

  • iPhone photography in South Africa

    With the advent of apps like Instagram on the iPhone, it looks like iPhone photography is taking off in a big way in South Africa.  Everyone who has an iPhone should have already downloaded Instagram, and be snapping & uploading pics of their cats & sunrises.

    But there are so many more apps out there that do better jobs and there are a couple of really great iPhone photographers out there. Over the next few weeks I’m going to be building up a list of some of the best “iPhoneographers” in South Africa, as well as showcasing some of the best iPhone camera & editing apps.

    If you have any suggestions of  some of the best iPhone Photographers in SA, then please leave a comment below, and I’ll try and get in touch with them. If you think your iPhone photography is hot, then please feel free to let me know. Also, if you have any apps you think are a must have for iPhone photography, please leave a comment below, and I’ll showcase them as well.