Show Off Opportunity

Attention iPhone and iPad photographers! Thanks to Cynthia for the heads up about submitting your work to the IPPAWARDS for 2023. The deadline is March 31, 2023. Categories in the 16th Annual iPhone Photography Awards: Abstract, Animals, Architecture, Children, Citylife/Cityscape, Landscape, Lifestyle, Nature, People, Portrait, Series (3 images), Still Life, Travel, Other. 

Checkout the Winners' Galleries since 2007. 

Even if you do not enter this competition, review the rules and limitations and practice for the next opportunity to show your work. Name each photo. Original size or not less than 1000 pixels in height or width. Format as JPEG. 

Collecting Inspiring Examples

A new page has been added to this site to track videos shown in class and shared as distractions. The Chat Report page link is also visible in the navigation bar. 

If you attend our zoom sessions on iPad or iPhone you'll not be able to save the Chat to your device. On a computer, at the bottom of the Chat panel are ... > More > Save Chat. 

We will post the information here for easy access. 

Setting the tone for Spring 2023

Email sent to all participants:

Greetings all — We meet on Zoom to begin and will set dates and locations for field trips then. Zoom meeting details in the signature of this message and as a comment on an image added to our Shared Photo Album. Thanks to JoEllen for stepping up as my Tech Host this semester.

Have you found fun clips to share that inspire you about photography, videography? I’ve had emails with examples from Cynthia, JoEllen, Mike and Marilyn. I’d like to post links on our website for easy access. (Social Media can be challenging for me…)

This semester’s tag line is iPhone Studio Multimedia Collective and we will share in the experience of learning new things, scoping out the playing fields and starting to wrap our heads around the potential of moving pictures with and without sound. There are more buttons on our iPhones than Pano, Portrait and Photo. There are modes to explore like Live and Burst. This semester we will explore the other buttons: Video, Cinematic, Slo-Mo and Time-Lapse. We can put our iPhones in places where big camera fear to go (in the fridge, under water, etc). Our iPhones move with us while shooting scenes. We are storytellers, showing photos on our phone, framing prints and sharing online clips.

Oh, and so much more. Remember, all this sounds terrifying and yet this class is keeping us young! Accept the challenge -- no iPhones will be harmed this semester. Making a slideshow of your photos, adding a soundtrack and playing it for friends and family is a basic goal. Writing a treatment to tell a story and working together to create clips and experience the post production assembly is where we are heading. This journey begins tomorrow ...

Zoom and Face-to-Face Meetings 10am to Noon - March 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, Apr 6

Step Out in February

Michael sent me a note for an upcoming exhibition: Carol Mott-Binkley of Curtis Park is making a name for herself in the art world through iPhone photography. Describing herself as “the Forrest Gump of iPhone photography” to the Sac Bee for having a “charmed hobby,” Carol’s work will be on display at East Sac’s Archival Gallery from Feb. 1-25 at 3223 Folsom Boulevard in East Sacramento (near N Street intersection - east of Alhambra Blvd.). Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 am to 4 pm. 

https://archivalgallery.com/exhibitions/ 

I think we can all agree about "having a charmed hobby." 

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Another visit might be take you to Folsom's 48 Natoma Gallery (at 48 Natoma Street ;-] next to city hall) to see an eye-opening show featuring fabric art - not exactly quilts, not exactly ... what you expected. Stretch your imagination and hold on for a Pixeladies display and fiber sculpture by Susan Else. Gallery hours M-F 9 am to 4:30pm, Tu & Th 6-8 pm until April 6th. Carolyn and I checked it out - Wow! 

Visit pixeladies.com for a "telling stories in cloth" teaser. Digital images of analog art is OK, but if possible, you want to see this display with your own eyes. Explore their website to see details about printing on fabric and resources. 

Pages Archived

Some of the information on this site is changing dramatically for Spring 2023 and pages you might want to review are no longer in the navigation bar under the header at the top of the page. So visit this post to see links to those pages. 

Videos - created as demonstrations for class use 

Apps - the long list of apps we've used since 2017. This page needs some serious edits because more developers are going the subscription route or the products have shifted. Let's talk about your favorite apps - and cull this list to the best ones. 

Prep - current studio participants have been through this drill each semester 

The details of our six meetings have been archived with live links in DRAFT - Fall 2022 All Pages and includes references for video production. 

Privacy Issues and Smart TVs

Privacy is popping up all over my news feeds lately. I guess the algorithm is tracking my curiosity. So many services make suggestions based on recent activities. Buy an app and then you will see other related apps. Binge watch a television show and see similar recommended series. Like a Tweet and see more about that topic or by that same poster. 

Interesting read in Apple News from The Atlantic. Check out Justin Pot’s article “The Hidden Cost of Cheap TVS” from the January 3, 2023 issue. 

‘Smart TVs are just like search engines, social networks, and email providers that give us a free service in exchange for monitoring us and then selling that info to advertisers leveraging our data. These devices “are collecting information about what you’re watching, how long you’re watching it, and where you watch it,” Willcox said, “then selling that data—which is a revenue stream that didn’t exist a couple of years ago.”’ He is quoting James K. Willcox, the senior electronics editor for Consumer Reports. 

Apple devices cost more because Apple does not subsidize their products by selling us out. Or so the marketing campaign declares. I’ve bought the story. 

A smart tv has apps - like our iDevices - that can connect to subscription services Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, ESPN, YouTube, etc. when you connect them to your home Internet. How wonderful to have one remote control to access cable TV shows and your other apps! 

Well, there is another way if you can stand to have multiple remotes.  We have a “smart tv” purchased several years ago but never connected it to our Internet service. Instead there is an Apple TV box that connects to the Internet with HDMI connection to our big screen TV. Most of the same apps and subscriptions available to smart tvs are offered on the Apple platform: Netflix, Prime, YouTube, PBS, etc. at the same subscription price. I have to trust that Netflix or Prime is not selling my watching habits. 

What does this have to do with photography? Let’s talk about it. 

Iconic Museum Visits

Maybe in person or via the Internet, it is time to renew and refresh. Consider old ideas as the foundation for new work. 

As a fun diversion, read Ali Fitzgerald’s Iconoclastic article in MOMA Magazine about analog artist Susan Kare -- the creator of many familiar icons we see on screen. 

What inspires you to see different? 

Apple Pay & Apple Wallet

This post is not specifically about photography, but generally about paying for things. Like cameras, lenses, mobile devices and services. 

If you have any experience in using the Apple Pay service and loading credit cards into Apple Wallet, you might want to know more. Pete Lozzi is a guru about all things Apple and is a member of the Sacramento MacNexus User Group. His 2022 General Meeting presentation was on Apple Pay and Apple Wallet. The core presentation begins at 0:39:20 to 1:20:00 and then goes to Q&A. 

Apple is known as a disrupter in the marketplace. They did not invent computers, cell phones or credit cards. But they are challenging the market leaders and changing the playing field with consumers in mind.