The iPhone, introduced in 2007, is not only the most popular cameraphone on Flickr, it’s actually the second most popular camera of any type (in first place is the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi). One reason: the abundance of apps available. Here are our top five picks.
Pano ($2.99)
Create seamless panoramic photos right in your iPhone. debaclesoftware.com
I just ran across this image. It's an interesting use of panorama, because it is about people rather than landscape. Simon Hoegsberg stood at the same spot on a railroad bridge in Berlin and shot 178 people over a period of 20 days. Then he stitched the images together into an image than is 100 meters long. All but a few of the people were unaware that he was shooting. I found it fascinating--what do you think?--David Schonauer
Sometimes photographers are so busy looking out at the world that they forgot to look up, or down. Andreas Gefeller isn’t particular interested in what is overhead, but he’s totally tuned into what’s underfoot.
Above, for instance, you will see his picture of a room used by students in the renowned Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf, Germany, where Bernd and Hilla Becher once taught the likes of Andreas Gursky and Thomas Ruff.
Gefeller, who lives in Germany, created the image by painstakingly shooting every square inch of the floor using a Canon EOS 5 with a 35mm lens, which he suspends at a height of about five feet with a boom-like apparatus that extends in front of him. (He fires the shutter by remote control.) He then stitches the scans together in Photoshop.
I thought I’d show you the image of the student room because 1) I think it’s interesting that the floor of a room used by art students appears to be a piece of art itself; and 2) the image is a fairly straight-forward example of Gefeller’s process. It makes it easy to understand how he does what he does.
But you also need to know that this room is only a small portion of the Kunstakademie space that Gefeller photographed. Below is the entire area, as recorded and assembled by Gefeller. The full scene required months of shooting and the assembly of thousands of individual exposures. Seeing the image at the size I can provide here doesn’t really convey the perspective disorientation of Gefeller’s large digital prints, or the precision of detail he is able to achieve.
Last Friday I visited the Hasted Hunt Gallery in Chelsea to look at a new exhibition of Gefeller’s work. (The show, which runs through April 25, is the second for Gefeller at this gallery.) The photographer himself was there—not an accident—and he gave me a brief walk-through. By the end of our tour, there were about 10 other gallery visitors walking behind us, raptly listening to him and his ideas about what is real and what is not, and whether there is even a difference in the digital age.
Gefeller, who was visiting New York for a few days before returning to his native Germany, looks like a young and earnest art student, though he is in his late 30s. He started this series, which he calls “Supervisions,” in 2002, and his first show at Hasted Hunt consisted mostly of the complex floor-plan images he constructs. For the new work, Gefeller has moved outside, onto beaches, into orchards, and under water in swimming pools.
All the images, old and new, play a merry game with the viewer’s sense of reality. While the images of office suites (like the one above) seem to be taken from a god-like perspective, they show only what Gefeller can capture from his own eye-level.
“How do you show the cross-sections of walls separating offices?” I asked him.
“Well, I don’t, really,” Gefeller explained. “I will shoot the entire floor surface of an office, then shoot the floor of the hallway outside the office. When I put the two areas together in Photoshop, the visual space between the hallway and the office, or between offices, appears as a wall.”
Similarly, one of Gefeller’s new images, taken in a park, at first seems to show trees as seen from above. But Gefeller was actually shooting from under the leafless trees, not above them. What we are seeing is the shadow of the trees recorded by his camera as he walked back and forth through the park. Because he is also shooting very small areas of space from relatively close distances, the final constructed image has detail that couldn’t be captured in a single photo made from higher up.
If you look closely at the picture, you can also see that Gefeller has captured the passage of time, which is pretty hard to do in a single image. (Still photographs are usually meant to freeze moments, after all.) It took Gefeller several hours to photograph the entire area of the park, and during that time the sun moved across the sky. The shadows Gefeller captured at the end of the day splay out differently than the ones he photographed at the beginning.
“What I really like to do with my work is to make people think about whether the images are truth or fiction,” Gefeller told me. On one hand, the images are essentially documentary—Gefeller doesn’t alter what he actually records with his camera. In fact, the viewer is exposed to a level of reality missing from traditional photographs. (Because Gefeller is shooting very small areas from relatively close distances, the final constructed image has detail that couldn’t be captured in a single photo made from higher up.)
On the other hand, the image is entirely constructed, a version of reality the Gefeller imagined and created. –David Schonauer
I don't get to Japan much...never, as a matter of fact, so I wasn't aware that the Japanese really hate the iPhone. While the the Apple device has been a huge hit everywhere else on the globe, sales have sucked so much in Japan that dealers are now literally giving it away when customers sign up for a two-year carrier plan.
Why? According to this article on wired.com, there is some cultural prejudice at work. Traditional, Japanese don't like cell phones that aren't made in Japan (including Nokia and Motorola models). The price of the iPhone monthly carrier plans--relatively high for Japanese customers--have also been a turn-off. But mainly it seems that Japanese cell phone users like feature-rich models with great cameras and video capabilities, which the iPhone doesn't have. The article says cell phones are much more of a fashion accessory in Japan than in the U.S., and Japanese don't consider the iPhone stylish. On that point I might quibble.--David Schonauer
Fans of Polaroid instant film will not go down without a fight, it seems. Last year, Polaroid announced that it would stop making instant film, which seemed to be another casualty of the digital age (along with half the world's other known products). The New York Times reports today that a group of Polaroid enthusiasts are trying to create a instant film product. A team of chemists and engineers has been put together, and the group, which includes a former Polaroid employee, has even leased a factory in the Netherlands that Polaroid once used to manufacture film. Who wants instant film? Let's get a show of hands.
A shot of President and Mrs. Obama at once of yesterday's inauguration balls. I found
it while scanning Buzz Trend. Is this for real? --David Schonauer
We all know people who are brand-conscious. But the man who bought his wife a Nikon D700 for her birthday and then served this rather delicious looking D700 cake...that's taking brand consciousness to another level.Read here.--David Schonauer
The annals of failed science that leads to remarkable breakthroughs is filled with amazing stories (the discovery of penicillin, x-rays, etc.) Now digital photography may be looking ahead at a new kind of future, courtesy of an experiment gone wrong.
Researchers working on a technology to create more efficient solar panels instead lead to a discovery that may lead to ultra-high-res images sensors. I couldn't even begin to explain the technology, but you can read all about it here.
By the way, the annals of failed science is also filled with promising technology that never panned out. Nonetheless, if you're feeling at all geeky today, the story is interesting.--David Schonauer
Chances are that if you've spoken to your camera at all, it wasn't in the kindest language. You may soon be talking to your D-SLR quite a bit more often, however. Developer Scott Forman is working on a computer application that will allow photographers to give voice commands to Canon's EOS utility. In other words, you'll be able to control many of the camera's functions remotely, just with your voice. Go here for more info and to see a demonstration.--David Schonauer
Lens and camera maker Sigma has acquired Foveon, the company that make image senors used...in Sigma cameras. This is interesting news for a couple of reasons. Foveon's chip differs from others in the way red, green, and blue pixels are arranged--not side by side, but stacked in layers, something like film. Ever since the technology was introduced in 2002, Foveon has garnered amazing press coverage, especially in the New York Times. So far, the chip has certainly not revolutionized camera technology, as was predicted by the Times. It isn't that the technology is bad--it's just that other kinds of chips also improved, matching the image quality that Foveon offered. It's a good case study for some business school student. By acquiring Foveon, Sigma hopes to streamline its product development.--David Schonauer
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