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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
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Features

Using Your Cameraphone To Get In Touch With Your Creative Inspiration

Chris Gampat
No Comments
01/08/2016
3 Mins read

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer CES 2014 MeFOTO phone adapter (10 of 10)ISO 8001-60 sec at f - 6.3

Walk around with your camera; if you’ve ever seen a moment that’s inspired or excited you, you’ve most likely taken a photograph of it. But you’ve also probably stood there, gotten your settings just right and then shot. Unless of course, you’ve used your phone. Though manual control is available with pretty much every smartphone these days, it’s not ideal to always use it. Instead, a cameraphone is good for quick, candid captures that inspire someone on first glance of a scene. When you shoot with a camera phone, you’re probably focusing more on getting the scene to look the way that you want it to in terms of its composition.

And with that, you’re focusing more on the less technical aspects that quite honestly hold back photographers from truly creating the works of art that they want to.

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer RNI Films apps review product images (3 of 8)ISO 2001-30 sec at f - 1.8

What a cameraphone does is strips away all of that from you and forces you to really focus on the basics of what an image is. Before you even knew anything about shutter speeds, apertures, and ISOs what you probably did was judged an image based on content. In truth, content is king and finding a way to deliver that content in a pleasing way is tough to do. But the candid nature of a camera phone lets you do that easily and will eventually make you just forget about any of the hangups that you have about specifically using a DSLR or mirrorless camera.

Think about it: lots of people shoot incredible photos with phones everyday whether they are portraits, architecture or landscapes. They have truly proven that it isn’t the tool that matters; instead it’s the fact that they’re using the tool to create a vision that they have in their mind’s eye through pixels. When they go to use a more advanced and traditional camera, then they realize that those creative parameters that are allowed are there. To that end, they either get confused because it’s getting in the way of them translating their creative vision or they embrace them and don’t lose sight of their creative vision.

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Samsung NX500 review images (16 of 28)ISO 4001-1000 sec at f - 3.5

Notice how I’m emphasizing the creative vision? The reason why is because all of the technicalities are too technical to the point where balancing both an artistic mind and a technical mind can be too tough. Instead, learning how to exercise both and maintain them in a equilibrium is what we all try to master. At the same time though, that means that art needs to be practiced as much as manipulating settings. To that end, creating photos without any sort of real manipulation on your end is really the only way that that can be done to achieve a proper balance. Once the creative vision is mastered, you then learn the most intricate aspects of metering and are able to get the image that you want with ease.

Can you do this with an ordinary camera set to Auto? Sure! But a larger depth of field means that you’ve got a different advantage where bokeh and depth of field help you tell a story in a 3D way (sort of) vs a 2D way. The 2D aspect (a flat image) makes you focus more on placing elements in a scene rather than mystifying someone with glorious bokeh.

To that end, a photographer should use their phone as a learning tool–one that keeps them and their skills sharp. If you manage to get more out of it, so be it!

 

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Written by

Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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