A lot of people have been asking me how I get such great photos on my iPhone. And yes, I have a few favorite apps I use most of the time. They can help to create the image and the look you are after, but keep in mind that the iPhone and its apps are just tools. Use your creative eye first and foremost. Never rely on your tools to do the work for you.

That being said here’s a list of photo apps on my iPhone (in no particular order). Check em out!

1. The Best Camera – Created by super-talented photographer, Chase Jarvis, this app can quickly give some fast and professional effects to your photos. You can stack them like filters on your camera and then export to a wide range of social media sites or back to your photo roll.

2. Camera Plus – I used to use this one for a long time. Easily make nice B&W exposures, crop and rotate and a few other interesting features.

3. PhotoFilters – I only use this one for the Lomography filter. Stunning results. One of my favs.

4. BWCamera – Great results for shooting and turning existing photos into a nicely balance B&W image.

5. Actioncam – Take 4 images really fast and stitch them into a nice finished image. Throwback to Lomo camera that does the same thing.

6. Flickr – We all know this website. This will make it accessible to you anywhere in the world. Upload and explore.

7. PS Mobile - It’s not as in-depth as you first think, but it has lots of useful tools. Crop, straighten, adjust hues and saturation, as well as sharpen and soften. Very useful app. I sharpen almost all of my images just a tad.

8. HDRforFree - Take photos or existing photos and make an “HDR” image. Not true HDR, but does a decent job of adding some saturation and range.

9. PoseSampler - Stumped for some poses? Try this free sampler app. Helps a little when you need to figure out some poses or what to do with that limb that always seems to get in the way. I didn’t buy the full version as I make my own books.

10. PanoLab – Stitch a panorama image on your iPhone! Take existing images or shoot images in the app and put together a stunning composition that will wow everyone you show. Go try it.

Here are some photos I took all on my iPhone using some of the apps I just mentioned above.

All of these apps are free with the exception of The Best Camera. It is truly a great one. Other apps I plan on exploring are:

- CameraBag
- TiltShift
- Old booth
- Comic Touch
- PhotoCurves
- Polarize

In Conclusion

I love taking photos on my iPhone and I have told myself I will never stop taking pictures. The ease of having this light and fast with great quality camera on it only makes it easier. It doesn’t really matter what kind of camera you have, how much it costs, or what level of photographer you are (if there really are levels). The most important thing is that you take photos however you can and you don’t care what others say.

When was the last time you took photos just for yourself, which no one else will see? Do you always take your camera out when the chance to impress someone or make a buck appears? Ask yourself these questions and you will find out where your passion lies.

So with that being said. Get out there and take some smashing images…just for the love of it!

Brands. Recognizable even upsidedown and backwards.

The name of your company is or should be a unique tie-in to the heritage, identity or other meaning of your business. It is the very first identifying mark of your company. In other words, our name establishes not only a brand identity but a corporate vision as well.

Why Brands are Important

A brand is a set of attributes that—in the minds of customers—distinguish one company’s offerings from those of its competitors. A brand identity is the visual and verbal expression of that set of attributes. A cohesive, distinctive and relevant brand identity is an enormous asset in the marketplace. The very name provides added value and—in many cases—can command a price premium. It is necessary to establish a direct and unbreakable linkage between the attributes of the brand and the way they are expressed. A strong brand is one with immediately recognizable characteristics that set it apart from the crowd. When current or potential customers see or hear that brand name, they form a positive mental picture, based on its well-established attributes.

Why Consistency is Important

The consistent display of your brand enables your company to benefit from the success of itself. You will also realize savings, in terms of both time and costs, in the development of communication materials, products and services, not to mention the increase in professionalism your business with take.

Growth Demands Discipline

As your company expands, your communications needs to become more complex. We will be introducing yourselves to many new audiences, and first impressions are very important. The consistent use of your brand identity will enable us to establish your company as a forward looking, professional provider of products and services. That is why each and every communication describing those offerings must bear the unmistakable mark of your brand identity.

Building Your Company’s Brand

It is important to understand that your guidelines provide for considerable flexibility. You shouldn’t want all your communications to look exactly alike. That would destroy their effectiveness. Instead, the main goal is to present a consistent “look and feel” that is unique to your company. This will enable you to continue to build your masterbrand, which will, in turn, enhance public recognition of every part of your company.

Let’s go take a walk in one of Calgary’s many parks and I will grab natural moments of your family without the images looking posed. I think this “candid” style is much more relaxed, more natural, and shows moments which are much more memorable.

Contact me now and ask about the Family Sessions which start at just $99 for a two hour session anywhere in Calgary. When we are done, I will edit the images and place the finished and print ready files on a CD which you can get printed anywhere.

Family Sessions
2 hrs                           $99
4 hrs                           $350

Infant Sessions
2 hrs                           $250
(Includes proper studio lighting brought to your location)

Weddings
Ceremony                                                                     $550
Ceremony + Pictures after the event                            $990
Ceremony + Pictures after the event + Reception        $1550

Glamour/Fashion
2 hrs                 $199
4 hrs                 $499

Industrial
1/2 Day             $350
Full Day            $650

Visit thinkdan.ca for more information.

*All sessions receive a CD with final images. No prints provided.

Product photography for a local company. Shot in several pieces and put together in post.

In this post I will introduce you to my method for shooting and editing small product photography. The task I am going over was presented to me by a local company whom I met online. They had great ideas and a list of expectations from the get-go and this was the basis for my challenge: create imagery for their small yoga products to be used on their website and possibly in print. I had a lot of fun tackling this job and I encourage everyone to try it at least once in their lifetime.

In the beginning…

The first step after initial contact was to meet with the client and discuss things in person, not over email or the phone. I find face-to-face Discovery Meetings to be much more productive, adds a certain level of integrity and trust to your business and you can quickly understand things without much “back and forth.” Here, we discussed the end-result that was expected, some ideas were presented and a small bag of client-supplied props were exchanged, along with the actual products to be photographed.

The ideas were to shoot the little bottles in front of refreshing fruits, greenery and meditation-like stones. This immediately presented a problem. The products were just too small to be placed directly in front of the fruits and looked super small when set up.

The solution? Shoot them in pieces and put them together in post-processing afterwards.

The tools

For this shoot, I used my super awesome Nikon D300 equipped with my trusty 18-70mm. I also experimented with my 35mm F1.8. For lighting I used a desk lamp and a single SB-600 strobe with wireless triggers. But the most important tool for this job is the lightbox. A lightbox is used to diffuse the light being cast on your subject. This creates a much nicer image which adds a great deal to your image. See below for a quick difference between diffuse light and harsh light.

Harsh light on the left, diffused light on the right. See the soft shadows? What a difference!

I began by checking out professional lighting systems to see what was out there. I found ready-made light boxes, fancy off-camera strobes, umbrellas, battery packs, reflectors….and was not impressed with the cost. I could spend thousands of dollars on a small studio setup and still might be disappointed with my results. I dug a little deeper and decided that I could make my own setup. I had my own strobe, I had wireless triggers and I had my own genius mind.

This is what I came up with:

Yup. It's definitely cheap and ugly looking. But it isn't the subject being shot, so who cares?

My homemade lightbox is merely two halves of an apple box (free at most grocery stores), the sides cut out and replaced with tissue paper. To finish it off, there is white poster paper on the bottom and curled upwards along the rear bottom corner to create a seamless background. For less than about $10, I had created a tool which might have cost me hundreds of dollars if I had bought one from the camera store.

The Results

Lemon, straight off the camera, strobe through right panel set to 1/4 power, desk lamp as fill through left panel.

Basil, straight off camera, this time with strobe pumped up to 1/2 power and a bit of a slower shutter speed (1/40)

Products all in a row.

To get these shots, I hooked up my DSLR to the computer and used Nikon’s Camera Control Pro software. From this program I can control nearly the whole camera and shooting functions without touching it! This is an important step to save time. I didn’t want to set up everything, shoot, pack it up and then find out I could have done things a little bit differently to improve my results.

Great! Now all I have to do is put the images of the bottles in front of the props. For this, I used Photoshop CS3.

All together now!

Conclusion

So all in all, I was very happy with my results and so was the client. I was very glad I took this project on and tackled it with such creativity. I hope you have enjoyed reading and I encourage you to get out there and shoot something for yourself or a friend.

I was pretty happy with the result, but what I learned was:

1. There is never a “right” way to accomplish your photography goal. Look for alternative methods and realize that you never have to spend top dollar on some things. Get creative!
2. Experiment with a LOT of different camera and flash settings. I had to play with my equipment until I got the results I needed. This was a first for me and I had some time to figure it out, and I learned a lot.
3. Off camera and wireless flash are ALWAYS a good idea.
4. Shoot tethered to your computer to check focus and quality.
5. Make sure your white balance is correct before you start shooting. Especially if you have mixed lighting…try and stick to one type of light source.

We all could use a few pointers to improve our photography, and this post is going to do just that. I have compiled a few of my favorite tips that I have learned along the way in my photography career. Take note and maybe you can use them at your next gig!

5. Beauty is in the Details

When your wedding is actually going on, there are a lot of things for a bride and groom to pay attention to that they forget to enjoy the little things. These things could be the nice flower arrangements on the tablesthe beautiful venue the ceremony is being held in, or the joy being expressed by all the friends and family you invited.

4. Expect the unexpected

More important details could be the random details the couple is not expecting you to capture. Things like a glance or touch that they don’t know you paying attention to, or they are having dinner and he or she gently touches the other in a subtle way. These things are going to invoke a special emotion like “Oh, I can’t believe what I was feeling or thinking at this moment” and you will definitely get brownie points for this one.

3. No boring backgrounds

Another shot that would be on a “Must have” list is one where you can find a really unique background for the couple. Something that provides high contrast, an explosion of color, graffiti mural. The same idea goes for their choice in wedding colors, they want something contrasty but complimentary as well. You can do a lot of things with a couple who is dressed in black and white. Make them pop!

2. Daddy’s little girl

The moment just before the bride goes into the ceremony, walking down the hallway to the isle, or in a garden peeking around a corner before the ceremony. Make sure you capture the emotion and feelings of these events. Another good set would be when the bride sees her father before the ceremony or the look on her face before she realizes she has to walk down the isle to her groom.

These little moments are always really sweet. “Just before…” or “During…” fill in the blank with a key moment in the day and you can’t go wrong.

1. Lived happily ever after

This is the moment when everything comes together and you can wrap up the shoot with a great conclusion. It is highly emotional and they think “Oh, our life together is just beginning!”. Make sure you grab this image in a way which you can read their thoughts. Make it special.

I hope these ideas have helped you and inspire you to take amazing photos for that next special wedding for someone. My style is very “candid” and allows for some great moments which the couple does not realize. I find they are more natural and can be more powerful.

Take care and happy shooting!

To be perfectly honest, I did not really care about the fact that a new iPhone would be introduced this year when I bought my 3Gs in March of this year. I was perfectly happy with the fact that I just had an iPhone! I was blown away by how amazing it was in every aspect. This was a big deal!

Then I read the release notes and preliminary reviews of iPhone 4.

5mp, 5x zoom, built in LED flash, HD video capture, super high resolution screen and two cameras on this new device sure sound attractive. Many of the higher-end compact cameras don’t even support HD video capture. The iPhone does. You can even edit video on the phone for an additional $4.99 to buy iMovie for iPhone.

Take a look at some of the sample images that have come off the iPhone 4.

It’s pretty amazing that just a couple years ago, when cameras were just introduced on phones, the quality of images was ghastly. Now look at this…you may be able to get some decent prints from your phone!

Chase Jarvis, one of my favorite commercial and lifestyle photographers, recently did an all iPhone project. This project was shot entirely with his iPhone, edited with apps you can get from the appstore and nothing else was used to edit the photos. No SLRs, no Photoshop, no other machine touched the images. You should check this out as well…pretty amazing stuff. I find it very inspiring.

Well, for right now I am enjoying my 3Gs, but I will be definitly buying a 4G as soon as I can. Everyone is buzzing about this, at least in my circles. My prediction is that this new iPhone is going to continue dominating sales of PDAs and now it’s going to take a bite out of the compact camera segment.

Everyone knows that the best camera you can have is the one that is on you all the time.

My two cents

Well then. It’s great you are interested in this field! There is lots for a graphic designer to do out there and it ranges quite widely. Basically, I’ve found there are just a few basic forms of graphic design and the consist of either working exclusively in-house for a company/institution, for an advertising agency, or for a print shop. You can also work for yourself, but that is a little difficult and you are always working. I specialize in print design and make a lot of different things ranging from Annual Reports and magazines to big displays and complex brochures. We also do branding and even web work.

As far as education goes, I wish I had more of an artistic background with a degree in art. But, I have almost 7 years of experience now, so that trades off as comparable. It is a major asset to know how to solve problems in different ways.

There are lots of great things about this, though! If you do a good job, you can get a result you can be very proud of! This is my favorite part. I love doing a good job and seeing a great end-result that is both stimulating and impressive. It’s also great when you win awards for your work.

Exposure: 0.005 sec (1/200) Aperture: f/7.1 Focal Length: 35 mm Focal Length: 35.6 mm ISO Speed: 400 Exposure Bias: -1 EV

Great colors, fantastic mood and tone and it makes for a wonderfully warm setting. It really helps to capture how beautiful it was that night…not entirely, but it helps.

So remember…don’t put your gear away when you see dark clouds coming. Take it all out and fire it up! This is the best time for the most interesting pictures!

Have you ever dealt with a frustrated client before? I know I have. There have been a few times where a client asks me to make them something pretty, I work for hours to make it for them only to see them say “But that doesn’t really do what we want it to.” I then proceed to hit my head against the wall very firmly. Yes, we have all dealt with this problem, hopefully nearer the start of our careers instead of later.

When you’re dealing with a design project, it’s vital to write a detailed list of expectations at the very beginning. There are two main reasons for this:

• Firstly, it ensures that you, as a business owner or in-house manager know exactly what you want to achieve from your project.
• Second, the brief acts as a point of reference for designers, giving them key points to focus on. This eliminates “back and forth” communication a lot of people find annoying.

This is called a Creative Brief.

In a nutshell, you are greatly improving efficiency and this means less time and money out of the client’s pocket. The more information you provide at the beginning of the project, the more value you’ll receive from your designer.

To help us get started with a basic Creative Brief, take a look below at a few key points which nearly every designer will find useful during their projects.

Background

Provide the creative team with a history of the company, product or program – sufficient for anyone who knows nothing about it to get up to speed fast.

(The client) has asked for our help to (goal of marketing activity). To do this, we will (state deliverables).

Communications Objectives

The objectives of this exercise are: (state communications objectives, eg reach X% of target market, increase awareness, reposition, promote new feature, weaken competitor assault, etc).

Tactical Objectives

The tactical objective is to (state hard business objective, eg increase sales by X%, increase margin by X%, increase price tolerance, etc.).

Corporate Facts

(Client name) was founded in (year) to (mission).

(Client)’s office(s) is (are) at (addresses, cities), where the company’s administrative infrastructure is located. The company has a staff of about X people. More information can be found at (client website URL)

(Client) Product and Service Facts and Benefits
Describe client’s key products and services with benefits stated in customer terms.

Customer Profile

(Provide demographic and psychographic profile of decision makers in the buying process. Profile the type of company they work for, their job titles, and what they worry about (their pain). Show how the buying process works.)

Awareness Levels

About XX% of customers are aware of (Client name), so we must presume zero awareness in the marketplace. (It is important for the creative team to know how much foundation work is needed to build recognition of the company, the products, and the benefits in the client’s mind)

Competitive Overview

(Provide quick snapshot of industry, Gorillas or key players, and where the company fits into the competitive space. State advantages and disadvantages for each competitor if possible, and define the single “enemy” that will be the target for displacement with this product/service)

Corporate Positioning

(Use the customer’s words to describe the corporate positioning – a key element of brand)

Schedule and deadline

Give your designer a detailed and realistic schedule of how you would like the project to advance. Take the following into consideration:

• Consultation (research, strategy, brief development)
• Creative (concept and design development)
• Production (artwork, printing and other production)
• Delivery

Supporting statements

•    (provide support for the claim in the Creative Focus – as many as you can)
•    (use the language of the customer)
(the creative team will use these as the “meat” to flesh out selling arguments)

Tone and Manner

(use adjectives to help the creative team build the right tone – should support the brand and the competitive advantages, eg. upscale, energetic, high performance

Mandatories

(Client) corporate logo

Website URL

Canadian/US/other spellings

(other)

A note to designers

If you are dealing with a new client who has not prepared their own brief, I have a quick template document I can send to them to fill out.

In closing

Remember, the Creative Brief is considered a “Core” document which many people, including designers, continually refer back to in order to get their direction from. This also shows the client your professionalism and ultimately saves them time and money. The better the brief, the better the result.

Create a photo project for yourself – Pick a theme and only shoot only that theme for the day, week or month. (if you choose the color red, only shoot things that have red as their color, communicate red or is the focal point in some way….get creative!) Go for lots of Photowalks, keeping your theme in mind. Here are a few to spark your imagination. Colors, shapes, objects, motion, age, texture, character, reflections.

Go to the thrift store and buy a cheap film camera to experiment with – Ever shoot with film? Try it with a $3 camera and check out your results!

Join photo groups on Flickr, Facebook and the likes - You can showcase your work very easily here as well as learn a thing or two. Don’t look for levels of expertise. Instead, look for shared interests and experiences. Don’t stick with your own age group—the best clubs have a wonderful mix of young and mature individuals.

Enter photo contests – Local and online. Check your newspapers and camera shops for anything. Here in Calgary, Vistek, The Camera Store and Saneal all offer seasonal contests.

Take a photo course – Check out your local college or university for a once-per week class and expand your knowledge!

365 pictures – Take one photo every single day of the year. Or you can do 30 in one month.

Take your camera with you-everywhere – I find I find pictures everywhere I go….when I leave my camera at home. You can bring it, just choose a small lens. I love my Nikkor 35mm on my D40x. Or take a small camera with you instead.