My GPS Camera Phone

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When shooting with a camera phone, you’re limited in what effects you can create. Because of that, you’re forced to either take crappy pictures or make adjustments and come up with something different. That’s what I did with today’s photo.

As I was waiting with my youngest daughter after school, I noticed the interesting patterns that were coming out of the sand and the shadows, so I started shooting. What I quickly realized is that the shadows acted as a natural vignette. To enhance this effect, I turned the brightness way down until the shadows begin to get that underexposed look.

Once in Photoshop, all that needs to be done is some minor color correction, level adjustments and a bit of burning to darken any of the lighter edges. That’s it! Stay tuned for more on brightness adjustment and working with shadows.

This photo was apparently stuck in limbo, with the message to my phone downloaded, but not the image. When I checked incoming messages yesterday, to my surprise, I found this great photo of a palm tree (in our front yard, maybe, but something tells me that it isn’t).

In previous shots using the Casio G’Zone, the center of the image tends to be discolored, especially when shooting earthy colors. It looks like Nancy nailed the perfect shot to cancel out this discoloration, using a light background and an earthy foreground. There’s no cropping on this photo either. It’s directly out of the camera phone. Personally, I love it. How about you?

Photo credit: Nancy

Photo credit: Daughter #1.

Evidence that deep down inside, all guys are blockheads.

I took this today while waiting for my most awesome wife, Nancy, to pick me up from work. Taking a note from the Stop Sign of the Subconscious post, I used the hour to take photos of things. I’m particularly happy with this one, aside from it being a bit overexposed – I had to work with the image in Photoshop to tone it down a bit.

If you haven’t already noticed the huge graphic in the sidebar, then look there now. Submit your camera phone photos with a story and you can be eligible for a super-awesome guest posting spot! Since Google updated their PageRank, I’m now happy to say that I’ve gone from 3 to 4. That means the link love you get will be better than before.

I’ve already received some photo submissions, so get yours in soon! The line is growing…

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My daughters had a drama rehearsal last week for their big Saturday night dinner theater. The drama teacher is notorious for going long on time, which is not a bad thing, but it does entail a lot of suspense-filled waiting, akin to watching water come to a boil. The question of the moment on every parent’s lips is, “Are they done yet?” Even the most involved parent’s demeanor can be shifted from excited hopefulness to that of a sedated mental patient with a simple horizontal nod, at which time they resume their sidewalk pacing and small talk.

Finding myself in this undesirable situation, I did what anyone else would do – I paced around and stared at the concrete sidewalk, stopping once in a while to engage in some small talk. After what seemed like hours, the late afternoon sun lit up the street in a way that only the late afternoon sun can. Feeling a subconscious urge to mentally stop and redirect my attention, I took out the camera phone and started shooting.

I like traffic signs for some reason. Maybe it’s the precision of the message they deliver (though it’s not always precise enough). Maybe it’s the symmetry and angularity. Maybe I’ve got some strange attraction to lines and angles. Maybe I was a stop sign in a previous life. Whatever the reason may be, it was certainly enough to make the Monday morning edition of the blog.

With regard to the rehearsal, it finished late as expected, but I learned that “late” is relative. Without the time to pace around and process my situation, I’d have never caught this photo. Having a sign that says “stop” was a great mental cue as well, one that I will pay a bit more attention to in the future.

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