The main feature story in this week's
St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times "Weekend" section is told through photos that were captured solely on an iPhone. The photos are of iconic places all along St. Pete Beach.
Melissa Lyttle, a photographer at Poynter's
St. Petersburg Times, took the photos,
noting on the Times' photo blog that "the best camera is the one you have with you." She said it's important to remember that good technology isn't always what makes a good photo.
"I'm always documenting life with my iPhone -- friends, funky places, Florida skies, my dog," she said on the blog. "I'm really impressed with the quality of the pictures from it as well as the ease with which I can post those photos to my blog, Facebook and Twitter, so I don't think I'll stop shooting with it anytime soon."
I talked with Lyttle about the project and what she learned from it in this edited e-mail Q&A.
Al Tompkins: Why did you use a cell phone to take pictures that could easily have been captured with a professional camera?Melissa Lyttle: My photo editor saw some vacation photos from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and the Keys that I took on my iPhone, and he was hoping I could do something similar here. The nature of the assignment lent itself to a different approach. It essentially allowed me to play tourist for a day in my backyard. What says tourist more than photos taken with a cell phone?
How much cleanup and enhancement did you do to make these "paper-ready?"Lyttle: Almost none.
What did you learn about the iPhone's light sensitivity? Are there pictures you wanted but could not capture?Lyttle: I know from using my iPhone camera on a regular basis that it has a really difficult time in low-light situations. Everything for this project was shot during the daytime, and 90 percent of it was shot outside. If I wanted to make a picture inside, I tried to do it in a room with lots of available light.
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Melissa Lyttle/St. Petersburg Times
St. Petersburg's Don CeSar resort |
I notice you are capturing both vertical and horizontal photos. Do either work better for a cell phone camera?Lyttle: Actually, every photo in the piece is a square, as a result of an application I used called CameraBag. I use a filter in the CameraBag iPhone app called the Helga, which is modeled after my favorite cheap, plastic toy camera -- the
Holga. It crops the photo into a square, bumps the contrast a little and vignettes it. And it's what I use for 99 percent of the stuff I shoot with my iPhone because it's fun and quirky.
Background on CameraBag and the journalistic application of iPhonesThe CameraBag iPhoto app that has the Helga on it is a $2.99 download. The
iPhone app blog explains more about what is in the CameraBag app:
- Helga: this desaturates and adds a vignette border as well as crops the photo.
- Lolo: crops the photo to a square, adds a white border and increases situation and contrast.
- Cinema: desaturates photo and adds a blue tone to the photo.
- Ansel: Adds white border and converts picture to Black & White (grayscale).
- 1962: converts to black & white (grayscale) and increases contrast.
- 1974s: adds sepia tone to photo, adds white border and crops photo.
- Fisheye: Creates a bubble type of effect with your photo (not really fisheye).
- Infrared: Converts the photo to black & white (grayscale) then Inverts the colors.
Poynter's Group Leader for Visual Journalism,
Kenny Irby, expressed some concerns over the journalistic use of iPhones and similar consumer-end cameras but said they have a place in professional photojournalism:
"My concerns are by no means related to technical image quality, as the iPhone camera file exports about a 9 meg file. Lyttle's project offers a tremendous opportunity for fun, innovation and credible creativity. I applaud the dedication to purposeful compositions, dramatic lighting and unique perspectives.
"What does give me cause to pause is the use of post-documentation software and filters that render special effects like iPhone's CameraBag and
photo FX. When the applications are used, the journalist must still apply the highest commitment to visual accuracy."
Ellyn Angelotti, interactivity editor and adjunct faculty member at Poynter, says:
"The more comfortable journalists get with using tools they have handy to do quality journalism, the more they can develop and improve their use of these tools. This project is an example of taking cell phone photography up a notch. Also, using a feature story like this instead of a high-pressure breaking news story to try a new application of a tool is a great way to set your newsroom up to succeed when being innovative.
"This story also lends itself really well to audience engagement. Many readers have access to the same equipment Lyttle used to create this, as almost every phone has a camera built in."
Angelotti said there are opportunities in a project like this to interact with readers online. Invite readers to send their own cell phone pictures of local landmarks or to recreate the photos that a staff photographer has captured. I have seen newspapers show tiny portions of a landmark, such as part of a sign or an object on a wall, and ask readers to guess where the object can be found. It's usually great fun.
Editor's note: Some of Lyttle's responses in this Q&A were featured on the St. Petersburg Times
' "All Eyes" photo blog. The Holga is mentioned. No worries. How do you delete...
