Iphone Artistry by Dan Burkholder
ISBN: 9781454701279
Some of us may be blessed with having beautiful DSLR cameras, but the question is, how often do you actually carry this in your pocket. Like many photographers and journalists say: “often the best camera is the one that is with you”. The abundance of smart phones with astonishing cameras for their size has truly transformed the way photos are viewed and shared amongst consumers. But lets face it, these cameras are no point and shoot replacement just yet, maybe in 1-2 years time. There is a fine art to getting that perfect photo on your smart phone, and these days there simply isn’t enough time to bring it in to Photoshop and do all these whiz-bang things to it. You want to edit an image quickly and deliver it to your client/recipient. This is where Iphone Artistry by Dan Burkholder published by Pixiq comes into play. Dan Burkholder is an expert photograph who has been with every step of the digital revolution with some of his platinum prints being included in private and public collections internationally. Dan also has a master’s degree from Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, CA.
Iphone Artistry is like the Iphone itself, it is sharp and snappy, not too much information, and not too vague. But for what it is, it is an extensive reference guide telling you everything you need to know about Iphone photography; and one thing to keep in mind is that these lessons equally apply to Blackberry, Android devices and Windows Phone so don’t feel left out as some of these apps and tools are available to you.
The first chapter talks about the make up of the Iphone camera like the hardware details, and the basic functions of the OS relating to photos. The next chapter is all about apps, what’s out there and what Dan recommends. This is important as there is just so much out there relating to photos it’s great to get an experts opinion of all that 99 cent junk! This section is really comprehensive, it’s truly a fantastic resource. The next chapter talks about basic editing apps and what are some of the main photo effects and editing metrics available. The next section talks more about social photo apps and the benefits of these, things like Instagram and Hipstamatic and those apps that can just do it all for you with quick and beautiful filters. The next couple of sections talk about more advanced lessons like photo stitching which I always dread doing, and HDR images…you know high dynamic range…you know those images that consist of low, normal and high exposure to give a surreal effect to your images? The book even talks about layers, which I didn’t even know existing on Iphone apps which is great to know!
This really is a book for the here and now, will these lessons be equally valid in 1-3 years time as phones advance…I am really not sure. But for now this is a great buy for people why want to get the best out of phone photos, and who doesn’t?! Iphone Artistry is difficult to fault, it consists of beautifully taken photos with amazing editing applied and Iphone screenshots/diagrams that are informative and most importantly teachings that are told in simple to understand language for the rest of us, but still expandable enough for semi-pro and up photographers.
[rating:4]
