Time for a quiet little chat about smartphone photography, just between us. Sorry, but there is really not that much charm or creativity to be had in the average photo we take with our phones.
It may be because we snap many photos on the spur of the moment, without planning how the shot will look. It may be because we know that Instagram's filters can hide a multitude of poor photographic skills by making most shots look arty.
And we are all using our phone cameras more. A friend of mine who is a professional photographer even told me recently that he spent a lot of time taking pictures on his phone instead of his real camera, simply because the imaging technology in smartphones has improved so much and they are so convenient.
But with thousands of photography apps available, our photos can be much more creative with just a little thought.
Take MarbleCam, an app that makes it look as if you have taken a photo of the world through a perfect glass marble, with the rest of the view dropped beautifully out of focus behind the sphere.
It's a freshly updated free iPhone app and it's simple and yet powerful. Using it couldn't be easier. You snap a photo, using an on-screen guide that shows where the image's center is. Then three icons let you choose where the glass marble effect is applied in the image, how big the "marble" is, and which way the image is rotated.
These settings are a little tricky to get right, but they are easy enough to learn. When you are done you can save the image, share it or pass it on to another app like Instagram. The results can sometimes be startling, and are best when you are looking at something detailed. Photos of faces are probably not suited to this app, unless you are a fan of noses.
If you are looking for an app that is more clever than this, one that brings some of the joy of good old wet-chemistry photography to your smartphone shooting, check out Slow Shutter Cam - a long-selling and recently updated app for Apple devices that costs less than $2 (Rs 111). In an age of superquick digital photography, it lets you take long-exposure shots of the sort where car lights turn into beautiful red and white trails through a city scene.
The app has a manual mode, where you control how light-sensitive you want it to be, just as if you were using a serious digital camera. But it can also do much of the heavy lifting for you. Automatic mode does a good job of detecting your intent, for example, whether you are trying to shoot a long-exposure scene of water flowing over rocks. There is even a Light Trail mode that is suited for those car taillight shots, or for capturing someone doing light-writing in the dark, or perhaps fireworks. The app is even clever enough to let you adjust some of the settings after the shot.
The resulting photos can be spectacular and will definitely impress when you share them online. But don't expect to master this app right away. It's fun, but with its many settings it can take hours to work out the right combination of light sensitivity and movement in the scene you are trying to capture. There are comprehensive in-app instructions to help. You will also need a tripod for the best results, to hold the phone steady.
If you are an Android user, the free app Camera Streak lets you achieve similar light-trail effects, although with less control over the fine details of the photos. And it also brings back one of the lost joys of film-based photography: double exposures.
These happen when the film does not advance between shots and one photo is superimposed on top of another. This is usually annoying, although you can exploit it for clever artistic effects, for example having people appear in ghostly fashion against an empty forest and so on.
That is the purpose of Camera Streak. You can use it to manually drop images on top of one another or you can set it off in burst mode to automatically snap image after image. Also, there is a streak mode for making light trails.
It has simple plus and minus buttons to control the camera's sensitivity to light. If you don't like what you see, simply move it to the trash icon and try again. It is much simpler than Slow Shutter Cam, but it is an app that will take a while to get a handle on. But it can be worth it if you want your smartphone photos to stand out.
These impart just a tiny flavor of some of the better apps you can use to take truly creative photos with the best camera you have - the one on the phone you normally carry in your pocket. Your online friends will be impressed.
It may be because we snap many photos on the spur of the moment, without planning how the shot will look. It may be because we know that Instagram's filters can hide a multitude of poor photographic skills by making most shots look arty.
And we are all using our phone cameras more. A friend of mine who is a professional photographer even told me recently that he spent a lot of time taking pictures on his phone instead of his real camera, simply because the imaging technology in smartphones has improved so much and they are so convenient.
But with thousands of photography apps available, our photos can be much more creative with just a little thought.
Take MarbleCam, an app that makes it look as if you have taken a photo of the world through a perfect glass marble, with the rest of the view dropped beautifully out of focus behind the sphere.
It's a freshly updated free iPhone app and it's simple and yet powerful. Using it couldn't be easier. You snap a photo, using an on-screen guide that shows where the image's center is. Then three icons let you choose where the glass marble effect is applied in the image, how big the "marble" is, and which way the image is rotated.
These settings are a little tricky to get right, but they are easy enough to learn. When you are done you can save the image, share it or pass it on to another app like Instagram. The results can sometimes be startling, and are best when you are looking at something detailed. Photos of faces are probably not suited to this app, unless you are a fan of noses.
If you are looking for an app that is more clever than this, one that brings some of the joy of good old wet-chemistry photography to your smartphone shooting, check out Slow Shutter Cam - a long-selling and recently updated app for Apple devices that costs less than $2 (Rs 111). In an age of superquick digital photography, it lets you take long-exposure shots of the sort where car lights turn into beautiful red and white trails through a city scene.
The app has a manual mode, where you control how light-sensitive you want it to be, just as if you were using a serious digital camera. But it can also do much of the heavy lifting for you. Automatic mode does a good job of detecting your intent, for example, whether you are trying to shoot a long-exposure scene of water flowing over rocks. There is even a Light Trail mode that is suited for those car taillight shots, or for capturing someone doing light-writing in the dark, or perhaps fireworks. The app is even clever enough to let you adjust some of the settings after the shot.
The resulting photos can be spectacular and will definitely impress when you share them online. But don't expect to master this app right away. It's fun, but with its many settings it can take hours to work out the right combination of light sensitivity and movement in the scene you are trying to capture. There are comprehensive in-app instructions to help. You will also need a tripod for the best results, to hold the phone steady.
If you are an Android user, the free app Camera Streak lets you achieve similar light-trail effects, although with less control over the fine details of the photos. And it also brings back one of the lost joys of film-based photography: double exposures.
These happen when the film does not advance between shots and one photo is superimposed on top of another. This is usually annoying, although you can exploit it for clever artistic effects, for example having people appear in ghostly fashion against an empty forest and so on.
That is the purpose of Camera Streak. You can use it to manually drop images on top of one another or you can set it off in burst mode to automatically snap image after image. Also, there is a streak mode for making light trails.
It has simple plus and minus buttons to control the camera's sensitivity to light. If you don't like what you see, simply move it to the trash icon and try again. It is much simpler than Slow Shutter Cam, but it is an app that will take a while to get a handle on. But it can be worth it if you want your smartphone photos to stand out.
These impart just a tiny flavor of some of the better apps you can use to take truly creative photos with the best camera you have - the one on the phone you normally carry in your pocket. Your online friends will be impressed.