Jorge Quinteros

Clawing The iPhone Pt. I

When people talk about iPhone photography, the subject of conversation generally centers around app recommendations, platforms in which to best share your photographs, techniques on shooting and even the availability of nifty accessories who’s sole purpose is to make you as close to feeling that the device is as versatile and reminiscent to any other point and shoot camera you could buy.

The advantage the iPhone has over a “regular camera” is not so much technical a one but more a utilitarian one since the likelihood of always having it in your pocket is far greater. Then of course there’s the allure for us to shoot, edit and publish our findings all from the convenience of a mobile workstation that pretty much covers all aspect of communication and that potential alone is what’s addicted me and everyone else to sharing content that we would otherwise neglect to acknowledge.

In this case, I’m not particularly interested in adding to the litany of articles available that talk about what apps people use or the workflow they have for editing their photos. All these are tips and details which are definitely insightful but at this point I don’t have anything novel to add to a process that should practically be secondary to everything else. This is the part where I would undertake a philosophical stance and tell you that one should “focus more on what they shoot rather than what they’re using to shoot…” which at the risk of sounding trite, is all true.

Anyways, over the period of photographing continuously with the iPhone, I became very perceptive on something which I surprisingly haven’t heard a lot of people talk about. Like anything in photography, a lot of what we do and the tools we use are all subjective so I think it goes without saying that something as having a preference to how you hold your camera kinda topples into the same bucket.

When I visualize a person getting in position to shoot with an iPhone, the posture that comes to mind as far as hands is identical to how Lisa Bettany is seen photographing which is how I assume most people hold the device. This is how my wife does it and I guess it’s what I did at the outset but as I began immersing myself more into candid street photography predominantly do more of with with iPhone, I could tell you that holding it this way is not the most low-profile approach for me because it’s the straight forward equivalence of standing aimlessly with a Frommer’s guide book in the middle of Time Square. I don’t want to be noticed but I still want to feel comfortable using something that’s valuable to me.

This is how I clench the iPhone in my hands when photographing on the streets. Despite a friend’s remark, I don’t think it’s unusual. I refer to it now as “clawing the iPhone” because that’s how my friend Victor described it when he pointed out the odd similarity to a bird gripping on to a twig or something. I use my thumb to press on the shutter button and it’s as easy as that.

All the shooting happens with one hand and as comfortable as I’ve become using it this way, I have the inevitable fear of accidentally dropping the phone one day. It’s hasn’t happen yet. The ideal situation would be to continue shooting the way I do while having a piece of mind in that my iPhone wouldn’t randomly slip from my claw grip because my fingers would be inserted into 4 loops that would coincide with the placement of my fingers.

These 4 plastic or silicone loops would be an integral built-in feature of an iPhone case that caters specifically to people who like me, have found comfort in holding the iPhone the way I have while photographing with it. I hope it’s not difficult to envision what I’m describing. Perhaps a drawing would have been more helpful? I’ll defenitely have a follow up to this post later on and by that time I will have found someone to sketch up a better representation of what I’ve just described.

What’s Already Out There

There’s a few iPhone accessories that are meant to replicate the handle of a “real camera”. I’ve never experimented with any of them since none really solve the problem of securing the phone the way I would want it in my hands.

The POPA and the Shutter Grip come pretty close but utilizing these accessories requires one to remove your iPhone case which I know not everyone uses in the first place but I unequivocally do.

So what’s my solution to this frivolous problem? I’m not sure yet. The answer should be obvious but it’s the execution that requires some thinking so until then, I’ll continue to “claw” the iPhone they way I’ve already grown accustom to. I love the idea of developing an iPhone case that is custom made for me. I’m not looking to mass produce anything. Right not everything is just ideas.

Instagram Favorites for March 2012

I somehow failed to publish a handful of my favorite photographs taken during the month of February and after seeing how little I shot for that month alone, I felt less bad about neglecting what had become a monthly routine.

Lot of buzz surrounding the service lately and I don’t generally write about these things but I know some people have had strong opinions and have even expressed their enormous distaste against Facebook for having purchased Instagram and I can tell you that I’m not one of them. In spite of the acquisition of which we haven’t caught sight of any major changes yet, I still see Instagram as a community of people who value art and photography and as long as pushy ads don’t percolate through our Instagram stream, I’m ok with continuing to use it.

Most of the photos I publish on Facebook pertain to family. Rarely do I ever share the type of photographs I share either on my site or Instagram and I think the reason behind this is because on Instagram, I feel I connect more to people on a artistic level which I haven’t found elsewhere online. In fact, I would go as far to say that a “Like” on one of my Instagram photos prompts me a greater high than a “Like” on Facebook or Flickr.

I’m still actively using Instagram and I’m not abandoning it quite yet although what I have been dumping is people who publish those annoying Tweegrams. I don’t mind reading inspiration quotes every now and then but if that’s what I gotta put up with everyday upon launching the app, I would much rather choose to stuff my face with fortune cookies after having purchased them wholesale.

Very much like Twitter, I don’t subscribe to a great deal of people on Instagram and I personally feel that the lower I keep the number, the higher the value I get from the service because it enable me to pay more close attention to those who I have chosen to follow who in one way or another enrich me creatively.

Find me on the service with my usual handle of jorgeq.

6 Somewhat Photography Related Lessons from Watching No Reservations

It’s rare that I would stay up late to watch a TV show mostly because I rather record them and later bypass all the uninteresting commercials one typically has to sit through but the other night, I made the exception and watched like a true fan the premiere of season 8 of Anthony Bourdains’ No Reservations.

The guy has a way with words. The blend of intelligence and brutally honest views that you hear from this man has in my opinion raised the bar for what I now expect to learn from travel shows. He globetrotters the world as most of us daydream about, he’s open about his distaste for most things Food Network, he eats subjectively good food while somehow still staying slim but above everything else, he sees places and meets amazing people which he wouldn’t have otherwise been able to experience had it not been for the “second life” he often refers to being given.

In between his entertaining anecdotes on the show, his self-deprecating humor and his weakness for profanity, I like to think I’ve extracted a decent amount of information for amateur photographers like myself who want to continue to feel motivated to shoot in spite of the inescapable dry spells that frequently haunt us.

They say inspiration comes from the strangest of places so while the show may necessarily be about photography per say, hopefully you’ll understand that sometimes you don’t necessarily have to always be involved in your own pastime to feel that’s the only way you can actually improve on it. This applies to whatever your hobby may be. In this case, it’s photography for me.

The following are some unexpected lessons I’ve learned about photography from watching the show and I’m using the words “lessons on photography” very loosely because none of it involves teaching me anything technical but more on the inspirational/enlightening aspect. It may or may not relate to all type of photographers but either way, I figured there was no harm in sharing them:

1. If there’s one thing you’ll rarely find Anthony doing on the show is him touring predictable landmarks such as the Pyramids of Giza, the London Eye, the Empire State Building or The Coliseum. If this is the type of touristy stuff you expect to digest from this travel show, you’ll surely be disappointed and hopefully in a good way because how many time can you watch host talk about the same facts over and over again. Needless to say this is not your typical travel show and that in itself adds to its uniqueness.

   As it relates to photography, anything that you think you should photograph such notable landmarks, you should probably reconsider shooting because there’s countless imagery of it everywhere already. Interesting photographs are about a person’s unique voice and perspective and so unless you can manage to capture something different in a place where thousand others have already tried, the probability of being distinct is low.

2. You’re likely to get a greater sense of a place over a warm meal with a person than you are from a travel guide or reading a book. The times I’ve traveled, I’ve never been under the guidance of a local to show me off the beaten path places but I’ve coincidently been on the other end once when documentary photographer Martin Herrera was vacationing in New York. He had never been to Bushwick mostly because it’s not the best of neighborhoods but I frequent it enough that I feel comfortable zig-zagging in between blocks as if I were a well adjusted resident.

3. Sometimes we get so caught up with wanting the life of a particular profession that we forget that we have to have a life in order to make having that title worthwhile in the first place.

4. It’s never too late to develop an interest for something. For Tony, writing was an art he occasionally dabbled with and it wasn’t until a wildly popular piece that was published in The New Yorker that he realized he was good at something other than standing for 12 hours in a kitchen, drinking or getting stoned. I wouldn’t say I was a late bloomer with photography but even if I was, there’s an endless amount of information and inspiration now that anyone can take to get started.

5. Don’t take yourself too seriously or else you’ll get obsessed with the need for everything to be perfect and you’ll more than likely end up producing nothing or meeting anyone. This has happen countless times before. I no longer walk out thinking one perfect shot is all it will take to assure me that my outing was worth executing. I prefer to shoot in sequence where most of what I see and all the people I meet contribute as much to the experience of being in a place.

6. More of us should have a sense of wonder - as fear and ignorance generally leads to no where. Apparently this seems to be the case in most places but personally, it was both baffling and embarrassing to hear out-of-town friends know more about my city than I. I don’t know every nook and cranny of New York now but I’m absolutely more cognizant of neighborhoods than I ever was prior to having started tinkering with photography.

It’s all subjective as to whether any of these observations make someone a better photographer. I love the show and I continousely feel inspired to rethink the stuff I’ve typcially shot because of it and if it weren’t obvious already, I noticed that a lot of my work now revolves more around people than it does around places and things the way it use to be when I first started.

I Bought The Canon 5D Mark II

A new camera means a new incentive, a new enthusiasm to shoot more and most likely, an immediate and substantial upgrade to whatever you might have own before but what it doesn’t mean is being gifted with any additional artistic talent to produce something you may not have been able to create with your previous equipment.

I recently updated from what I normally shot with and when I tweeted that I don’t feel any different or superior by owning it, I meant it. Perched on the tripod that stands in my home office is now a Canon 5D Mark II with a 50mm f/1.4 attached. I didn’t bother contemplating buying the kit lens package because these type lenses are notoriously slow, image quality is average so there was no sense in paying extra for gear that I would barely use or end up selling anyway.

Truth be told, I didn’t need a new camera. Up until this point, any excuse or limitation for not producing a more sizable or meaningful amount of work with the Nikon D90 I owned wasn’t a consequence of not having a “better” camera but like anything else, you kinda have to extract the best from what you have through the time you put into working with it, in learning its intricacies and seeing what comes out of that day-in and day-out usage.

I’m not a professional photographer. I don’t making a living out of taking photos. Everything I’ve accomplished thus far has been on own spare time regardless of the weather, the time of day, the distance to my place of interest or how I might have felt and that alone I believe signifies the commitment I have to continue pursuing photography in spite of whether this costly hobby evolves into anything else or not.

As far as equipment, I don’t think you have to be a professional carpenter to own a top of the line drill but if you do, I assume it’s because you’ve relinquished yourself to using the heck out of it so as to justify the purchase. Whether that was a fitting analogy or not, consider the newly purchased Canon 5D Mark II my drill. My wife might have had her reservations for me spending $2,389 on a camera body alone especially since I don’t have a established business for saying that I needed it but I got away with it by saying that the camera paid itself when I sold all my Nikon gear for $2,000 on Craigslist.

Like anyone else, I had to endure the inevitable lowball offers one get when you choose to sell anything on this site but in the span of 2 weeks and by selling everything individually so as to maximize profits, I walked into Best Buy one evening with cash in hand, paid the difference and walked out with this camera that’s worthy of every praise it’s received.

I’ve owned it for nearly a month now and if I really wanted to minimize the amount of typing and spare you any further reading, I can make the absolute comment that everything each proud owner has said about this camera is true and I would even add that I have no plans of upgrading to anything else anytime soon and that the price tag was well worth the investment despite any trepidation I might have shared with my wife.

I’m well aware that very good camera equipment could potentially last a life time, so on instances where I think it’s important, I’ll pay the premium to own something which I can use for years and years.

I think the reason it’s taken me a bit long to jot down any observations about the camera is because I don’t get a thrill from writing about camera specs or sharing comparisons shots to demonstrate how image quality or ISO range is superior on one piece of gear and not the other. There’s definitely no lack of reviews on the 5DMII you haven’t Googled already, so I find it pointless to break my head trying to sound revolutionary and add another review to the leaning heap.

For the sake of simplicity and my own sanity, I”ll address quickly some random bullet points about the camera, my experience so far and miscellaneous stuff:

• On the topic of upgrading to a full-frame camera, I wish I had this long philosophical explanation about why I chose the Canon 5DMII rather the the Nikon D700 but the truth is that I don’t. It really all came down to expense. At the time, the D700 body alone was averaging around $2,550 (before tax) which I was expecting for it to have lowered in lieu of the D800 being announced but the price had not dropped.

  On the other hand, the 5DMII dropped $200 5 days later after the 5DMIII was introduced, so I jumped on that deal. Plus, even thought I don’t necessarily shoot a lot of video with my dSLR, I at least wanted to be able to if I needed to which is a feature the D700 doesn’t have. Some people asked why I didn’t consider the Nikon D800. The simple answer is that I don’t need that much megapixels and plus $3,500 for a camera body was way to much for me.

• I’m not a camera strap person and that even goes for the popular alternatives such as the Black Rapid or Luma Lab’s Cinch, so I went ahead and bought a Pentax DSLR Leather Hand Strap for the 5DMII. For the type of street work I do, I find it a lot easier to maneuver the camera around as it’s safely secure in my hands and not dangling on my shoulder or across my chest. It’s a strain on your wrist when you’re sporting heavy glass like a 24-70mm but I typically shoot with light primes so the toll on my wrist is minimal.

• When I bought the extended battery pack for the D90, I never took it off. The added bulk was never an issue but now the 5DMII is the equivalence in size to the the D90 that I don’t think I’ll be investing in the Canon extended battery pack for the this camera unless I ever feel I need it. In the mean time, I just carry 2 extra battery packs in my bag.

• The unfamiliar hollow, low pitched “clonk” or “thud” sound that the 5DMII makes when you press the shutter button is something I had to get adjusted to because if you’ve been a Nikon shooter for most of your time like I was, you would go crazy thinking there’s something wrong with the 5DMII copy you purchased. Truth is that the mirror is bigger, hence the mechanical vibration and audible sound of the shutter. I’m use to it already.

• L lenses are ridiculously expensive. I don’t own any yet and not sure if I will but I’ll certainly rent them first before committing to spending that much money on glass that I’m well aware is still well worth the price but the question is it necessary.

• Image quality on the 5DMII is all around amazing. Granted I’m shooting with a prime lens which typically render better image quality than zoom lenses because there’s less going on inside mechanically. I shoot entirely in RAW of which you have 3 options to choose from: RAW (21MP), RAW 1 (9.9MP) and RAW 2 (5.2MP). I switch back and forth between the first two.

• I haven’t had the chance to test the ISO capability of the camera yet but from what I’ve read and seen, it’s spectacular.

• Little nuances like no longer having the on/off switch underneath the shutter button like on the Nikon was something I had to eventually come to terms with. The control layout on the 5DMII was completely unfamiliar to me at first.

• The 5DMII has this beautiful large 3.0 LCD display which is obviously great for reviewing your photographs but before I had taken the time to peruse the manuel, the display was constantly leading me to think I was overexposing my shots because it’s brightness or darkness depends too much on ambient light when you have it set to Automatic adjusting. What you see if your eyes are acclimated to sunlight is different than what you see in a dim room, so I would often check the histogram from time to time to examine my judgement and shots. For me, the setting of “3” seems to work best.

That’s all the information I have for now. Needless to say I’m absolutely thrilled with the decision I made in purchasing this camera. Once again, did I need it? Perhaps no because the challenge of capturing meaningful content is still there. I wouldn’t have bought it if I didn’t think I was passionate about photography or serious about what I can do with it but I absolutely am on both accounts.