Update: Nobody likes to pay taxes, but preparing can be more fun. How you make the chore more fun?

For historical reasons our tax guy is located in San Francisco and this often involves taking a trip up to my favorite US city to meet with David Zuckerman in person.

The weather was glorious yesterday and is even warmer today. I always say that when Global Warming comes I want to move to San Francisco. The city is a smaller, cleaner more friendly version of New York City. They normally have the disadvantage of being too cold much of the year, and if you don’t count an increase in sea level, warmer versions of both cities would be grand.

Our sunrise view over the San Francisco Bay from the Hotel Griffin room

After flying up and having a wonderful dinner at Boulevard we got down to the business of finishing our taxes.

The number crunching continued in the morning after viewing a beautiful sunrise over the San Francisco Bay in our Hotel Griffin room.

There was even some time to enjoy the waterfront and have an oyster lunch at Hog Island Oyster bar in the Ferry Building before heading over to David’s Embarcadero office to crunch numbers, and even more numbers.

David's adding machine tape collection

David enjoys allowing the collection of his adding machine tape to simply pile up on the floor to form a three dimensional sculpture.

By creating art from our paper trail and writing this blog post, does this make the trip tax deductible? That’s a question for David.

Mark Harmel

harmelphoto.com

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Update: If you want to know more about how the Verizon Personal Hotspot works there is a detailed review posted by Glenn Fleisman on Macworld today.

Another good update from Macworld on the experience of using Gazelle to sell an old iPad.

After another dropped call recently I decided to make the switch to a Verizon iPhone. The phone quality and network are a definite improvement. It passed the Zuma Beach to Malibu PCH stress test last week, a recent Ojai weekend, and it consistently out-performed my wife’s ATT iPhone 4. But the addition of tethering with the personal hotspot feature is the “Killer App”. I can now use it to connect my laptop with a USB cable or a choice of Bluetooth or wifi, plus can get a web connection on my iPad with Bluetooth or wi-fi. The option of surfing on the go is great, although you can’t talk and surf at the same time. (See iPad post.)

I recently turned on my iPad’s 3G connection during a power outage in Washington DC and used it in a meeting where the wi-fi network was closed. For me, it’s a great bridge for those times in-between wi-fi connections. I don’t need a heavy use plan – just a way to check email and light web surfing – I had the $14.99 a month plan for 250 MB of data on the iPad and just signed up for the 2 GB, $20 a month plan on Verizon. The advantage is that I can connect multiple devices – most importantly my laptop.

I can now connect my iPhone to a laptop or iPad – and talk on the phone!

After having a public email for years I get tons of spam and while most of it is filtered by my host at least 50 emails a day still make it through. My laptop Mail program filters out much of the other spam, but they all come through on my iPhone and iPad. I’m also a beta tester for my frequent flying wife. She has a 3G USB modem that she uses often while traveling and in her East LA office with bad internet service. In a test today the iPhone connection was equal to the 3G modem. Verizon has a 4G modem on the market, but it is only for Windows now, which means its not available.  The modem costs $60 a month and she has her 3G feature activated on her iPad as well. With the hotspot feature she could be saving $54 a month.

I finally made the deal to sell my 4G ATT iPhone through Craigslist. The process is a big pain, but I thought that I could get more for the phone than the easy approach of using Gazelle.com or some other online service. All of my potential buyers were pros that knew the market and bargained hard. Expect plenty of questions and close stares at every scratch. I even had one no-show and the second guy rescheduled. The next time I will be using Gazelle to sell my electronics instead.

In the end the difference was $150 with my early termination penalty from ATT. But I now have a real phone again and the hotspot could help pay for the difference over time.

Mark Harmel

harmelphoto.com

On Twitter:

@HarmelPhoto

@MarkHarmel

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Update 11/13/10: Some people have commented on shooting with an iPhone. I have a longer post on that subject that I wrote last Summer.

On an early morning drive up the coast this morning I ran into a sea of flags on the lawn of Pepperdine University in Malibu. It turned out to be a yearly tribute that the campus College Republicans present to honor those that lost their lives.

A sign on the site explains that the “exhibit displays one flag for each victim..including the flags from other nations died on that fateful day.”

The Pepperdine Waves this morning was a sea of flags

For a camera I only had my iPhone 4 that now shoots high dynamic range or HDR photos. It works by the camera taking multiple exposures quickly and combining the light and dark frames into one photo. This can work well if the subject matter and camera remains still, or it can create this interesting effect when you have a sea of moving flags.

A natural special effect created by the HDR feature

The display attracted a number of people stopping with their still and video cameras, and a roadside supporter.

A Malibu postman shows his supoort for the memorial

Early morning bike riders are also a staple of the beach highway scene and a walk through the flag provided a training break for this rider.

A rider walks through the flag display

After so much hype in the news about extremists yelling about the location of a community center and threats of burning a Koran, it was good to see a quiet reflection of a tragic day that truly honors the victims.

Mark Harmel

harmelphoto.com

@MarkHarmel

Almost exactly one year ago a Winter storm came rolling through Southern California. This normally just means rain here in the Los Angeles basin, but we do get snow in the high mountains – and on special occasions the snow level drops down low enough to deposit snow in the high desert area of Joshua Tree National Park. Visiting the snow covered desert is one of the real treats of living out here and my excursion out there last year became this year’s Holiday card.

The snow covered Joshua Tree that became a card

The printing of my cards is done in-house on my own printer using a card stock that I get at Red River Paper. In the middle of printing my Epson 2400 suddenly stopped printing without warning!  Instead of having a “Check Engine” light like we have on our cars now, this printer simply shuts down when it’s time for service. A late night trip to the electronic store to update the printer got me back in business to finish the rest of the cards.

As I was complaining about the printer to my friend Chuck Chugumlung and showed him a video version of the scene on my iPhone. He said, “You should just do an interactive version of the card”. It never occurred to me, but Chuck is an interactive designer that does this sort of animation all the time. I sent him the movie and he came back with this wonderful interactive version of a Holiday card. If you haven’t seen it yet, click on the link. Go ahead. I’ll wait. You can even play it more than once.

The original clip is a full HD video version of the snow falling. I had received one of the first Canon 5D MkII cameras, but really hadn’t done much with the video capability beyond learning how to push the record button. So after trudging out through the snow to the tree I set up for a still photo, took my shots and after seeing clumps of snow falling around me, I decided that I would try to catch the action of the melting snow. At the time, I was proud and showed it to my TV friends. The reaction? “That’s nice, where are you going to show it?” With the traditional TV frame being a horizontal rectangle, he had a point. But since then I’ve seen some interesting work with what some call “living one-sheets”. This is where a movie ad comes to life. Here’s one for Marley & Me from last Christmas. These are often shown in shopping malls that have HD TV sets turned vertically.

Here is the original video version – only four seconds.

Snow drop – Joshua Tree National Park from Mark Harmel on Vimeo.

On that same day I also shot another horizontal variation I liked. I sent both versions off to the Photo District News and this one was chose to be one of their first’ “Photo of the Day“.

This version became the PDN Photo of the Day

Mark Harmel

harmelphoto.com

@MarkHarmel

Much of the talk about using the iPhone camera surrounds additional apps that you can use to tint, crop, zoom or selectively focus your photos. There are titles that bounce around the internet like Must-have apps for iPhone photographers - The Five Best iPhone Apps For Travel Photography and The Best Camera “ecosystem”.

I find some of the apps useful for making it easier to crop, adjust the exposure and upload to a photo sharing site; but I find that most of the tinting and special effects features to be cheap tricks. Most of the time the app will simply transform a bad photo into a bad photo with a blue tint.

To me, the most most important app is the person taking the photo.

Surfer on the Venice Beach boardwalk

The beauty of the iPhone is that it’s always with you. The camera function is both very easy to use and at the same time very hard because it’s such a simple camera. The camera works great for basic snapshots of friends, but I wanted to see how it would perform in the stress test of the Venice Beach boardwalk.

Beach visiter taking a cool drink by the iconic wooden umbrella clusters

The boardwalk is both a target rich environment with a collection of colorful characters, and a very challenging place to shoot. The light is harsh and the action is quick.

The palm reader's sign blocked the sun creating a perfect north light studio

You have to look for the places that either have good light already or find a simple way to control the light. There isn’t an app made yet that will help you identify ways to control light by shooting your subject in front of a backdrop, or moving them in front of the sun.

I moved the stilt-walker in front of the sun and palm trees

Since we use the iPhone’s screen to preview the photo, shooting into the sun is even harder. Unlike looking through a camera viewfinder, on the iPhone you have the confusion of the reflection on the screen and the glare behind the phone. Half the time it seems like I’m guessing at the composition. The shooting is similar to using the cheap plastic Diana camera where the joy come from the surprises created by the lack of control.

Catching action is an advanced skill

The other issue with the camera is the shutter lag. Venice Beach is full of action and all good street shooters pride themselves at being able to capture the “decisive moment“, but with the time delay you have to press the shutter button a half second before you think something may happen. (You can control this a bit by being aware that the shutter is actually activated by releasing, instead of pressing the shutter button.)

Quick movements often produce a warped effect

There is also a odd warping effect that’s created by the iPhone using a rolling shutter. Instead of the exposure being created all at once by the aperture effect you see on the screen, the scene is being quickly scanned. In the shot above, the head section was scanned first and the legs moved to the right by the time the scan made it down to the bottom.

The light weight of the iPhone makes it easy to shoot down

One of my big shooting surprises is that now I’m often holding the camera straight out and shooting down. Instead of having my face up to the view-finder, the iPhone already starts away from my face and it’s a quick movement to point the iPhone down. Instead of the normal Hail Mary Shot that photojournalists use in a crowd to get the camera higher. I’m finding that I do the same thing shooting down. I simply guess at the framing and swing with the action.

There's a whole new world down below

For most people, I suspect the hardest part about doing iPhonetography is using the moderate wide-angle lens. The view is similar to what you would get on a full frame 35mm camera using a 35mm lens. Our minds are very good at zooming into a scene to examine the front wheel pattern above, but we’re less well trained to see the wider view while being aware of all the action that’s shown below.

Learning to see all the elements in the wide view is an acquired skill

I’m constantly working at striking the balance between simplifying and getting something interesting in the frame. When I first arrived at the beach I noticed a large sailboat on the horizon. But it was too small in the frame by itself, so I chased it down the beach while searching for something to place in the foreground. First there was a volleyball game, then a life-guard stand and finally I spotted a surfer balancing a board on his head to change his shirt.

A balance between a simple background and a foreground surfer to fill the frame

Years of experience and learning to see like the iPhone camera is the real secret app in iPhonetography.

None of these photos required any special app filters or effects. I did use my normal workflow of opening the photos in Photoshop CS4 Camera Raw (even jpgs from the iPhone can be processed this way) and making some simple exposure adjustments and clean-up.

I took these shots in preparation of teaching an iPhonetograpy class at the Julia Dean Photo Workshops. The class is scheduled for December 6th. I hope to see you there.

Mark Harmel

harmelphoto.com

@MarkHarmel

I’ve been pondering when to use my iPhone to take a snapshot and when to use my real camera. This photo taken on my flight back from Washington D.C. yesterday is an example of of good time to use the iPhone.

757 with plane reflected in engine housing

As we were flying into the sunset our plane was illuminated but the back side of the engine housing was not. That lighting condition made  the engine a perfect mirror to reflect the plane. I could see this because I had the window seat, which also meant that there were two people between me and my camera bag in the overhead storage compartment. All that sunlight also was highlighting the dirt on the window which meant it would never be a great picture, but it was at least an idea worth filing away.

The iPhone camera was a perfect compromise. No one had to move and I’m now able to share a memory.

Mark Harmel
harmelphoto.com

Benjamin Franklin taught us that: “In this world nothing is certain than death and taxes.” In the photography world the other certainty is the need to do marketing. With that in mind I just returned from my annual “Marketing and Taxes” visit to San Francisco. (My tax attorney is in SF.)

Checkerboard building in Oakland

In my rush to gather up all of my tax info and marketing materials I left my camera back at home. This made me a bad student of Jay Maisel who advises photographers to always carry a camera(there is a great video of him talking by following the link with his name) – until I realized that I had my little used iPhone camera with me.

Emerging from the BART station on Market Street

I have been a fan of plastic Diana cameras in the past and know that its better to have a good eye behind a simple camera than a have an untrained eye behind a professional camera, and I enjoyed the freedom of simply playing and recording some the new sights I was experiencing.

Water delivery truck

There best part about the camera on the iPhone is that it is always with me and it will make a photo in just about any quantity of light.

After an appointment in Foster City

Shooting through a dust barrier at a construction site

And unlike the Diana where the viewfinder was more of a guess, the iPhones displays a video preview. It is still hard to be precise with the framing since the shutter release button in on the front of the camera and not the top of the frame.

Stoplight shadow

It has an amazing ability to shoot in very low levels of light. The photos have digital noise in them, but I find it amazing that it is possible to hand hold the camera and still record anything.

Couple walking past the Old Federal Reserve building

And it still has good color.

The red cover of the pool table is still vibrant

After doing my iPhone exercise I read that there is a new camera/phone called a Pixon that is more of a camera with a phone added than the iPhone. Samsung sent a photographer around the world to take picture with this devise. Hey – my passport is current. I’m ready to take my close-ups.

Mark Harmel
harmelphoto.com

I was part of the hoard that was lined up at my local Apple Store to get me hands on the new iPhone 3G. One of my discoveries is how handy the phone is as a marketing device. It now has become my mobile portfolio that is available to pull out to communicate concepts with clients and to show work at parties. Initially I just loaded all of my main collection of finished images onto my phone in one big folder and used that to scroll through to find a specific photo. I have now added multiple folders that will allow me to show more coherent collections.



I have taken the categories from my website as well as other custom galleries that I have created for other purposes. At a recent party I was introduced to a couple. The woman was an art consultant and the man was in the wind energy business. I had to scroll though my entire collection to first find some fine art images and then the wind turbines. 


 

I’m now prepared to show a sub-group that fits with the interest of my audience.If you want to do the same I found that the iPhone prefers to talk with the iPhoto program. I place my thumbnail jpegs into different folders inside iPhoto and in the iTunes software that sync’s my iPhone I select the folders that are desired to add to my walking portfolio.