Guest Speaker – Adrian McGarry

On 18th December our final talk of the year was from Adrian McGarry on “iPhone Photography”.

Adrian explained how he had moved to using only an iPhone as his camera in the early 2010s. He led the audience through the reasoning behind this decision, and discussed the impact it had on his photography, making him much more aware of urban and landscape topics. Whilst acknowledging that using a mobile phone is not best suited to long distance action such as birds in flight, Adrian was keen to demonstrate that range in itself is not an issue for recent iPhone cameras. In particular, he demonstrated that understanding the characteristics of the iPhone lens enables the photographer to make best use of the available quality of the lens to capture long distance shots. The advantage of using your phone as the camera could be as simple as the fact you have it with you when a photo opportunity arises.

Adrian covered aspects of processing images and was a great advocate of using the software tools available. This includes in-phone processing to provide sharper images and even to tidy up images by removing distractions.

He discussed using third party apps to provide features missing from the native camera, and in doing so also discussed the artistic aspect of his photography, such as long exposure, multiple exposures and intentional camera movement.

Whilst concentrating on the iPhone as his choice of phone, Adrian did indicate that much of what he talked about was also applicable to Android phones.

This talk was greatly appreciated by the members. Of particular interest to some members seemed to be the idea that they could make great images without lugging large bodies and telephoto lenses around with them.

More info: Adrian McGarry