So this little project is inspired by my friend Esben (who really needs to update his blog more, and stop apologizing when he doesn’t). Esben texted me from Australia, his new home, asking how you take those “miniature pictures”, after telling him that it normally requires a lens that carries a price tag of €1300 and a DSLR camera, I might have put him a bit off. But being the digital kid he is, he quickly asked how to Photoshop the effect and he subsquently stumpled upon an iPhone app that could do the same thing, by quiet easily applying a gradient focus on the image (sorry for the camera speak), the program called TiltShift Generator (iTunes link) by Takayuki Fukatsu is really nicely made and extreamly easy to use.

This made me realize that I am very focused on perfection when taking my pictures, I aim at getting just the look I am picturing with minimal Photoshoping and maximum camera adjustment. This is very different from how I shot pictures when I got in to photography, I was 15 and spent everything I had on an SLR camera, and then spent all my savings developing pictures. Then a couple of years ago (jan 2006) I was asked if I wanted to take pictures for a 4 day conference at uni. I said yes and thought now might be the time to go digital (actually had to, the pictures needed to processed and published within 12 hours). I got my first digital camera and had alot of mixed feelings about it. But that’s for another post. But it ironically also increased my quest for “perfect” pictures, even now that I could take a thousand pictures and not worry about costs.

Has this made me a better photographer? Maybe… maybe not: experiance wise yes I have done alot more learning by doing and I have done more event photography. But the pictures lost some edge. This lead me to this little project: I went on a shopping spree on the iPhone app store and purchased some picture editing programs. My goal is to take a picture a day the rest of September with my iPhone, only do the post processing I can do on the phone and publish straight from the wordpress tool for iPhone. After all it’s not the equipment that makes the photographer, it’s the creative edge lurking between the ears.

To start this “September of iPhone Photography” of I have taken a picture of Strøget (main shopping street in Copenhagen) from a favorite coffee spot, and added the “miniturization effect” in honor of Esben who inspired me to do this. The goal is edgy pictures that I wouldn’t take with my DSLR camera.

Enjoy!