Wednesday’s Hump

‘Don’t you like landscapes?’ someone once asked during a Tadaa challenge in 2012. Tadaa was an Instagram kind of app very popular with iPhone users in the time before Instagram took off.

Of course I like landscapes. The question came at a time when I was learning how to capitalise on the tiny lens in a phone. I spent several years on an iPhoneography mission while learning how to spot ‘the decisive moment’. Things have changed but here are five iPhone photos from 2009 that were ‘published’ on Tadaa in 2012.

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The first four were taken on one day when I was learning how to use the iPhone 3GS while walking around Paris a month after I got my first Apple phone. It was a gift from a daughter who had won a UK mobile phone as a prize in a promotional competition and couldn’t jailbreak it for use on Irish tariff systems at the time. I was delighted to have the opportunity to accept it for several reasons not the least of which was that two Windows Mobile phones in succession were utterly horrible. The iPhone changed us and dragged us towards Apple. I morphed from enthusiastic hobbyist building my own PCs in a Windows and Linux world to an Apple user with stable interconnectedness and stability. We ended up with an Apple MacMini server within 18 months and we closed a Window with every subsequent purchase.

Back walking in Paris, I took these four photos while Lia was busy in a residency in Centre Culturel Irlandais.

The red spot on the tree caught my eye and the wide depth of field of the shorter focal length meant I could get far and near in focus. I used Tadaa to straighten and crop the photo. I couldn’t resist improving the contrast in the bark and at the same time, applying a mild warming filter to the background. The red sun like spot is presented in a composition I might have painted.

‘Paris Smile’ was taken in the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris. It was one of several sculptures on public show. The is work by Ugo Rondinone. I thought the ‘art’ was decidedly ugly yet this picture has been the background on my iPhone ever since. I did nothing to enhance it other than crop in to discard edge distractions and retain the 3:2 ratio for the phone screen.

The third is of a De Gaulle statue that was perfectly back lit. I used the Tadaa crop and selected adjustment to apply the daily challenge Charleston filter to all but the statue (to keep it black). I posted in response the ‘fluffy’ challenge, the clouds seeming to qualify.

Beautiful clouds hanging heavily over the sunlit gold of Les Invalides. I used Tadaa to crop and lighten the image.

The fifth is a Sandycove landscape or a seascape depending on your preference. ‘Sea Walking’ was one of those moments you feel the need to capture. It may not be a dramatic photo but I love the look I achieved in Snapseed using the crop, straighten and monochrome tools. I did minor local contrast adjustment and some small amount of sharpening to try to keep the crop/zoom from being too noisy.

I do like landscapes as a regular reader would know from Mourne Sunset and other posts.