Lately I've been messing around with the camera on my iPhone 5S and then tweaking the photos in Camera+ (iPhone app) or Instagram. It's been very enjoyable. I had forgotten how much I enjoy the entire photography process, especially the "darkroom" process.

I actually worked in a darkroom both in highschool and college. In highschool I was one of 4 school photographers. We were the only ones allowed to carry a camera anywhere on campus anytime. I was assigned to the newspaper. Each photographer was responsible for his or her own developing. We rolled our own film and did all the negative work.

In college I took an art photography class and there too we did all of our own darkroom work. What a blast it was. Hours of messing around with developing photos. The only thing we weren't allowed to do was crop photos in the darkroom. It was all about framing the shot in the camera.

Of course today analog darkrooms are nearly instinct and it's all digital. What I can do on my iPhone is just amazing. I can take the photo, crop the photo, edit the photo, process it any number of ways and then share it with the planet in minutes. In 1992 when I took the photography class in college I don't think I could have envisioned doing all that on a phone.

Photography is just relaxing, fun and challenging. I'm no Ansel Adams, but I do enjoy taking photos of just about anything. The fun then is not just in recording that split second moment as one might in "news" or "event" photography, but in illustrating a feeling or finding a new way to present that image. In taking risks in how it looks. Great photography is more than snapping a photo it's art.

Here are a few examples of my recent attempts at iPhone art photography.