Photo Discovery

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.  

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A friend playing pool

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Macro shot of yet unbloomed flower

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Just a lonely park bench

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A delicious cup of coffee

Time Lapse: Paris In Motion

Paris in Motion (Part 1), a timelapse, hyperlapse and stopmotion serie about city of Paris, France Paris in Motion is a serie of stop-motion time-lapse (hyperlapse) videos about the city of Paris (France). Filmed frame by frame with manual camera movements, composed of more than 50.000 photographs it allows you to visit some of the most beautiful monuments and human activities of the French capital in a few minutes. Please check all parts here: http://www.akpovi.com/portfolio-posts/paris-in-motion/ SHOT LIST (5 videos) : – Les Invalides – Le Pont Alexandre-III – Eglise Saint-Eustache – Place de la Bastille – Funiculaire de Montmartre – Montmartre – Pont de Bir Hakeim – Trocadéro (Palais de Chaillot, Tour Eiffel) – La Défense (Esplanade de la Défense) – Le Louvre (Pyramide du musée du Louvre, L’Arc de Triomphe du Carousel) – Tour Montparnasse (Paris vu aérienne, Tour Eiffel, etc.) – Pont des Arts (Vue sur la Seine au couché du soleil) – Champs de Mars (Feux d’artifices de la Tour Eiffel) – Les champs Elysées – L’Arc de Triomphe (Place de l’Etoile) – Pont de Neuilly (La Défense, Grand Arche de la Défense) – Gare de Lyon – Bir Hakeim – Le Petit Palais – Porte Maillot – Palais des Congrès de Paris – La Défense – Métro Hôtel de Ville – Pont des Arts (Institut de France) – Quartier Bercy – Place de l’Opéra – Place Saint Michel – Trocadéro – Avenue de New York (Tour Eiffel by night) – Hôtel de ville – Place de la Concorde (Fontaines et l’Obélisque) – Porte de Saint Cloud – Gare Saint Lazare – Versailles – Berges de la Seine – La Géode (Parc de la Villette) – Place Saint-Sulpice (la fontaine et l’église Saint-Sulpice) – Place de la Nation – Jardins de Luxembourg – Centre national d’art et de culture Georges-Pompidou – Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris – Pont du Garigliano – Place des Innocents (Fontaine des Innocents) – Le Grand Palais – La Rotonde de Jaurès – Les statues du Musée du Quai d’Orsay – Place de la République – Le Panthéon – Chateau de Versailles – Île aux Cygnes (Statue de la liberté) – Métro Gare de l’Est – Galéries Lafayette – Galéries et passages de Paris (Galérie Vivienne, Passage Choiseul, Passage des Princes, Passage des Panoramas, etc…) – Rue Montorgueil – Le Palais Royal – Les Docks – Cité de la Mode et du Design – Roland Garos – … Shot & Edited by: Yenoukoume Akpovi --- © akpovi.com 2012. All rights reserved. We are a creative little agency. Here is a selection of our Latest Works. Please don't repost or use our artwork without any permission. Thank you. Licensing, project quotes or questions please contact us at: www.akpovi.com

If you like me love time lapse photography then you are going to enjoy the video below. It's of Paris, but done in a way I don't see often. It jumps from location to location as well as day time to night time. The artist also uses movement. At times forward movement through a location. At times horizontal movement across a venue. Finally at times, he lets the lens sit still while action happens all around. To me it's masterful work of a genre of photography that few truly master.

Check out his Facebook Page: Mayeul Akpovi

Gary Fong Whale Tail

If you see me taking pictures, you might notice a big white thingy (highly technical term) on top of my camera. You might think it is some jimmy rigged contraption to keep my flash from falling off. In fact it is designed to help improve flash photography by diffusing and shaping the light of a high powered flash, like my Canon 430EX.

I received it a few weeks as a birthday gift from Tracy and I love it! Now, that being said i am still figuring out how this "thingy" works and how to get the very best results. I'm getting better and have learned a few things so far, like setting the camera on 100% manual and slowing the shutter speed down to 1/30", which is incredibly slow and works incredibly well.

You can see a sample photo I took a few blog posts below, a photo of my dad. It's not perfect, but better than i could get without the Whale Tail. Gary Fong, inventor of the Whale Tail, has created a very cool accessory for any high powered flash. Being universal, it will work across the Canon, Nikon and other camera company's flashes. Considering the cost of a flash, the price of the Whale Tail is pretty reasonable. That's not to say cheap, but it is also something that a photography can use for years.