This week in my photo 365 project taught me that even when you really try to think a shot through, sometimes, it just doesn’t go according to plan and there are things you can’t control, like your cats being all up in your face. However, I also learned that sometimes things do go your way and you walk away with a shot that looks exactly like what you had in your head.
This week was pretty fun for my project. I feel like I learned a bit about myself and was surprised a lot. I ended up with multiple picks this week that I didn’t expect to turn out to be my best photo from the day. I tried some new stuff and it worked out and I ended up with a couple photos unlike any others I’ve ever taken. Though, that’s not to say that every day was easy. I struggled to produce a photo at all for day 25 and I feel like day 27′s photo could have been composed and shot better.
For the third January in a row, my wife and I paid a visit to Mickey and friends down at Walt Disney World. This year, we went down specifically to run the Goofy Challenge, but I already wrote about that. While our trip was shorter than in past years, I still managed to take a lot of photos. With this being our third trip, I already had a ton of photos of the parks so I knew I could skip a lot and just focus on things I either haven’t photographed or that I knew I could photograph differently.
Week three had some ups and downs for me. On some days, I had a few great photos to choose from, but there were a couple days where I struggled to find a good photo. This week, I also put my phone to good use, four of the seven photos were taken with it.
The first part of week two was spent in Disney World. I thought that would make getting tons of great photos easy, but we took a short trip and felt very rushed to do everything we wanted to do. Sadly, that didn’t leave a lot of time to set up and compose many photos. I came home with a lot of snapshots, but not a lot of actual photos. I also found myself scrambling at night to dump my photos to our iPad so I could go through them and pick a photo. I have a few photo editing apps that are decent, even for RAW files, but sometimes it’s still a little hard to get the photo just right on there. Still, despite all that, when I did have a minute or two to stop and take photos, I found myself trying to do different things than I would normally.
The last photo is of my sister-in-law who hates when I take photos of her. Naturally, this means I try to take as many as possible. This one was at a big family dinner at my wife’s parents’ house. They were sitting on stools next to each other and she put her head on my wife’s shoulder for moment. I happened to have my camera in my hand already and snapped the shot real quickly.
Week one of my photo 365 project is done already! So far, it’s been pretty fun. I can easily say that I’ve taken a lot more photos now because of it. I spend more time consciously thinking about it and looking for things to photograph. One of my goals from this project is that this process will become a bit more subconscious. I’d like to be able to just naturally take notice of things more. It’s too early for that to start to happen yet, but consciously thinking about this instead of not thinking about it at all is definitely a good start.
Already, I can see that some days will be easy and others are going to be a struggle. At least with the struggle days, I’m motivated to get my camera out and try new things. The photos of the rubber duckies and the magazines would have never happened without this project. Some days, I find that I try a bunch of things to get something cool and when I look at the photos on the computer, I have a bunch of photos I really like, in addition to the one photo I pick for the day.
The second half of this first week included a trip to Disney World so that helped make things a bit easier, but because we were making it a short trip, I didn’t have the luxury of spending a lot of time thinking about photos and setting them up. Most of them had to be snapped quickly while running from ride to ride.
Anyone who stops by here regularly has clearly seen that, over the course of this year, my updates have slowed to a complete crawl. Some of that can be blamed on planning a wedding, some can be blamed on being much more focused on running. Truthfully, it’s mostly been a lack of motivation to take the time to find things to post about when posts weren’t finding me on their own. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been just this site that has suffered for those reasons. My time with my camera has diminished just as much and for the same reasons.
For most of us, it’s normal to shift focus to different interests and sometimes some interests take a backseat to others. For the majority of this year, running and wedding-related things have been the main focus, but with the wedding a few months past now, I want to get back to my camera.
In the past, I’ve taken photos when I’ve had things to take photos of. I want to change that and start taking photos because I want to take photos (which I do want to do). There are millions of things around to make photos out of and thinking that there is nothing shouldn’t be an excuse to not take photos.
I should have subjects because I want to take photos, I shouldn’t take photos because I have subjects.
So I’ve decided that to force myself to start looking for things to take photos of instead of waiting for them to come to me, I’m going to do a photo 365 project for 2012. I’m going to produce at least one presentable photo everyday. I’ve already got a few ideas for weekly themes, but I’m not going to limit myself or force myself to always have a theme. The photos can be of anything that strikes my interest.
This project is going to be mainly about two things. The first is developing my skills so that I can produce photos worth sharing on any given day and without having to take dozens or even hundreds of shots to get that photo. I want to teach myself to take the time to set up shots and think about what I’m trying to capture instead of just firing away. I’m looking to spend less time taking snapshots and more time making photos. The second thing I’m going for is learning to see the world around me from the eyes of a photographer. I want to get better at looking around and seeing the beautiful things that are worth photographing. I want to take notice more.
In reality, I’ll probably end up with a lot of photos of my cats and various things around my home or my desk at work. A large portion of the photos will probably be from my iPhone instead of my DSLR as well, but considering how great the iPhone 4S camera is, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
My plan, at least as I see it now, is to post my photos daily on Twitter, Flickr, Google+, and maybe Facebook or Tumblr. At least as much as I can. Then, I’ll do a weekly post here with my photos from previous week. I may also join 500px and post to Instagram as well to round it all out. We’ll see. I’m hoping that I can make pretty good use of If This Then That so I can just upload once and have the photo automatically posted everyone. Additionally, I’m planning to finally build out the photography site that I wanted to do a year ago, but that won’t be right away. I’ve been paying for the domain for over a year now, but I never got around to actually building the thing. Part of the problem was a lack of having content to start out with, but I think I’ve got enough photos of bands and such to get started.
Anyway, look for that coming on 2012. I’m hoping I actually stick with it.
I went to see Night Birds last night in Philly. It was a good time. I took some photos.
Just like I said I probably would, I went ahead and bought an iPhone 4S on day one. However, it did cost me quite a bit more than the $100 that I figured it would cost since I decided to go all out and get the 64GB model. That much storage can’t even come laughably close to storing all of my music, but it can store enough that I can ditch the iPod and stream the what doesn’t fit via AudioGalaxy. The music I listen to regularly will fit and everything else will stay easily accessible. It’ll be good enough and to be able to go from three gadgets to one was a pretty good proposition for me.
I’m not going to go into a full review of the iPhone 4S since I did a full iPhone 4 review last year and this is mostly a spec bump, but after a few days with the device, I thought I’d post my thoughts.
The phone still looks the same (though I went with white this time around), but that doesn’t change the fact that there is still nothing else on the market that can touch it as far as design and build quality goes. That’s actually kind of crazy when you think about it considering that this design has been in the wild for 16 months. That being said, the phone still has two slabs of glass making up most of the surface so it remains as breakable as ever.
While there was a lot of disappointment in the iPhone 4S’s announcement, after using this thing for a few days, it seems that much of that disappointment is missing the point. The iPhone 4S is mostly just a spec bump, but its bump is just enough to finally put it over the top. Where the iPhone 4 was very good, the iPhone 4S is great.
The iPhone 4S finally reaches a point where the device and the software melt away and you’re just left with content and things you want to do. Nothing stands in your way now.
Most of the time, the added speed of the A5 processor isn’t a night and day difference, but sometimes it is. Apps open significantly faster and while the iPhone 4 was snappy and definitely no slouch, the iPhone 4S makes moving around in apps a much improved experience. There is no lag, even in places where I could always count on my iPhone 4 to hang up for a second or so. Everything is much smoother and snappier in a tangible way.
The data speeds are supposed to be faster on the iPhone 4S (for AT&T at least), but in a few rounds of Speed Test, there was no change. However, in practice, data seems to come down insanely faster. Much of it is probably due to the A5 processing things faster, but websites load tons faster (and Javascript executes much quicker). Twitter pulls the latest tweets down almost instantly. Facebook too. Every app, really. The content you’re trying to get to is put up on the screen almost as fast as you ask for it. Considering that LTE is not on board, this is impressive. Impressive enough that not having LTE (which any sane person shouldn’t have expected from Apple this year anyway) doesn’t feel like a problem right now.
All of this added speed means iOS now keeps up with you. You’re no longer waiting for it, it’s waiting for you. Simply put, where iPhone 4 was close, but the iPhone 4S is there.
The iPhone 4 camera was still the best camera you could get on a phone up until just recently. Hell, some probably still consider it to be the best. But it was just barely not enough to justify ditching a point-and-shoot altogether. More than half the time, yes, it was enough, but I always kept my point-and-shoot near the door. The iPhone 4S changes that. It is sharper, has better dynamic range, better color, more pixels, and significantly better low-light performance. My DSLR won’t see any decrease in usage, but my point-and-shoot is going in the desk drawer upstairs and may never come out again. The photos and videos that iPhone 4S can take are stunning. Unless you need a superzoom, you won’t need a point-and-shoot while you have an iPhone 4S in your pocket.
I’ve posted some very quick sample shots at the bottom of the post. These were taken quickly without any attention paid to composition, but they should give you an idea of what the camera is capable of. None of them have been processed in any way except to reduce their size.
Siri has been the most talked about feature of the iPhone 4S since it was announced and for good reason. Before using it or seeing a demo, it’s easy to dismiss it as another voice control feature that you’ll never use. I almost did myself. But when you actually use this, you realize it’s so much more. This is the start of the future. This is the point where we’ll look back and pinpoint as the beginning of being able to truly have conversations with your technology and have it do things for you.
If you’ve been on the internet at all since Friday, you’ve probably already seen much of the fun people have been having with Siri. I’ve had a lot of fun testing her out and seeing how she’ll respond to things. She’s fun, but I’m not going to add another post on the internet about how if you keep bugging her about the meaning of life, she’ll say “42, are you happy now?” She’s full of countless snark and provides a lot of fun. She has an attitude and that’s important. She responds almost like a person would and that makes it feel real. It makes it feel like she’s a real person and that she can truly understand you. It’s unlike anything else you’ve ever used because it’s unlike anything else that has ever existed. This is the real thing.
That attitude is coupled with the fact that she can hold a conversation. She is smart enough to understand what you say even if you say it differently. She gets context. I can say “remind me to email John Smith about the concert this weekend when I get home” and she will create a reminder that will go off as soon as I get to my house. The reminder will say “Email John Smith about the concert this weekend” because she understands that that was what I wanted the reminder to say. I can say “tell my wife that I’ll be late” and she’ll text my wife telling her that I’m going to be late. “Take me to the mall” gets me the same thing as if I say “I need directions to the mall.” She just gets it.
You can tell her to do things the way you would tell a real person. And that’s why she works. That’s why Siri will actually get used. Because she can understand you so well, she can actually do things faster than you can on your own. It’s not a gimmick. You probably won’t use her too much in public, but thanks to the ability to have her automatically kick on when you put your phone up to your ear, you might actually use her while walking down the street or in the store. It’ll look just like you’re having a conversation with someone on the phone.
I’ve noticed that because she has to send everything to Apple’s servers, sometimes she takes a few seconds to respond, but it’s generally not bad. Everything going to Apple’s servers is a good thing though. Apple says she’ll learn from you and from the user base as a whole. With Apple knowing how people are using it, they can adapt it even more to the real world. This is the beginning, but she will get so much better. It won’t be long before you can say “how are the Eagles doing” and she’ll give you the score of the game.
Is Siri enough to justify buying an iPhone 4S if you already have an iPhone 4? I don’t know, that’s tough, maybe not. But if you’re on the fence already, she should push you over.
That about covers the big changes from that the iPhone 4S brings to the table. There are smaller ones like a better antenna design which seems to work as advertised, but I never had much of a problem with my iPhone 4 in most places. There’s also a new vibration motor which sounds like a silly thing to mention, but you can feel (and hear) the difference. This one is smoother and actually feels a little more luxurious. It’s an added thing that helps to make the device feel high-end.
The iPhone 4S isn’t perfect for what it is though. The battery life is noticeably worse than my iPhone 4. It’s not terrible, I can still get close to two days from a charge, but it is less. However, the battery life feels similar to what I was getting from my iPhone 4 after upgrading to iOS 5, so that may be part of it. I have the notifications set to display my email on the lockscreen so every email I receive turns on the display for a few seconds. That probably accounts for a large chunk of it. It also seems like the battery depletes faster when using Siri. Either way, the battery life is still good enough that it won’t be a problem. That’s the major complaint though, I still have some issues with iOS and I’m hoping that iOS 6 will fix much of them, but we’ll see. For now, the iPhone 4S doesn’t fix them, but Siri does actually make a few of them easier to live with. Any other hardware complaints would simply be highlighting choices that Apple made (e.g. not doing a larger screen), not design flaws.
As you’ll hear everywhere else, if you have an iPhone 3G or 3GS, upgrade now. Just do it. If you have an iPhone 4, it’s tough, but this device is good enough to reduce three gadgets you may already use down to one and the speed will save you a lot of time throughout the day. If those things mean something to you, upgrade. If not, hold out another year. If you aren’t currently an iPhone user and are thinking about becoming one, this is the phone to get. And if you don’t have a smartphone at all yet and are looking to get one, I’d recommend this over anything else. I’m not going to say iOS is better than Android, I think they are both great in their own ways, but if you don’t already have a smartphone at this point, you’re likely to fall into the camp of people who will enjoy iOS’s way of doing things more.
For me personally, I’m finding the iPhone 4S to be a worthy upgrade. I’m happy with my decision so far.
It took me a long time, but I finally got these photos done and ready to post.
Again, we stayed at Banyan Tree Mayakoba in Riveria Maya, Mexico. I can’t recommend it enough.
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