Review: Ilkley Camera Club 14 January 2022
‘Smartphone Photography’ with JEANETTE LENDON.
Ilkley Camera Club hosted a talk by Jeanette Lendon on Friday Jan 14. Jet specialises in smartphone photography and is the CEO of Jet Black Squares, a company that helps businesses enhance their marketing using phone photography.
The ‘Shot on iPhone 6’ campaign was a turning point in the history of smartphone photography and demonstrated that it was possible to produce big format print images on a phone. Many seriously high profile advertising campaigns feature images shot on iPhones and so Jeanette spotted a gap in the market for teaching photography skills for phone photographers.
Jeanette said she had noticed that many of her friends were sharing what they were doing on Instagram but that the pictures were pretty awful. “ I thought, these are your precious memories, surely you could take better photos”
“Photography should be available to everybody, not just to people who can afford big equipment”. “Smartphones have brought photography to a younger audience, and now all generations and people in all walks of life can be photographers”. “Smartphone cameras are now very powerful and all we need is to learn how to use them.”
Jeanette took members through some practical tips for improving their phone photography. Her first advice was to take control of the exposure by learning how to use the brightness controls on the phone. For many of her shots she would reduce the exposure to make the bright areas of the picture clearer and sharper.
Then Jeanette discussed the importance of controlling the focus. Using the touch screen and moving the phone with great care she demonstrated how to make sure the main subject was fully sharp.
Phone cameras have lenses near the top edge of the case , “if you turn the phone upside down you can get the lens close to the ground and at the level of small subjects” for example mushrooms in the wood or garden wildlife. In a series of beautiful images Jeanette used this “upside down” technique to get reflections from puddles and reflective surfaces.
For portrait photography many phones offer the opportunity to blur the background of the subjects when in portrait mode. Jeanette showed a series of commissioned portraits with a beautiful and professional feel achieved using the phone’s portrait features.
Another trick Jeanette shared was using the volume control switch on the phone to take the photo. This technique can be easier than touching the screen and the volume control on the headphone cord can also be used.
The next meeting of Ilkley Camera Club on Friday 21 January will be a lecture, ‘Iceland’ with Sophie Carr. Sophie is a travel and landscape photographer based in London.
Ilkley Camera Club is currently meeting via Zoom on Friday evenings at 7.30pm. For more information visit the Club website at ilkleycameraclub.online or their Facebook page, facebook.com/ilkleycameraclub