It may come as a surprise to find out that these four images, which I have chosen to display at our camera club’s Biennial Exhibition this year, were captured and processed on my iPhone.  I have very much enjoyed experimenting with the feature on the iPhone’s camera called Live Photos and I thought some of you might like to know how I do it.  

For some time with my ‘proper’ camera, a full frame mirrorless camera, I have experimented with longer exposures and a technique called ICM, intentional camera movement.  More often, I am trying to capture the colourway of a scene to create mood and emotion in my images.  I regularly aim to create an impression of a moment in time, rather than a photorealistic image …intentionally!  I am an admirer of many atmospheric and impressionistic landscape photographs taken successfully using this technique so I wanted to see what I could achieve.  Doug Chinnery, Rachael Talibart and Chris Friel are a few photographers whose photographic work I follow and get inspiration from. All have experimented in very different ways using this technique.  And I wanted to produce my own effect for my work.

When I found out that my version of phone could capture what is essentially enough information to produce a long exposure, I was very excited to try it.   Here was my chance and the tool of choice was close to hand, most of the time, wherever I was.  Nothing more true than the best camera is the one you have with you.

Method:  The iPhone camera (for 6, 6S and models since) in Live Photos mode captures a second and a half of video, albeit 15fps, before and after pressing the shutter button.   (For those with a Lumia phone, I understand it is similar to Living Images mode.)  When reviewing the image in the Photos app, it is possible to swipe up to reveal Effects options.   The choices here are Live, Loop, Bounce or Long Exposure.  The effect from choosing Long Exposure results in the app merging all the captured frames together.  Hey presto, as simple as that, a long exposure image is produced.  Then I process, very simply, the resulting blurry image using the phone’s photo editor; reducing the highlights, upping the contrast and colour saturation.  I enhance whatever I deem to fit the feel I’m trying to communicate of the scene I’ve experienced.  The important bit when taking the image is to remember to move the camera to create image data for the ICM.  I consider the light or pattern direction in the scene before I decide which way to move the phone when pressing the button.  I’m sure the developers of the function did not have this in mind, I guess it was more designed for capturing smooth moving water and obscuring moving elements in scenes.  But hey, why not play with it!  

So here are some before and after shots.

Blue Beach.  The light catching on the ridges of the sand caught my eye and I wanted to experiment using this ICM technique. I was fascinated to see how exaggerated the figures on the horizon turned out and felt these additional lines balanced the image perfectly. You can see that I enhanced and exaggerated the blue of the sky and the warmth in the sand as that was my impression standing on the beach.

Phone screenshots; as captured, at the Effects choice point, before enhancing with Photos Edit then the final result.

Loch Light.  I wanted to highlight the hope in the light in the clouds as the sun struggled to break the gloominess of the grey day.  

Phone screenshots; as captured, in Effects, final result after Photos Edit.

Shoreline Shimmer.  On the shoreline, the light was quite flat however there were small highlights on the breaking waves that I wanted to capture using this technique.  The criss-cross of the wave’s movement here is my favourite part of this image, I relish that texture!

Phone screenshots; as captured and after editing.

Last but not least, Tunnel.  Until taking this image, I hadn’t tried using the ICM technique on any man-made environments.  Moving slowly off the Eurostar train in our vehicle, I noticed how the lights were all leading to the light, like it does when go through a tunnel.  Super moment for the ICM technique I thought.  Great luck too to have there as a focal point in the light at the end of the tunnela couple of French Hi-Vis jacketed officials!  

I have created a series using this technique on my phone camera.  More can be viewed here in a book I made on them.

Go on, if you’ve got one of these cameras, why not give it a go, just for fun to see what you may get!