iPhoneography | The Art of Backlighting Photography

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | iPhoneography | Backlighting Photography

These two photographs were taken with iPhone 4 camera with Cross Process Apps and the I did not do the editing in the Photoshop but the apps already done that for me right inside the iPhone and the good things is, I can have two version, the edited one like the photographs above and the original unedited one and another good things is that I can share the picture immediately with my friends and family all over the world with the touch of  button at the iPhone even before I stepped into my house.

When I came back home from work in the late afternoon, I saw this beautiful late afternoon light and I think it will look great for backlighting purpose and when I saw my son busy playing and running around my house, I decided to photograph him with the iPhone 4, since it was already in my pocket and ever ready for an action. The iPhone is small enough and it does not warrant any passers by attention since I take this shot on the street just outside my house.

Focusing is a little bit tricky and challenging at the same time, you really have to pin point where to focus on your subject and if wrongly focused your picture will either turn out too be to dark or too bright and add up to the challenging factor here is that my son is super active, running and jumping all over the place but since the iPhone is small and light enough to carry around, I don’t have much problem following him around and if I think my son is too fast for the iPhone, I just switch to video mode to record his movement and later on show it to my son hoping that he will be more cooperative with me, talking about the art of persuasion.

The thing that we need to know is that the iPhone is just a tools just like any camera, some camera are more superior than the others, while the iPhone may be lacking in so many things compared to the DSLR but with the right photography knowledge we can make full use of it’s capability. I don’t have spot meter in the iPhone to take a reading where it matters but I can choose carefully where to focus in the frame to get the exposure that I wanted, in this case practice makes perfect, and talking about photographing kids you must also be very fast because they never stood still.

Backlighting photography can be done even with the iPhone and you can get great result with it if you know how to control the exposure. Some people hate backlighting especially to those who always take their picture in Program or Auto Mode, you need to manually control the exposure to get the best result or otherwise most of the times, you will get a dark picture or your main subject will become a silhouette. In DSLR I use Spot Metering function to get the exposure while in iPhone I have to carefully selected which part that I need to focus  so that I will get a decent exposure for my subject.

In iPhone 4, you can tap in any area within the frame that yo want to be in focus and at the same time the iPhone will take the reading from that area, when you change the focusing, you also change the exposure, so choose the area that you need to focus carefully and you will get a better exposure especially in this tricky backlighting situation. I like the challenge because if it were too easy, it won’t be fun.

iPhoneography for me is all about fun, it’s all about enjoying the moment, it’s about breaking free from serious photography, do not strive for perfection, just get the picture, get the moment and off-course if you want to be serious there will always a DSLR waiting for you. Nowadays there are many books written about iPhoneography but for me if you have a solid grasp of Photography knowledge, basic understanding about exposure, composition and lighting, then taking a picture with iPhone should be easy and still can produce a great result even though the quality of the digital files is not the same as a DSLR but if you manage to capture a great moment, then nothing else matters. What is the point of having an expensive DSLR but we miss all the great moment in our lives but then again the facts  is, we cannot or we will not carry our DSLR all the time from dawn to dusk but the mobile phone, for most of the times always with us within reach.

Related Post : The Art of Backlighting