Talking with Colin Wynter Seton: Smartphone photography and editing

Colin and I used to coach people on WeAreObservers PhotoWalks in Sydney. Colin has a lot of experience as (primarily) an amateur photographer and is also a trainer for Adobe.

In this podcast, he talks about how he gets unique results using a smartphone and the role that editing plays in digital photography.

If you want to see Colin's work, the Instagram sites mentioned are:
@Very_Well_Adjusted: Photographs taken on smartphones and other devices such as ipads.
@Framed_Mono: Colin's black and white collection.

He also spoke about the "Nightcap Camera" App. and you can find more details by clicking the link.

It's time for another podcast...

Transcript

>> Speaker A: 0:18

Okay, so welcome to this, latest podcast, of course. And, I'm here with Colin Winter Seaton, who I've known since 20, 2017. I think you got that wrong. And Colin and I eventually started doing photo walks together in Sydney as part of we're observers. And, one of the things about Colin and one of the reasons that I've asked him to be on this is that Colin is probably better at, using smartphone and getting outstanding results than anybody else I know. So one of the things we're going to talk about is smartphone photography. And Colin is also going to talk about editing and, some of the aspects around that. So I'm going to shut up and hand over to Colin. And, Colin, just going to start by giving a little bit of background so that everyone knows who you are and where you're coming from, and then we'll get into the main topic of the podcast. So over to you.

>> Speaker B: 1:16

Okay, thank you, Graham. so as Graham explained, we've met a, long time ago, pre pandemic, back when, photo walks had very quite large groups. I, think we got to about 15 people in some of our photo walks, which was really good. Now, as far as my background in photography, I've been actively taking photographs since I was about 15 years old, which puts me in the scary bracket of about 45 years of photography. But very, importantly, a lot of that is amateur photography. I've actually done some professional work, but it's mostly I do it because I love taking photographs. and the fact that I'm now mostly using my phone as my main camera is primarily because it's such a good camera to have with me all the time. And the software and the hardware combination really can produce amazingly professional, I think, professional results, without having to worry about large lenses, camera, bags, massive tripods, all the gear that I know that professionals continue to use. But at the same time, if you're really just wanting to go out and take photographs, you can do that just as easily with your camera in your phone. But, I'm not exactly sure what I want to be saying.

>> Speaker A: 2:42

No, no, that's all. Well, it's another aspect of photography, and I know there are certain professionals have pretty much dumped the traditional gear, DSLR and all of that stuff and are now using, camera phones, basically because they are so good. And if you're doing things like, urban photography, street photography, you're far more discreet and you can get much more natural shots because everyone's walking around looking at their phones. So whether they're talking to somebody on FaceTime or taking a photograph, nobody knows and you don't stand out whereas you do with a dslr. So there are definitely to smartphones depending upon the kind of photography you're doing.

>> Speaker B: 3:21

Yes, I have a client who has, was given a very large Leica ah, camera. and basically he found that he couldn't take it out to take photographs of people because it was such a big camera that he looked like a professional photographer and they'd basically either decline the offer to have their photo taken or run away.

>> Speaker C: 3:43

Yeah.

>> Speaker B: 3:43

Whereas if you go out as you say with a phone, everyone else is using phones and so yeah, it's really not obtrusive. and now with the longer lenses on the phones you can get in pretty close on your subject, again without the sort of extension lenses that you might have previously used. the phone that I'm currently using, my main phone is an iPhone 16 Pro, which has the new five times optical zoom on it. and I find that that is a surprisingly useful camera. I also use it now for a lot of macro photography without the need to use a macro separate macro lens. So it's not just good for the long shots, it's actually also excellent for the close ups. It's amazing what you can do.

>> Speaker A: 4:33

Absolutely. And I think one of the things that Colin brings to certainly the photo walks and showing people what he can do is that the old adage that's most important part of a camera system is the nine inches behind the viewfinder and it's actually having that ability. And this was the whole point of we're observers as well. It was to actually see things and start thinking about what kind of image you can create. And this is one of the things that I think Colleen always brought along to photo walks is that Colleen has a way of seeing pictures that everybody else just walks past. So I don't know if you want to talk about that and also haven't spoken about your Photoshop and how you do that, but maybe save that for talking about editing later.

>> Speaker B: 5:16

Yeah. So as Graham just said, one of the key things that I think a lot of photographers fall into the trap of is, and this is something that someone who attended one of our photo walks actually, triggered in me if you like, is that a lot of people have a tendency to take the photograph that they see rather than the photograph that the camera could see. So by that I mean using odd Angles, taking your camera significantly closer to the subject that you're actually taking the photograph of, or even using your own imagination to get an angle that you can only achieve through the phone's camera. That would be essentially impossible to take if you were using a more traditional camera. So taking photos through fences, taking photos underneath seats, I mean it sounds weird but it can create an amazing photograph if you know what you're doing and if you also know what the limitations of your camera are. And I think that's one of the things that I really have found has been useful and that is that I like to push any sort of technology that I start using and I like to find what the limits are. And the only way that you can do that is push the thing beyond its limits. It's the only way that you can find the limit. A lot of people have a tendency to just stand there and take a photograph. I like to get really close to a subject to find out how close I can get to the subject. it's the only way that I found that I could, could use the 5 times macro zoom to do amazingly good macro. If I'd stepped back and just gone with my normal macro setting, it wouldn't have produced as good a result. that said, the other thing that we have experimented with at the Weir Observers group is clip on lenses as well. they are also incredibly useful and an amazingly cheap way of being able to achieve again effects and photographs that might be traditionally seen as being a bigger camera's job. so now the other thing that I will mention at this point is of course that cameras that Graham has for his wildlife photography aren't those sorts of photographs aren't things that I can easily do with my phone. And that's because there is a physical limitation to the optical quality that I can actually do. And again that's what makes knowing what your gear is capable of really important.

>> Speaker A: 7:55

So in the field, a little workaround. I don't recommend it, but people do hold it. If they've got a pair of binoculars, they will hold the phone up against the eyepiece and you do get an option. But I wouldn't recommend.

>> Speaker B: 8:09

Yeah, yeah, well, I mean they sell, they sell a 100 times optical telescope, for your phone you can buy one. And I did buy one. I wanted to see what it would do and it was just so incredibly hard to use, that I just basically decided not to. I mean I've got bigger cameras so I don't just have phones. And of course I, obviously starting all those years ago, for, a very long time, I was using a more traditional camera. so again, knowing when not to use the phone is equally important. the other thing I will mention, of course, is that all of this has a lot to do with the quality of the final photograph and therefore, if you like the delivery mechanism, in other words, what you're intending to do with the photograph. So in my case, most of my photography ends up on Instagram, right? And as a result I know that I can get away with maybe for instance, not optical SAR photography, but digital photography. I can go beyond the range that the normal optics would let me. And that's fine because I know that I'm not going to get these things printed. I've had photographs of mine printed. I show some of the people that I teach, some posters that I've had printed from my iPhone 13 Pro, which only had a 12 megapixel sensor on it.

>> Speaker C: 9:44

Right.

>> Speaker B: 9:45

and I got those photos blown up to a zero size.

>> Speaker A: 9:49

Okay.

>> Speaker B: 9:50

And it was certainly good enough to be able to put up on a wall. So it is capable, but I couldn't then crop the image and expect to get the same quality. So there is.

>> Speaker A: 10:03

Colin, Sorry, That's a JPEG file, is it that you're recording on the phone?

>> Speaker B: 10:07

No, it's a raw.

>> Speaker A: 10:09

Oh, it is a raw. Okay.

>> Speaker B: 10:10

Because that's the other great thing about where we're now at and that is that for instance on my 16Pro, and the same applies to my 14Pro, which was my previous phone, you can now shoot with a 48 megapixel and you can be shooting RAW.

>> Speaker C: 10:25

Great.

>> Speaker B: 10:26

So I can start with a very good original image and I can get a very, very nice sharp, print off that which you would not be able to tell was taken with a phone. My favorite example of this is that I was asked to enter some photographs into a, exhibition of photography by semi professional photographers. And the guy who was running the exhibition made that basic assumption that I wouldn't be able to print at high res. I wasn't going to be able, ah, to print, anything larger than, I don't know, a 6 by 4 inch print.

>> Speaker C: 11:06

Right.

>> Speaker B: 11:07

That was the assumption that he made because, you know, he's using a big camera, I'm using a phone, how could I possibly expect to produce a similar result? I explained to him that the resolution was there, we got the prints made and he was blown away. He could not believe that the quality on out of the phone was, for all intents and purposes, as good as the camera shots that he was using.

>> Speaker C: 11:31

Yeah.

>> Speaker B: 11:32

So there is a lot of mythology, there is a lot of misinformation, around resolution. I mean, people forget that the original Digital cameras were 6 megapixel.

>> Speaker C: 11:46

Yeah. Yeah.

>> Speaker B: 11:48

And that, therefore the megapixel isn't so important. It's the optics.

>> Speaker C: 11:53

Yeah.

>> Speaker B: 11:53

And it's the sensor, and those are important. And again, I wouldn't be able to take the same sort of photographs that you could take. I. What Graham can take, but I don't need it. I don't need that. I'm not taking a photograph of a subject that is that far away that I have to worry about. Can I crop it? M. In most cases, I can walk straight up to my subject and take a photograph of it.

>> Speaker C: 12:21

Yeah. Yeah.

>> Speaker B: 12:22

Not. Not that easy with a lion.

>> Speaker A: 12:25

No. We're just thinking of a leopard that I photographed a few weeks ago, and that was, actually a long way off. So I had a full optical and I use digital zoom to get into it. But because, again, absolutely. It is a big RAW image and I could get in really close and you wouldn't know that I zoom that I had done the digital zoom.

>> Speaker B: 12:43

and equally, equally useful is that a lot of the time. Again, this is learning what the limitations of what your camera can and cannot do are about. So I take a lot of. And Graham will remember this, possibly my original, area of specialization in photography was architectural. And when you're doing architectural photography, you are mostly dealing with straight lines. They might be diagonal, they might be perfectly vertical and perfectly horizontal. When you're doing that and you're using a digital zoom, everything looks fine at the maximum res, at the maximum zoom. So I can go to my 25 times digital Zoom. And if I'm taking a photo of a building, you can't tell. It looks sharp. It looks. Looks crisp because it's all mechanical lines.

>> Speaker C: 13:36

Yeah.

>> Speaker B: 13:37

The problem comes when you try and do that with a person. The problem comes when you try and do that with a sign that's far away because the camera physically can't see that detail. It's going to get lost. And as long as you know that going forward, you won't fall into that trap. That's where I think some of the software behind the digital cameras, the digital phones as well as the cameras, is a problem, because people aren't understanding the difference between optical and digital, and they're falling into the trap of using digital because they think it Wouldn't be there if it wasn't usable.

>> Speaker C: 14:16

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

>> Speaker A: 14:18

I was actually thinking for people listening who perhaps aren't getting the most from their smartphone, and their smartphone photography. What, what suggestions do you have? What? I know, kind of we didn't talk about this before, I just thought of it. but what sort of suggestions would you, give to people to maybe get a little bit more out of their smartphone than they are at the moment from a, from a photographic standpoint?

>> Speaker B: 14:45

Well, I could be really radical and suggest that they read the manual.

>> Speaker A: 14:49

Well, let's not get unreal here. Yeah, that's definitely those things.

>> Speaker B: 14:57

Every phone on the market has a manual. it's just that unfortunately most of them are now digital. They don't physically exist. So you have to do a bit of research, but it's often worthwhile, especially if you've got an Android phone. And the reason that I emphasize that I own a couple of Android phones, I'm not just an iPhone user. I teach people who use Android as well. So I need to know about those phones as well.

>> Speaker C: 15:23

Yeah.

>> Speaker B: 15:24

The Android phone that I mostly use is a sort of lower end phone. It's a Samsung A12, I think it is. And the reason I'm glad I read the manual is that it features four cameras on the back of the phone. And it's very easy, especially if you've come from the iPhone world, to assume that all of those are high res cameras. And I was fascinated to discover that several of them were incredibly low resolution. And basically what that meant is that when I was taking photos using the macro mode, I was intrigued as to why it was so bad. It turned out that the macro camera was only a 5 megapixel camera.

>> Speaker A: 16:09

okay.

>> Speaker B: 16:10

Even. Even though the main camera was a 48 megapixel sensor.

>> Speaker C: 16:15

Right, right.

>> Speaker B: 16:17

And the reason that they did that is because it's obviously cheaper to produce a low resolution macro lens than it is to produce a high resolution one. One of the things that people don't think about, and it's probably a good thing to remind people in this sort of forum, is that every lens they see on the back of their phone is a separate camera is a separate sensor.

>> Speaker A: 16:42

Okay.

>> Speaker B: 16:43

A lot of the technology, reviewers and a lot of the, specifications talk about lenses and they don't talk about cameras and they certainly don't talk about the fact that they're dealing with multiple sensors. So the sensor for my wide angle is separate to the sensor for my zoom, which is separate to the Sensor for my main camera. And that's important because that is why you're going to get different resolutions happening. Absolutely. As far as general advice around phone photography, I think one of the things again is to read the manual to find out exactly what your device is capable of. Failing that, do what I suggested earlier and just go out and take lots of photographs and try things. See what the maximum optical zoom is. See what happens if you go beyond that and use your digital zoom. Also experiment and explore how you can control things as simple as the exposure. M and also explore apps that might be available because sometimes the apps that come out third party apps, apps not written by the person who built your phone, can sometimes extend the possibilities of what you do. A really good example is that prior to me using the phone as my camera, one of the coolest things that I did with my, cameras was long exposures. So whenever I bought a new camera, I hate to admit this, but I own seven cameras. Every camera that I've bought in my time has had to have RAW as an option because I understand the importance of RAW and also has had to have full manual override.

>> Speaker C: 18:38

Right.

>> Speaker B: 18:39

And the main reason that I wanted full manual override was that I could do long exposures.

>> Speaker C: 18:44

Right.

>> Speaker B: 18:45

So I've done, I think the longest long exposure I've ever intentionally done was a two minute long exposure, using a tripod, obviously. but it's water mostly that I do. And occasionally I'll do things like, light trails. So playing with light is one of my favorite things to be able to do with photography because what it does is it gives you a result that you would never see in real life.

>> Speaker A: 19:14

Yeah, that's a good point.

>> Speaker B: 19:16

So you're, you're taking your photography into a realm that we as humans can't, can't actually experience. which is really kind of fun. and it gives you the possibility of creating art with your camera in a way that you don't when you're just capturing reality.

>> Speaker C: 19:35

Yeah, absolutely.

>> Speaker B: 19:37

So one of the breakthroughs for me with the phone as a camera was the fact that there are third party apps that will let me do really long exposures on the phone. a particular app that I can recommend if you're an iPhone user, is an amazing app called Nightcap Camera. I'm sure we can put a link in somewhere for that. M Its benefit is that you can basically dial in incredibly long exposures. and more importantly, again, tripod mounted. And buying a tripod mount for your phone is really easy. The trick is don't go to a camera store. Yeah, if you go to a camera store, they will see you coming and they will charge you a fortune for the adapter. The trick is to go into somewhere like. Oh, well, I mean in Australia we have, some big supermarkets. The ones that come to mind are Kmart, and Big W, which are two big, sort of supermarket places. they would charge you $15 for what essentially amounts to a really small tripod and a phone adapter. But more importantly, the phone adapter can be taken off the mini tripod and attached to a big tripod. So that's $15 for that. Now if you go into a camera store, they'll in some cases charge you$40 just for the camera adapter.

>> Speaker C: 21:07

Yeah, yeah.

>> Speaker B: 21:08

And it's identical. There's no difference between those two things. So my big advice is don't go to a camera store to buy accessories for your phone as a camera because they know that you are desperate and they will charge you accordingly. Which is a shame. It's a pity.

>> Speaker C: 21:25

Yeah, yeah.

>> Speaker B: 21:27

I mean I understand that they need to make money, but. Yeah, it's just not good.

>> Speaker A: 21:32

No, you want to get value from it. yeah. And some of the. I mean I've played around with software on, with my smartphone when I'm away, I tend to use it more for, panoramas I really like. And the trick there obviously is to keep it in portrait sort of orientation and move that way. And I, shoot video because it's far easier for me to shoot video on that than on my DSLR with a lens on because that tends to wobble quite a lot when I'm panning. Whereas the phone, because of just, it's much smaller. You've got that advantage. And so they're definitely things that I've, I've used.

>> Speaker B: 22:08

To that end, I will mention that, in the Android world, when you are taking a panorama, it does give you the option of doing the panorama horizontally. And it is in fact, as you just said, very important to do it in portrait mode. On the iPhone, you have no choice but to do it in portrait mode because Apple is aware of the fact that it would be crazy to do it in landscape mode. It is counterproductive. You don't get as much resolution and therefore you are missing out on the detail that you could get.

>> Speaker C: 22:41

Exactly.

>> Speaker B: 22:41

so it's a classic example where Apple, with its we, know better than you do approach, actually do know better, than the Android solution, which gives you, if you like too much option. Yeah, it gives you the option that you shouldn't be using, which is a pity.

>> Speaker A: 22:58

Yeah, I was actually with somebody on, on this, I was on a walk a few weeks ago and she was doing a panorama but in that landscape mode. And I said yeah, it just rotates it, turn it through 90 degrees and then have another go because that's much better. point as well that you've made there with the third party software is one of the advantages of smartphone. And this comes back to what you want to do and what you want to shoot. Once you start looking at third party software there are so many different things you can then do with what you're shooting on the smartphone. It's almost unlimited. You're limited by your imagination and how you want to use the images, whether it's stills or movies. And yeah, you know, you could, we could spend several podcasts talking about different things you can do with a third party software on smartphone. so it's definitely something.

>> Speaker B: 23:50

Now I, yeah, I would mention though that the especially the case with Android, if you're going to go that route of going down and buying third party apps, the trick is to buy a third party app. Don't get the free version. The free version is free because either it's not good and in the Android marketplace there are a freaky number of really bad apps for taking photographs. the basic standard app on the Android operating system is actually better in a lot of ways than the iPhone, operation. The iPhone doesn't have a professional mode built in. whereas on Android there is a professional mode built in, well, semi professional gives you controls over your shutter speed and your ISO. but that said, the range of apps available for the iPhone in photography tends to be more professional. and that's mostly because, and this is unfortunate but true, a lot of developers find that they can't sell apps on the Android platform. They have to do it through an ad supported system. because a lot of people buy the Android phone because they're cheaper and so they're there to try and save money. And as a result they won't spend money on an app. Which is really weird because we could be talking$10 Australian for an app. and that's two cups of coffee. So why are we worried about spending$10? I've seen reviews in which the app was$10 and they're complaining about how horrible it is and they want their money back. it's really Odd. Especially if you're coming from the world of photography, as in cameras. Because how much did your last lens cost you, Graham? Or is that a question you'd rather not answer?

>> Speaker A: 25:50

It's four figures.

>> Speaker B: 25:52

Yeah, exactly. €200.

>> Speaker A: 25:55

Getting it serviced.

>> Speaker B: 25:57

Yeah, exactly. And that's the crazy thing about then complaining about a twelve, dollar app, I think is the last photo app that I bought. The greatest thing is that they're one off costs. They're not subscription. You're buying an app. the latest app that I bought is in fact by Leica.

>> Speaker C: 26:16

Okay, wow.

>> Speaker B: 26:18

So Leica now has an app for smartphones. So that's an interesting development, isn't it?

>> Speaker A: 26:26

Yeah, I'll have a look at that. going back to, I guess, tips for people using smartphone, and m. Then we want to talk about editing as well, but just for smartphone. are there any things that you think people. We've spoken about a few things like read the manual is a good one. And then think about getting in close because the physical size and also the way you don't have to, you can, you don't have to use the, shutter button on the camera app to take a photo. You can use side buttons usually as well. But what other things would you suggest? If people just want to experiment a bit, what would you suggest they do? Maybe one or two things that they could just try to experiment.

>> Speaker B: 27:06

A really fun thing to try is not using the phone upright, as in holding the phone upside down, and taking photos from angles which are very low to the ground. I mean, I'm sure you would have seen these on Instagram. If you ever visit Instagram, you'll find a lot of people like to do that. I'm a big fan of experimenting that way. developing what I refer to as a one handed technique. being able to hold your phone in one hand. This is only really possible if your phone's not too large, and being able to hold it in such a way that you can control the trigger without having to use your other hand. And the reason that this is useful is it means that you can reach your camera, can reach locations that you can't do if you've got two hands on the phone. So it gives you the ability to get much higher angles and much lower angles if you need to. And it also lets you safely reach over fences and things, if you're trying to get an angle. So a really good example, I live in Sydney. the Sydney Opera House is a phenomenal building to take Photographs of. But there is this fantastic location under the Sydney harbour bridge, which is right next to the opera house, in which you've got this fantastic fence running along. It's all made of iron. And a really good photograph is taking a photo from the other side of the fence. so you have the fence, you have the Harbour bridge, and then you have the opera house in the distance. It makes for an amazing photograph. But you can't take that photo if you're trying to use two hands to do it. Yeah, it's much easier if you can just slip your hand through the railing and take the photograph.

>> Speaker C: 28:53

Yeah.

>> Speaker B: 28:53

So it really does help to have that. But then to do that, you have to have confidence that you've got a grip and that you're not going to let go. So maybe the other good tip is to put a lanyard on your phone to attach. To attach a hand grip to your phone in such a way that if something horrible happens and you do let go, you haven't ended up with, your magically expensive phone in the harbor, because that never, never goes down well. so again, a good case then, is another thing that you should think about. getting a good quality case, not necessarily a bulky case. I think a bulky case is counterproductive. You don't want the case to obscure the camera. You also don't want to, for instance, get a case. If you're going to do a lot of photography, don't get a case that opens up, as in holds all your cards and things, because it makes it harder to hold the phone to take the photos that you want to take. So maybe the trick is then getting two cases. Get one case for your everyday usage, and you get another case for when you actually wanted to take photographs.

>> Speaker A: 30:07

If I remember, Craig, you've. You tried, you experimented with an underwater case, a waterproof case.

>> Speaker B: 30:13

Ah, yes, yes. I spent the money and bought a, proper underwater case, which I had yet to use. conceptually, I have it if I wanted to use it. The only downside of doing that, by the way, was that that was when I had an iPhone 10. and I now have a 16 Pro, and the case only fits the phone that I bought it for. Now, that said, I've kept my iPhone 10 for exactly that reason.

>> Speaker C: 30:43

Right, right.

>> Speaker B: 30:44

So I currently have. I think I have. I have an iPhone 12 mini, an iPhone 10, iPhone 14 pro, and an iPhone 16 pro. I have two Android phones as well. So I have a complete set, I think.

>> Speaker C: 31:05

Yeah.

>> Speaker A: 31:06

So they keep changing them yeah, absolutely. wanted to talk about editing because that was another thing we were going to talk about. And, maybe it's good to know that you also teach, Lightroom and Photoshop as well as the photography. Well, I think it was the acquisition side of photography and then there's the post acquisition editing part. So do you want to talk a little bit about that?

>> Speaker B: 31:30

Yeah, absolutely. So in my day job, because as I said, I'm primarily an amateur photographer, my day job is I, work as an Adobe software trainer. So I have the huge advantage of knowing the ins and outs of both Lightroom and also of Photoshop. And that's really, really useful. I mean, dare I say it, I've read the manual on both of those as well. Terrifying thought. But the important thing about that is that it means that I know what I can do with my photograph while I am taking the photograph. So I'm not a believer in playing, games with my viewer in terms of faking a photograph. I'm not interested in photo montage and pretending that it isn't. The most annoying photograph I've ever seen on Instagram was of the Sydney Opera House, and it made it look like the sun was rising on the wrong side of it.

>> Speaker C: 32:40

Yeah.

>> Speaker B: 32:42

And in Sydney, the sun only rises on behind it. It doesn't rise in front of it. So you can't have a sunset behind the Sydney Opera House taken from the bridge side. And yet that's kind of the photograph that was being advertised. It also had a perfect reflection underneath it. And that's also impossible because the water at the Sydney Opera House is choppy because it's part of a harbour. It's not a lake. So someone has gone to the trouble of doing some serious photo editing. It wouldn't have taken very long, but they've clearly done it with the intent of creating a photograph. And then they've posted that onto Instagram and not told anyone that it's fake.

>> Speaker D: 33:28

Yeah, this is something that annoys me.

>> Speaker C: 33:31

Ah, yeah.

>> Speaker A: 33:32

And it's because I've had this question a lot as well as we discussed, and my answer is, you know, he's editing legitimate. Is it, the right thing to do? And my answer is always, well, it depends on your intention. If the intention. If the intention is to deceive, Absolutely not. If the intention is to create something arty and you're upfront about what you're doing, then I have no problem with that whatsoever. This is another aspect of digital photography. But you have to look at where you're coming from and what your intention is to.

>> Speaker B: 34:00

Absolutely. So. So when I'm taking a photograph, I take the approach generally that I am probably going to edit the photograph in some way. And my intention on editing is to bring it closer to the reality of what I saw or closer to the reality of what I intended to get. And by that I mean that when I take a photograph, sometimes the camera won't capture what I see. And in fact, a really good example of this was very early digital cameras. So I had a very early digital camera some years ago which would put a, almost green tinge through everything. So its white balance was fundamentally out, which basically meant that I had to edit the photographs or I wasn't going to end up with what I actually saw. so there are things like white balance built into almost every photo editing app you have, and that is the purpose of them, to bring white back to where white should be. So the idea that somehow you should dare, I said suffer in your photography because your camera is faulty, is silly. It's a really silly situation. Similarly, when you are shooting black and white. And of course that's one of the great things we can now do in pretty much every digital camera out there. And that is we can shoot in black and white rather than having to change film. Remember those fun days? or alternatively shoot in color with a view to what will happen if you make it black and white. The, ah, ability for us to see it in black and white as we're shooting it, which of course is phenomenal in the area of street photography as well, especially. but being able to then take that into something like either lightroom or into Photoshop, and then bring out all the detail in the shadows that maybe our camera just couldn't see. Because cameras of course are, ah, taking a basic single exposure, whereas our eyesight can see multiple exposures in the same photograph in a way that cameras never will. So I think it's perfectly valid to be editing a, photograph after you've taken it. Especially important when you consider that that's what's always happened. So if you were a traditional amateur photographer and you took your film into your chemistry or your drugstore and you said, I want this to be processed. The processing was, in fact photo editing. It wasn't just putting it through a process. The person who was processing your film would often look at your results and go, oh, that looks a bit dark. And would push it.

>> Speaker C: 36:54

Yeah.

>> Speaker B: 36:54

Or they would change the crop. these are not new ideas. in traditional photography the idea of doing a retouch, as in taking someone's blemishes away from their face, was something that was done for well over 100 years. it was painted out painstakingly by hand, but it was the same idea. So none of what we're doing in the editing stages now is really any different from what's been done for 100 years. So I think it's perfectly valid. But as you say, the key is knowing that you're doing it with intent of enhancing or alternatively, bringing it back to closer to reality rather than pretending that this is what it was.

>> Speaker C: 37:49

Yeah.

>> Speaker B: 37:49

as a Photoshop user, I could make a photograph look like anything I wanted it to, but the question is, am I benefiting? Is my viewer benefiting from anything that I do?

>> Speaker C: 38:00

Yeah, absolutely.

>> Speaker A: 38:02

Yeah. And going back to my, remember, cross processing, as well as pushing and pulling. So, yeah, that was definitely changing the results.

>> Speaker B: 38:09

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the amazing things that we're lucky about is the fact that it's now affordable. I. My process when I'm using my phone is that I would take my photograph using my camera, my phone camera, and then I will do all of my processing on the phone and I will primarily use Lightroom.

>> Speaker A: 38:30

Yeah.

>> Speaker B: 38:30

Now, the reason that I can do that is because I pay Adobe a lot of money each month. But there are apps such as Snapseed, written by Google or owned by Google, which are completely free and yet as powerful, if possibly not more powerful than Lightroom. So there is no excuse for not fixing those photographs before you then deliver them on to the next step.

>> Speaker C: 38:56

Absolutely, absolutely.

>> Speaker A: 38:58

So, Colin, I'm going to wind things up there, but is there any sort of, like, parting thoughts or, that you'd like to share with people who are listening in who, you know, either have, thoughts about processing or, want to get the most from their smartphone. Any, Any final thoughts that you'd like to leave people?

>> Speaker B: 39:17

Wow. Profound. Final thoughts.

>> Speaker A: 39:20

No. No. Ordinary. Well, we can go wherever. Whatever you're comfortable with. Have you had a coffee?

>> Speaker B: 39:26

I don't have coffee at this time of night. I, I think the key is to not treat the phone as any different from a normal camera insofar as it's, as you said earlier, it's really not about the device that you're using, it's about what you see through the device that you're using. So think about composition, think about lighting, think about all the things that you would have thought about if you were using a bigger camera, because the same things apply. There may be technical limitations to what this particular device can and cannot do. The major one is that it doesn't have control over aperture. But that isn't as big a problem as you might think because there are ways around that.

>> Speaker C: 40:13

Yeah.

>> Speaker B: 40:13

either through post adjustment or making some realizations about focal length. So I find that I like the idea of blurred backgrounds. I like the idea of a narrow depth of field. A lot of my photographs really play off that, I'm not a fan of portrait mode on these devices. I fake blurred backgrounds, because often that is going to create an illusion that is looking fake. but if you go close to your subject with a long lens, it will blur the background for you. And, a lot of my photography is built around that. But use the processes that you might already have as a photographer and just see this as yet another camera that you have. But the big difference, of course, is that this is the camera that you always have with you as opposed to the one that you have to organize to take with you. So that's, that's profound enough, isn't it?

>> Speaker A: 41:12

I think so, yeah. Very good. All right, thanks very much for that, Colin. I hope everyone's found that useful. What I will do is put a link to your Instagram in the,

>> Speaker B: 41:21

Oh, you mean my six Instagrams?

>> Speaker A: 41:24

Well, yeah, we'll, we'll pick one.

>> Speaker B: 41:26

Some of them. Some of them, yeah.

>> Speaker A: 41:30

All right, we'll sort that out. thanks very much for your time. I hope everyone listening has found that useful. And hopefully you've learned something. And you're now off to have a look at the, soft copy version of your phone's manual. I wouldn't even know where to find them. that's great. Thank you, Colin. And I'll speak to everybody else on the next podcast. So bye for now.

>> Speaker B: 41:53

Thank you. See ya.

>> Speaker A: 41:54

Bye.

>> Speaker D: 41:56

Just before I go, I wanted to remind you that first, of all, I have an offer running, with, my free download. So if you go onto the website and there's a link at the bottom of the description of this particular podcast, and that will take you to a link, to where you can give me your email. I will send you, a PDF, which is 10 Simple Steps to improve your photography today. So it includes the kind of things that I talk about in the podcast. So it's all there in black and white with some examples. You can see what's going on. And also remember I offer, online photography courses. I do fine art. If you haven't checked out my galleries, please do. The link links are again below the description of the podcast and don't forget to help me out. So you're welcome to subscribe both to the podcast and you can become a member of my Patreon membership and join me there. So in that membership you get access to me, and also you get advance notice of things that are coming up. I'll tell you about other things that are going on that I don't share in my Facebook group or on Instagram or anywhere else really. So it is just a membership where if you like what I do and you just want to be a part of it, the subscriptions are really low. It's just a cup of coffee a month. So how much better could I be than that? So please take a look and I'll speak to you in the next podcast. So bye for now.