Enforced phone photography - b & w

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My smartphone camera isn't the best for photographing people - especially fast moving children. However, it deals reasonably well with static subjects such as architecture. The qualification to the last statement is - if it is well lit. Today's photograph shows the concrete staircase in the Switch Room, Tate Modern's £260 million extension with three gallery levels. The exterior, with its angular brick walls, window slits, great views and fascinating lighting at night is becoming well known - especially to the inhabitants of the new, glass-walled residential towers nearby who resent having spent up to £19 million for a flat only to find gallery visitors peering into their rooms.

The interior features quite a lot of new raw concrete that extends from the old raw concrete that was laid down when the building was a power station. The most arresting feature is the spiral staircase shown in today's photograph. This wasn't a particularly well lit subject and the resulting image had quite a bit of noise. But, that noise was quite amenable to cleaning up and so I thought I'd find out what the resulting image looked like when converted to black and white. Not too bad is my answer.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Staircase, Switch House, Tate Modern, London
Smartphone photograph

Enforced phone photography - colour

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On our most recent visit to London my camera stopped working properly and so for a few days I had to use my phone for photography. Despite the rapid improvement in phone cameras to the point where many are "good enough" for a limited range of photography, I still prefer the flexibility and quality of a purpose-built camera. I should also add that my phone was bought knowing that I wouldn't use it a great deal and so I chose on price rather than features.

All that notwithstanding, it takes photographs, and in some circumstances for some purposes the images it produces are quite good. It doesn't have real zoom or course. Nor does it handle low light well. Its dynamic range is somewhat limited, and you have to make a conscious effort to hold it still. In fact, the latter is the most frustrating feature because a few of my shots that are compositionally quite good, when enlarged show distinct blur caused by my hand movement. As far as basic ergonomics for photography goes the shape of the average smartphone seems deliberately chosen to induce blur.

Today's photograph is one of the better shots I got. It shows the platform at Cannon Street station in London. We've become quite familiar with this location following the closure of London Bridge station. However, our regular route means a walk to Bank station to get the Northern line tube, and interesting as that is, I'll be glad when London Bridge reopens in 2018 and I don't have to do it so often.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photograph: CannonStreet Station, London
Phone photograph

Walkie Not Talkie

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I've never been a fan of the telephone. There's something about talking to a disembodied voice that doesn't appeal to me. Moreover, I spent too much time speaking to people on the phone during my working life. That's not to say I don't appreciate their utility, and of course, I do use phones. With that in mind you might think that the rise of the smartphone would be something I'd welcome because it offers communication without the necessity for speaking. In fact, I wonder if these days such devices aren't more used for texting (SMS), email, social media communication etc, than simply speaking to people. But the fact is, though I recognise their multiple uses, and though I use my wife's smartphone, I haven't succumbed to one myself because I have enough computers of one kind or another and the idea of having one to use on a regular basis when I'm out and about is simply too much to contemplate.

I sometimes wonder what smartphone users would do if they had their device surgically removed. What would they do with their hands, their eyes, their ears and their brains? Would they have to look about them, make their own entertainment, fret because they don't know what their friends and acquaintances are doing, organise their time and social interactions better because there was no phone to make last-minute adjustments? I do wonder whether smartphones will turn us into lobster people who carry massive smartphones as evolution causes us to develop massively over-sized thumbs from countless keypresses.

I recognise that my relative antipathy to smartphones isn't widely held. On reflection it probably comes from the deep enjoyment I get from looking at our world, finding out about it and reflecting on what I see. A smartphone would get in the way of that - and it would encourage me to use an inferior camera!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 63mm (126mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/400 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: 0
Image Stabilisation: On

Wet café chairs, apps and art filters

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I don't watch many of the TV programmes that people who know me expect me to see. The reason is that I'm prepared to devote only a very limited time to television. So, by the time I've watched, over the course of week, a couple of films, a couple of old, made-for-TV comedy shows, and one or two other programmes, I'm done. With that amount of viewing I've used up the time I'm willing to give to television, and good or bad, I won't watch more. To do so would deprive me of the time I want to give to my other interests and pursuits.

For the same reason I'm currently unwilling to join the majority of the population of Britain in owning a smartphone. It's not that I'm a Luddite, or that I don't think they have some uses above those offered by a traditional mobile phone: they do (though fewer than many would have us believe). The fact is I spend quite a chunk of my week at a computer screen and extending this further via the tiny display of a smart phone would - you've got it - "deprive me of the time I want to give to my other interests and pursuits". However, I'm enough of a realist to accept that the way mobile communications are going the day may come when I will need (rather than want) one.

There is one thing about smart phones that I do rather like, and that is the greater capabilities of the built-in cameras. They are not yet as good as even a basic compact camera, but for some purposes they are good enough. Moreover, currently appearing on the market is the Nokia Pureview 808 with a 41 megapixel camera outputting 2/3, 5 and 8 megapixel images, incorporating a useful zoom facility, offering the opportunity to achieve bokeh, and the capacity to record HD 1080p video. These are the sort of specifications that enthusiast photographers will find appealing. The images that I've seen look very good indeed.

Of course, there is a downside to smartphone cameras and that lies in the "apps", especially the "Instagram" variety that offer "effects" that people find irresistible. I came across this article on PetaPixel recently - "Iconic Photos "re-taken with Instagram" - and concluded that such effects, by and large, represent a pretty good method of ruining a shot whilst at the same instantly consigning it to a big subset of other smartphone shots. All of which brings me to my wet café chairs. After converting from colour to black and white I applied digital versions of traditional processing effects - increasing contrast, burning and dodging. In other words it was hand-crafted, insofar as that is possible with a computer! So why do I think it looks like a commercial pin-hole or Holga effect? It seems that digital camera "art filters" and smartphone "apps" that include both these options are starting to impinge on our consciousness and affect how we see photographs.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 99mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On