Tag Archives: iPhone 4s

Rising Star

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If you follow the Nick Exposed instagram channel at all (@nickexposed), you probably seen a few of these pics of my adorable niece pop up in the feed this last week.

One of my absolute favorite things about my move back home to Michigan within the last year, is I get to see my niece Ellie every single day! Shes to coolest little girl on the face of the planet (FACT), and I love her to pieces.

The other day while sitting around outside after I had just gotten back from an afternoon of shooting, she picked up my AE-1 and started parading around the yard with camera to eye (notice the finger on trigger… I didnt teach her that!), while making shutter noises with her mouth. CUTEST THING EVER!!! She seen me hold the camera to my eye once and after that she took off and just ran with it. A natural I tell you!

Not only does she love being behind the camera, but also loves being in front of it! As soon as she sees a camera pop out or a phone raised to take a quick snap shot, she starts striking poses and really works it. haha. She yells CHEEZE and trys to get everyone else in on the shot as well. Not bad for a 2 year old lol.

If anyone is a rising star, it would have to be her! Not sure what she will be (lets hope its a photographer ;) ), but whatever it is, I know she will Kick Ass at it!!

Abandoned Mongoose

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If you haven’t figured it out by now… I love bikes!! (In fact my main mode of transportation is by bike! Why drive when you can bike.. very eco friendly and has infinite gas mileage ;) )

My love for bikes definitely spills over into my photography quite often. I have a feeling that eventually I will come out with a coffee table book or something documenting the hundreds of bike shots Im bound to acquire. Continue reading →

Cover Perspective

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Im always on the lookout for unique ways to display everyday objects. Some times that means just capturing a portion of the subject to give it more of an abstract feel. When I can mix various shapes and texture into the scenes, its all the better.

Personally I enjoy these high contrast abstract shots. They are meant to make the mind search to recognize what it may be when initially observed, and at times leave some space for the imagination to wander.

 

The Stormy Silo

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Well its official! Ive sold the Canon Rebel and will be upgrading to a new body in a week or so. Until then I have my trusty Canon AE-1 and iPhone 4s to keep me company while out on my photographic adventures. Which needless to say is still enough to create some great pics.

If you follow Nick Exposed on Instagram (@NickExposed) you probably seen a sneak peek image that I put up from todays shooting. One thing I love about the iphone is its ability to capture some rather usable bracketed exposures to put together for HDR either in phone or in Photomatix on the computer as in this case. I use an app called “Bracket Mode” which does an excellent job at capturing the scene as over exposed as the iphone will allow, and under exposed in the same manner. Even without the regular exposure the results are quite pleasing. A few tweeks in photoshop and lightroom and you start to forget that this was captured on a camera phone (a badass camera phone… well phone in general.. at that)

Ive mentioned it in the past, but I think its so funny that as photogs we so often feel that we need the best of the best cameras to make great pictures. Now i wouldnt go shooting a wedding with my iphone… however it would be funny to see the look on the clients face… well besides the part where the bride turns to bridezilla lol. But the iphone or any other current camera phone is still capable of capturing some pretty stunning pictures.

Its going to be fun and interesting over the next week and a half as I work these two cameras and try to make due without my beloved dslr.

Blue Windows

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ISO 64 4.28mm f/2.4 1/620sec

Can you believe this picture is from Michigan in the middle of the winter!?! The snow is starting to melt away, although the forecast shows a few more winter wonder days right around the corner! However with the melting snow, it allows me to switch gears from the cold weathered photos Ive posted the last few days, and add some warmth to the blog with this vibrant summer-ish photo taken again with my iPhone today at a little breakfast restaurant called “The Omelet Shop”. My girlfriend and I were searching around for an open bank not realizing with MLK day, all the banks were closed. So pulling out of the deserted Chase parking lot, bummed that our mission of check cashing was foiled and would have to be postponed til tomorrow, we decided to cheer ourselves up at this restaurant across the street. I had never eaten here, but the exterior was so enticing, and as they say you should always judge an omelet shop by its cover.

This photo brings me back to my recent days of living on the beach in Virginia! In fact my neighbors building was painted almost an identical color scheme, with the addition of some orange and green. I can imagine walking by the blue window sills of the building with sandals and a loose fit tee that I threw on just after an intense game of ultimate frisbee on the beach. There was a 7-11 across the street that we frequented often, and if it weren’t for the no shirt no shoes no service sign, we would have spent all summer in our swim trunks and shorts. I would say Im still a beach boy, just in a Michigander disguise, which works well with the counter part of a Michigan omelet shop in a beach shack disguise.

Cross the line?

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ISO 64 4.28mm f/2.4 1/250sec

It’s funny, my feelings about posting this image are inline with the image itself. There seems to be a big wave of people posting pictures of their feet on flickr and other image posting sources and I did not want to fall into that category, because Im sure the last thing people want to see is a photo of my feet. However I do love this photo and the idea of the “lines” we cross on a daily basis. So I found myself asking do I “cross the line” into an area I was planning on avoiding and post the picture or toss it over into the recycle bin. Well I decided to be adventurous and post it anyways.

I had actually forgotten I had taken this picture. Like I posted the other day I’ve been trying to get more in the habit of shooting with my iPhone throughout the day. I was on my way into the grocery store and a moment of inspiration hit me, as it often does throughout the day. Which have you ever realized how abusive inspiration really is, it just hits you when you least expect it, no warning at all. sheesh. Anyways, Im looking down at the pavement thats covered with the remnants of melted snow that has been recently plowed away and Im walking over these cool yellow lines. I keep saying to myself “don’t you cross that line”.. step.. “oh yeah, better not cross this one”.. step.. while at the same time constantly looking up to make sure I wasn’t pulling a bugs bunny move on myself making me step off a cliff or something haha. Then it hit me, this is one of those times I should be shooting with the phone. At this point Im standing in traffic, and now Im looking down taking pictures of my feet and the line to be crossed. Needless to say the impatient shoppers were.. well impatient, so horns started to blare and I quickly bolted inside to get my shopping done and completely forget about my picture until uploading the pics later in the evening.

I do love the thought behind this photo, of the lines we choose to cross or not cross throughout the day, whether they be emotional, physical, spiritual, intellectual or all of the above. We come against so many decisions throughout the day, some we don’t even realize until we take time to look, like the yellow lines in this picture. I find a version of this saying coming up in my mind a lot lately. Im working on losing some weight, diving further into my religion, growing my business and relationship among other things and because of that I encounter so many lines throughout the day in which I decide whether or not to cross. There’s a fast food restaurant… do I cross that line and risk my diet/health? There’s a new training on photography or design.. do I cross that line. Some lines we need to cross are easy and thoughtless, others not so much. Some Im sure even scare us, we may not even want to look across the line because we don’t know what may be on the other side. Either way we find ourselves connecting with this image more than we realize.

Domino wall

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ISO 500 4.28mm f/2.4 1/15sec

Lately I’ve been trying to retrain myself to shoot more with my iphone when I don’t have my Canon with me (which is actually a funny sentence to read if you didn’t know I was talking about photography haha). I’ve grown so accustom to my big bad dslr that I tend to forget that the iPhone packs a mean camera as well. My goal is to get to the point that Im shoot literally thousands of pictures a day. They say you have to have around 10,000 hours  into something before you can truly master it. Well its going to be some time before I hit that, but getting in thousands of shots a day will get me there faster.

Theres something about finding amazement in so many things through out the day that… well amazes me. Like I’ve said in recent exposures, I love finding beauty and interest in things that people often take for granted and pass by every single day. I love connecting stories with a scene, even if the story seems so disconnected at first. As a creative I love letting my imagination run free throughout the day.

As the title of the photo suggests, when I looked at this wall I immediately seen the domino, the great chinese game that my loving Grandma would try to teach me time and time again. But of course being the hyperactive kid that I was, I would instead turn the dining room table into a striped maze of 2in x 1in white and black blocks that would wake anyone trying to get an afternoon nap in when they finally came crashing down, launching a good handful of them off the table. I was half tempted to give the wall a good shove to see if it would budge taking anything in its path out as it would flip down the stairs behind it. I wonder if the designer of this structure had similar childhood memories in mind when he created this wall?

Journey into the unkown

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ISO 500 4.5mm f/2.4 1/15sec

I ran across this walking tunnel on the outskirts of Downtown Grand Rapids by accident. I was actually looking for a good vantage point to get a clear shot of the city and surrounding traffic during the evening. I had driven up and down a half dozen streets leading to a hill along side the highway looking over downtown with no luck in finding a treeless open patch to set up. I was just about to call it a night when I decided to try one last dead end drive. I found this tunnel that runs under the highway and immediately jumped out to start taking some pics with my iphone. I didn’t feel like lugging my big dslr down to a tunnel unknown to me up to this point.

What I really loved about this quick shot is all the wonder I experienced while looking into this grungy walkway. I couldn’t help but to wonder what was on the other side, though not curious enough to venture through to find out (This is in a rougher part of town mind you, and they didn’t mark the street Dead End for no reason). I really think the iPhones imperfection in night time captures add’s an extra element to the rough grunge feel of the pic. The photo is as imperfect as my search for my original shot that evening, and for that it is perfect.