August 2009’s Featured iPhographer - Sion Fullana
Ok we know that Augusts Featured iPhographer is a bit late. But we loved what Sion Fullana was doing with his iPhography so much that we were willing to wait until he had gotten back from holidays. Sion was happy to share with us all his thoughts on iPhography & as always we ask for a few iPhographs to include with the article but to be honest I wanted to take them all!!
Q: What got you into iPhography?
A: Well, before summer of 2008 my boyfriend and many of ours friends had an iPhone (1st generation). I was dreaming of getting my own one and I finally got it from my boyfriend as a gift on my 32nd birthday. As soon as I laid my hands on my 3G iPhone, photography became my favourite activity, immediately. In the beginning, I just started to snap and explore different takes on subjects like nature, macros, urban elements, etc… but soon after I evolved into my street photography style and it’s become my greatest passion and strength.
Q: Your shots are some of the most beautiful I have seen yet & what I like most is that you have a great sense of composition.
This obviously comes from experience. Could you share a bit about it with us?
A: Thank you so much! I never had any photography formation. My background is journalism (writing, radio and TV) and I also graduated in film and TV directing. Besides, I’ve been an avid comic book reader ever since I was 8 or 9. So I guess along the way it has all combined to give me a certain eye. I’ve only been going professional in photography for a bit more than a year now, and everything I’ve accomplished has been 100% self-taught, with a lot of trial and error and daily practice. Not to mention a lot of passion for it. I never get tired of it, and that makes me happy.
Q: What is it that you are trying to achieve with your iPhography & what inspires you?
A: All my life, I’ve always said that no matter which media or genre I’m working at (a documentary film, an article, a fictional short story, a portrait, or a street shot) my main goal is to convey real life emotions that will ring true to whoever the recipient of the communication might be. When someone tells me that upon watching a photo that I’ve taken they feel they can smell New York, or they feel they are part of the moment captured, and experience the emotion of the character in the image, I feel I’m on the right path and fill myself with pride. Coming from a journalistic background, what inspires me is reality. People, human interaction, behaviour, body language… the little details that many people won’t even pay attention to, in their rushed lifestyle, but that become my biggest (and endless) inspiration.
Q: What is your average shooting day like, What accessories or apps do you use? Do you use desktop apps & if so, can you tell us a bit about your process?
A: I guess there is not a single day when I won’t take at least a dozen iPhone shots. That’s the greatest thing (and also the downside): since you carry the phone with you all day, you are always ready to capture the moment, when opportunity arises. Or you can just stop and make it happen. In a city like New York there’s no way you can stop in a corner for 5 minutes and don’t see the most incredible characters and stories passing in front of your eyes (and hopefully, your lens). Downside, I said, because it can become a bit addictive, and even get a bit frustrating when you lose a great picture opportunity. There are other times when I will purposely go to some area in the city that I like and spend an entire afternoon shooting and walking around. Those are my favourite moments!
As for accessories used, my brother-in-law (who is a Japanese guy living in Barcelona, Spain) had a very cool gadget delivered for me all the way from Japan: the Gizmo lens, which features a small base that attaches to the iPhone with a special glue, and a wide-angle / macro lens that hooks to it with a small magnet. The macro images you can take with that are amazing. And the wide-angle plays a significant difference in your framing, though I haven’t been using it as much yet.
There are only two applications I use every day: Camera Bag app (my favourite), and Vint B&W. They both throw impressive results straight from the iPhone. As for post processing, I hardly ever do it on the phone. I prefer to upload the photos into my MAC and process them later, using Picnik.com (a very easy and satisfying editing software) on 85% of the times, and Lightroom the other 15%. I’m not much of a Photoshop guy, don’t even know the least of it, beyond fixing contrast, curves or levels, so I don’t use it.
Q: There has been a few changes with the latest iPhone 3GS, but what would you wish for in a future iPhone?
A: I bet I’m there with everyone else, here. It would be great to have some more battery life, maybe increase the camera definition a bit more (that extra MP certainly helps, I bet) and allow some manual controls for settings (colours, white balance, shutter speed, etc.). It may be asking too much, but hey, nothing lost for dreaming out loud, right?
Q: What do you like most & least about the iPhone you are using & what model do you have?
A: I have a 3G iPhone, second generation. I blame the greedy policy of AT&T, that forces me to wait until Christmas so I can get the 3Gs at the regular price, once my commitment contract is expired. I hate that. As long as you stick with your own company, you should be able to upgrade with the same rights right away. It doesn’t seem fair. So yes, I think one of the worst things for iPhone users is dealing with AT&T as the only company that provides the server, with certain flaws that come with it (weak 3G in many areas of the city, dropped calls, etc). I obviously crave the 3Gs, as a filmmaker/ videographer, so I can try the video capability and the tap-to-focus feature. Can’t wait to get hold of one.
What I like the most of any iPhone is that it helps a lot with my style of candid street shots, because it’s discreet as a camera. People won’t know for sure (even if they suspected it) if you were really taking a photo or just playing a game or texting. So it helps to get better shots. I also love the quality of the iPhone lens, because of the way it can capture colours and light, under the appropriate circumstance. I’ve been impressed many times with what you can get with it.
Q: What do you see in the future of the iPhography movement?
A: It’s an increasing movement, in constant flow. A lot of people have iPhones, everyone that has one takes photos with it, and some people are getting very good. I think that it will continue to explode as a market, people will show and share their stuff and eventually we’ll finally get to see exhibitions of images taken with iPhone or photo books of the subject. I dream and hope I’ll be there doing that! Some even predict that iPhone might break into the world of fashion and that we may see some photo shoot for a fashion magazine where all the images came from the phone. Fingers crossed!
Q: Is there anything you would like to tell our readers?
A: To those who have iPhones, please take lots of pictures. Experiment all the time, try to find images for great photos where you wouldn’t normally expect them to be. Walk to your favourite area in your city and stay quiet against a wall, keep the phone in front of you with steady hand and shoot at everything and everyone that walks by you and your lens. Try to follow someone’s walking with the phone, at the same pace of their steps, while you release the shutter button, for great pan effects. And use your favourite applications, they can make a difference between an average photo and a piece of art.
And to those who criticize the iPhone as a photo tool, claiming that any other phone is way better, or that iPhography is just a joke, but not art in anyway, I just say I’m sorry for you, because the movement is here, and it’s not going away anytime soon!
iPhography.com: Thanks for your time Sion & your wonderful iPhography
Sion: You’re welcome, and thank YOU for the opportunity and for the good work. Keep it up!!
Remember you can see more of Sion Fullana’s works at sionfullana.com & we strongly recommend that you check out Sion’s Flickr iPhography set
