The button Eastman would envy…

- Joel Heffner

More than a hundred years ago, George Eastman (the creator of the Kodak camera and company) said, “You push the button, we do the rest.” He was talking about the Kodak cameras. I wonder how he would have felt about this button!

This one innocent looking button is part of the iPhone’s editing function that’s built into your iPhone. I clicked it for a photo and it made eight intelligent changes to the photo…with one click! Impressive.

Photoshop, Lightroom, and a zillion other apps can improve your photos greatly. But 8 changes with one click would certainly have made Eastman envious. 

Experiment with Edit when you take your next iPhone pictures. It’s easy, fun, and free. What a combo!

More about it next time…

Lap top portraits…

- Joel Heffner

My little friend likes to sit or lay down on my lap. Aside from not being able to move for a while the experience is very pleasant, especially since it makes it easy to take extreme closeup portraits like this one.

All it took to take this portrait was a knee (that I supplied), an iPhone (that I supplied), and a model (who was very willing. The only difficult part is holding the camera. With a little practice that’s not hard to learn. Incidentally, no apps were used. Just the iPhone’s native camera. It’s always good to have a Pug around. They are known for being lap dogs!

How to ID a plant…with your iPhone…

- Joel Heffner

My wife is an avid gardener. She loves cactus and succulent plants. Sometimes, there are no identifying tags that come with plants. Many, at least to me, look alike. To identify a plant she recently got, we used an iPhone app. I took this photo of it.

The PlantSnap app idenifitied it like this.

That’s it … Aloe pratensis. Nifty app for gardeners.

According to the manual…

- Joel Heffner

While looking through a camera manual I came across something interesting. With today’s digital cameras and smartphones we look for ways to manipulate the dials and buttons. The manual I’m looking at is a bit different. It was written in 1888. Yes, that’s 1888. It’s the manual for the original Kodak Camera.

That camera was loading with enough film to take 100 photos. It was meant to be returned to Kodak to be unloaded, developed, and returned to the owner. Yes, unloaded. They wanted you to send the whole camera back.

If you didn’t want to actually return the camera, they provided what was needed to develop the film yourself. The Kodak Manual 1888

Next time you complain about how difficult it is to print a picture think about how easy it is to get bromide potassium, hyposulphite soda, and Eastman’s collodion.

It’s OK to look a little dopey if…

- Joel Heffner

I don’t mind looking a little dopey for this Fathers Day photo. The family came through with some gifts I really appreciated. The photo shows some of them. During the pandemic, my favorite hand soap was appreciated.

Joel on Father’s Day 2020. During the 2020 pandemic, handsoap was in short supply. Chocolate bars were always welcom.

Looking a little dopey was fine with me because…it shows me looking at the camera (actually iPhone). Years from now, it will mean more. Although there were some photos of me looking down at the gifts, I think this one will be the best because it shows me.

Make sure you get photos with the subject looking straight into the camera. You’ll want to remember what the people looked like…more than anything else…in my silly opinion.

It also is important to make sure the metadata explains the photo. We don’t usually write on the back of photos as we did in the past. The metadata helps tell the details. Here’s what I wrote on the metadata for this digital image.

Make sure the “backs” of your family memories are carefully written!