I like taking shots into the sunset. You get all sorts of images and distortions. If there’s a tree or two around you get some lovely silhouettes, especially in winter, when each branch can do its own dance.
I found recently, while cycling along the Thames, by Hammersmith in the mist that the iPhone, which doesn’t have the greatest resolution, especially when you use the zoom, can manufacture some wonderful images, precisely because of these defects. See my blog on Misty Thames for a few impressionistic examples. But anything I’ve done is blown away by the images that an Italian guy, who goes by the blogging name of Rubicorno, creates with his iPhones and various apps. They are amazing – they are more like paintings than photos at times. Real art. Check his website using the link above.
He’s inspired me to do a few more things with my iPhone. The selection here has no treatment with apps, as I have no apps just yet. But it still shows what you can conjure up with a sunset and a dodgy zoom! Is it art or just a complete mess? Eye of the beholder…
Here’s one to start which is pretty much the straight view into the sunset. The West London suburban street.
Then zooming in, getting fuzzier…
(You can enlarge these with a click)
Then full distortion, when the boundary between a photo and a painting becomes harder to discern.
I then switched my attention to the lamplight just outside our house.
Ostrich head?
And then a view from my back garden which looks onto an old red brick cinema and beyond that the tall light of a London Underground depot. Like a weird plant. Suburban-industrial.
And finally, switching my sights to the West, some trees that lurk in the park beyond the houses.
The West London suburbs, made surreal by the sunset and an iPhone…
Thoughtsfromwestfive 
This is art. Leave the apps alone and try to keep things as raw as possible. Personnaly I just don’t get on with digital cameras and Iphones with apps. I still use old analogue cameras, 35mm and medium format. I’m one of 5 million members of Lomography.com still using film cameras to take photos. To me there is something real, natural and beautifully imperfect about film. I love the photos you’ve posted for this very reason, they’re great because they are deliberately messed up, no rules, no constraints. That’s the problem with digital photofgraphy these days. Digital destroys natural beauty. You are not a robot. You are not a CPU. You are not binary. You are a human being. You are complex, reflective and emotion-full. You are surrounded by beauty and energy and change and light. Capture that natural beauty as it’s meant to be and stick it to the man and his digitally enhanced, digitally modified, virtual world. Leave the digital grind behind! Return to luck, coincidence, contingency, chance, fortune, emergency & surprise. Expect the unexpected and the excitement of the experiment! Newsflash – We don’t need our mobile phones to breathe. Computers are not works of art. The internet is not as beautiful as the beach. An app will not save your life. Photography should be about authenticity, truth and reality. John it’s time for you to embrace the Analogue Future! And what a fantastic future it is – A place full of love, joy, fun, sex and photography! There are so many exciting possibilities, so many new things to experience. So many snapshots and colours and shades and tones! Don’t get left behind – Join the analogue revolution train! Destination happiness!
Blimey!
Ha ha! I’m an ambassador for Lomography UK. You picked my pet subject.