Cell Phone Photography - Low Light, Emotional Brightness

Smartphones are pretty incredible. I have all of human knowledge at my fingertips, on demand. I also happen to have a camera with me, even when I don't feel like carrying a DSLR camera and lens. Most of the time, I love it - I own a Galaxy S5, which has a 16 MP camera. It's not as customizable as I'd like (no manual mode or RAW shooting for me), but it's pretty darn good. For most people taking photos, camera phones are what they use. heck, even National Geographic has gotten into phone photography. Workshops or even full photo projects are out there from the masters of documentary photography.

This wouldn't be much of a photo blog if I didn't at least explore this type of shooting. So I did some shooting with my phone. At a local club. Yes, I was one of those people, taking crappy photos in a dark club of a brilliant musical artist - Big Data. But here's the thing - I came home from a great show having spent maybe a grand total of 5 minutes firing off photos while I enjoyed a couple hours of music - and the photos were crap. Don't believe me? Here are the best ones.

"Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships."

- Ansel Adams

But, here's where you have to see lemons and actually try to make lemonade as an artist. And photos of a high energy musical performance are the perfect way to do this - you're not looking for tack focus, perfect framing, or even perfect lighting. Rather, these photos can be made to convey a mood - the emotion of the show.

This was a great notion to explore - that photography isn't strictly reproduction of what you see. It's why Ansel Adams said "A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed." And that's when I got into Lightroom and had fun.

So I was proud of my experimentation - these shots felt like the show I attended. The music, the action, the emotion - these images, taken with a camera that was relatively overwhelmed with the task, captured something that I'm not sure my D7100 ever could have. As a bonus, one other person seemed to enjoy the shots, as well.