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THE BESTCAMERAIS THE ONE THAT’S WITH YOU
iPHONE PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHASE JARVIS
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The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You™
Chase Jarvis
New Riders1249 Eighth StreetBerkeley, CA 94710510/524-2178510/524-2221 (fax)Find us on the Web at www.newriders.comFind Chase on the Web at www.chasejarvis.comTo report errors, please send a note to [email protected] Riders is an imprint of Peachpit, a division of Pearson Education
Copyright © 2010 by Chase JarvisAll photography © Chase Jarvis
Editor: Ted WaittProduction Editor: Lisa BraziealInterior Design: Chase Jarvis Inc.Indexer: Chase Jarvis Inc.Cover Design: Chase Jarvis Inc.Cover Image: Chase Jarvis
Notice of RightsAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information on getting permis-sion reprints and excerpts, contact [email protected].
Notice of LiabilityThe information in this book is distributed on an “As Is” basis without warranty. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the author nor Peachpit shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the computer software and hardware products described in it.
TrademarksApple and iPhone are trademarks of Apple Inc. The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You is a trademark of Chase Jarvis Worldwide LLC. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Peachpit was aware of a trademark claim, the designations appear as requested by the owner of the trademark. All other product names and services identified throughout this book are used in editorial fashion only and for the benefit of such companies with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this book.
ISBN-13 978-0-321-68478-3ISBN-10 0-321-68478-8
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2Printed and bound in the United States of America
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A whole bunch of work went into making this little book and I owe many thanks to many people.The crew: Kate, Scott, Dartanyon, Mikal. Alex, you’re in there too. The page gracers: Mario, Scott, Kevin, Bob, Garnet, Snow, Cody, Vivian, Abbie, Andew, Will, Saba, Bill. New Riders: Ted, Nancy, Scott, Sara Jane, Lisa, Charlene. New agent: Nancy Stauffer. New friends: Kirk, Martin, Joe, Ubermind, Gary, Marita. To the makers of all the iPhone photo apps out there, especially the ones I played with the most: Photogene, CameraBag, TiltShift. To all of you who—through your pictures, blog posts, comments, tweets, Facebook messages, and emails—have contributed to this community. And finally, to my family and my friends: thanks for putting up with me.
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FOLLOW CHASE JARVIS ONLINE
www.chasejarvis.com/blogwww.twitter.com/chasejarviswww.facebook.com/chasejarvis
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ABOUT THESE IMAGES & MY NEW iPHONE APP
None of these images have been retouched or altered in Photoshop—or any other piece of software outside of the iPhone. They’ve all been edited exclusively with native iPhone applications.
While there are a number of good iPhone applications that perform certain tasks quite well, in my experience none of them—individually or together—have met my need to create these images and share them easily.
Until now.
Introducing my own iPhone application called—appropriately enough—Best Camera. It has been in development throughout the course of creating this book.
With this single application, you can creatively edit and share your iPhone images more simply than ever before. There’s a unique set of filters and effects that can be applied at the touch of a button. Stack them. Mix them. Remix them. Virtually infinite creative possibility with your photos.
And what good is taking a picture if it’s not easily shared? Best Camera allows you to share directly via Twitter, Facebook, a host of other sites, and www.thebestcamera.com, a new online community that allows you to contribute to a living, breathing gallery of the best iPhone photography from around the globe.
I am proud of the ecosystem we’ve created: this book, this app, and this community. Join us. I look forward to seeing your pictures.
You can buy Best Camera ($2.99) in the iTunes App Store or by visiting www.chasejarvis.com/bestcamera.
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CONTENTS
Airports 12Animal 1
Animals 29Beverages 38
Bodies of water 24Cars 57
Chickens 8Humans 6,419
Road signs 15School buses 10
Shoes 19Traffic cones 3
Words 2,888
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INTRODUCTION
What you’re holding in your hands is a chunk of me. My guts. My process. My study. It’s a look into the production of my ideas. These pictures, all taken with my iPhone, make up my visual notebook—a photographic journal—from the past year of my life. Though The Best Camera closes the door on this period, this ongoing study continues to fuel my curiosity and provide boundless inspiration. It is an invaluable reference and will continue to inform my future bodies of work.
It is said that Rodin molded hundreds of hands in preparation for creating the hand of The Thinker, as he explored musculature, the folding of fingers, and on and on. Undoubtedly, each of those hands merits the label “art” in its own right. It’s in this same vein that I consider the images in this book. While each iPhone picture certainly contributes a thread to the overall fabric of my creativity, it’s of a deeper—or, perhaps paradoxically, simpler—interest to me that each iPhone image ultimately stands on its own. Two megapixels at a time, each photograph reveals how I process the visual information around me, how I see the world.
These images remain a visual journal, but gathered and bound together this book becomes a stake in the ground. With it, I hope to underscore—perhaps help legitimize—the idea that an image can come from any camera, even a mobile phone. Inherently, we all know that an image isn’t measured by its resolution, dynamic range, or anything technical. It’s measured by the simple—sometimes profound, other times absurd or humorous or whimsical—effect that it can have upon us. If you can see it, it canmove you.
For me, the iPhone has been a dream come true. One button. Always with me. Incredibly accessible. There’s no losing sight of the work at hand by way of more complicated gear. Writers have notepads, painters have sketchbooks, and I have a camera that’s always with me. Chances are, you do, too.
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If we allow it, photography can escape the technical trappings of so many other artistic endeavors. It’s accessible, nearly ubiquitous today. And it’s given us an opportunity—more than ever before in history—to capture moments and share them with our friends, families, loved ones, or the world at the press of a button. It’s the moment. The little snippet of life unfolding in front of your lens—whether that be glass, plastic, or a pinhole in a cardboard box.
As an artist, I feel more free with the little camera built into my iPhone than I ever have with any other camera. I somehow recovered an innocence I’d lost, and I was able to see the world again for what it is: a beautiful, funny, sad, honest, simple, bizarre, and wonderful place. If taking pictures helps you see this, then keep shooting. The best camera is the one that’s with you.
Chase JarvisJuly 200937,000 feet, somewhere over Colorado
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I began shooting iPhone photos as a means to both escape and yet stay connected to my craft. It was an exercise to hone my ability to better see
my world.
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INDEX
10-speed shadow 108
about creating pictures 28
acme rocket 117
after party 227
after the rainstorm, dubai 18
airport windows, grand junction 164
altered states, nyc 238
angry guardrail, seattle 83
animal 141
antique, seattle 155
april showers bring, seattle 26
aspens, aspen 233
aurora bridge, seattle 89
bacon tastes good 8
beach rocks 217
beached starfish 57
beautiful decay 195
the beef 105
beheaded, nyc 101
the blakes 133
bent metal and a lamppost 19
birds that ate my breakfast, kona 3
boardroom shadow 120
boca juniors, buenos aires 6
brunch on the road, leadville 102
bunny and goose 179
burlwood mirror 121
burner 118
cabin fever, chile 167
cable protector and a guardrail 239
cactus 119
campfire remains 110
cat tail on zebrawood 31
ceiling lamps, frankfurt 209
chain on brick 30
chalk mural, sydney 63
charles de gaulle, paris 193
chroma xl 145
classic porsche, la jolla 201
classic vette, boulder 41
cockie jar, salt lake city 38
cody on friday afternoon, seattle 173
cody on sunday morning, palm springs 172
coffee and cream 178
come here often? 29
commodities, seattle 52
converse on moving walkway 189
cropped 142
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crusty boat hull 54
curious 180
curves, minneapolis 84
dance floor, minneapolis 225
decaf coffee 107
a different kind of smokestack, nyc 5digging 95
digital display, sea-tac airport 61
disappear with a splash 160
discarded in the sand 65
do everything 44
dribble, nyc 185
drive 200
dump truck taillights 98
dunton hot springs, telluride 12
electric tea lights 70
electronic touchdown 79
exit ramps 113
expired tabs, camano island 62
f/8 and be there 202
favorite meal of the day, vashon island 176
fifth avenue monorail track 215
first responder 203
five o’clock shadow 234
flag on jumeirah beach, dubai 67
flooded dinghy 15
ford pickup truck 82
fortified 205
friday harbor 126
frost on my car 51
garage door shadows 20
garage sale 9 to 4 53
gasworks park, seattle 90
a giraffe and a school bus 43
goalposts, camano island 32
a grilled cheese 86
gulls in flight, puget sound 211
gumball-size hail, denver 76
half a critter 151
happy hour 136
have a weird day 92
headline in a gutter, nyc 186
heels on subway station floor 188
heels on white 190
heidi, camano island 169
i had no idea 187
i heart bbq 146
i would pluck the eyebrows 170
icicles, park city 149
if i only had that new ‘bread’ application 175
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ignore the camera 132
independent celebration 219
industrial complex 232
institutional apartments, denver 24
into the world 230
inverted icicles 33
inverted stopsigns, boulder 196
inverted sunset 218
it’s a bird 46
it’s a plane 47
jetway, frankfurt 208
jetway, palm springs 214
just looked down and noticed this, nyc 150
just missing one letter 156
kate on a rail 100
kevin 139
korean air flight attendants 69
l’étranger 99
lamp shadow on sidewalk 237
laser light show, o’hare 58
less is the new black 21
little to do with photography 114
lloyd 138
looking down on uplights 216
looks like the midwest 122
lost the other day 184
lotus frog 80
louvers 206
mailbox perspective 34
man on unicycle 91
manimal 140
mario and scott, new zealand 231
mercedes with a rolling shutter 212
the midwest 123
minivan 130
montlake bridge, seattle 59
more than a project 194
most interesting subjects 36
mostly old deck 23
mostly snowy bench 22
mount index 116
moving walkway, tokyo 68
mustache karaoke 144
nappy hour 137
narrow alley with barbed wire, nyc 192
neighborhood watch 154
neon lights, o’hare 17
no digging 94
noisy silence, chile 13
nude french model 78
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on approach, somewhere in alaska 127
on my back in a hotel lobby 71
painfully long lines 124
paper delivery 162
parking lot, seattle 157
party 226
pictures tell stories 222
pimp my shopping cart 40
place of origin, seattle 159
play 168
post match exodus 7
power outage, chile 135
prickle 74
prisoner, dubai 223
raindrop reflection 55
random outside mirror 163
recycling 235
red pulley 220
retinal scan, los angeles 224
a robot may not injure a human being 143
royal mirage on a down day, dubai 181
running man, frankfurt 198
running man, nyc 199
rusty blades of grass 25
saba, nyc 191
sculpture i’ve created 177
sea foam 221
seawall 112
see and study my world 10
selected as america’s best beer in 1893 182
serial killer van 131
service station, salt lake city 103
shoot 240
shoot a hell of a lot 204
shopping cart fossil, dubai 64
simple 153
skylight reflecting on an amber pool 14
snail on a planter box 56
snowy roads, minneapolis 16
something seductive 161
southern alps mountain pass, nz 128
spectrum 96
speed limit 50
stained glass window, sea-tac airport 60
stoic cow, kona 81
straight, minneapolis 85
street lamp by day, nyc 48
street lamp by night, seattle 49
street perspective 35
stuck indoors 166
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stumbled upon a conehead 171
summer studio lunch 183
sunfish 88
sunlight saddle 165
suspension bridge caution, chile 129
swine, kurtwood farms 9
taxidermy eagle with venetian blinds 37
tea lights 207
ten great pictures 147
tells half the story 213
thank you 241
the rules 210
the tallest building in the world, dubai 66
this is called a delineator post 4
tiny invention 72
touchdown, denver 125
toy car collection, juneau 42
traffic cone, nyc 77
train handles, san francisco 197
trashed, nyc 109
tree shadow on roadway 236
trickle 75
under the freeway, seattle 2
under the pier 87
unlucky, chicago 45
unsure which way is up 158
vegan donut 106
view from my hammock, seattle 11
vivian 174
walk it off 229
walking past a flowering hedge 97
walkway remains 111
warped world view 73
wexley school for girls, seattle 39
what’s the jackanory, nyc 134
wheat grass, san francisco 148
where my ideas come from 93
where’s the beef? 104
wilson range, telluride 115
wisdom 152
yellow road sign 27
yo 228
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