Who could have thought that iPhone camera can be of any use? I gave up on it loooooong time ago. It’s not a camera. It’s a joke. Pure frustration. But I used to comfort myself with a thought that it wasn’t that important, in the end even phones with more superior cameras make rather mediocre pictures.

From time to time I came across galleries of ‘cool iPhone photography’, but either shots were made in quite a perfect environment and good lighting, or required quite an extensive editing or were not that awesome at all.

So I just said to myself: don’t bother. And I didn’t. Until the moment a few days ago my work mate introduced me to an app, which changed everything.  It is called ShakeItPhoto and you can get it from the iTunes. It is everything I need for just £0.59 (well, iPhone is not included :).

So what exactly do I need? Ideally it’s a gadget, small enough, so I could carry it around with me at all times, which wouldn’t intimidate anyone if I point with it at them and which would be capable of taking pictures of some artistic value. I don’t need my everyday pictures to be of outstanding quality, but to capture the mood of the moment. Yes, my DSLR can take great photos, but lately I have been even considering taking it with me when going on holidays. Cause it’s BIG and heavy. I also don’t have guts to point it at some stranger’s face. It just gets too much attention. On the other hand, phone is just perfect for this.

One more thing. I have quite a fascination with retro photography with it’s offset colours, occasional blurriness, lack of focus, with its imperfectness. Just like our life is - imperfect.

So here we are, I got it all now with ShakeItPhoto.

It’s a simple app. As a mater of fact it’s so simple that it does pretty much just one task. And this is exactly why I love it. It takes photos in a polaroid style. You point, you shoot, and… that’s it. It adds just one filter and the frame. Brilliant!

What also great about this app is that it’s a great fun to use. It takes time to ‘develop’ the photo and you can even shake ‘the picture’, just like the real thing. There is also always a bit of luck factor involved, which again, is what you get with an instant photography.

The first few days after I installed it, I just went crazy and took ,probably, hundreds of pictures, but they were mostly about what I saw at work or on my way to/from work. Naturally I ran out of things of interest, so settled down a bit, but still remain quite enthusiastic. I really feel like it brought the joy of everyday life photography back into my life and encourages me to experiment more and not just run through my life, but stop and have a look around and notice little things, to see the beauty in details.

These are just a few shots I did lately (I have also converted those few pictures I already had on my iPhone, which for me were DOA, but now they look great). I also started a new set on Flickr and constantly update it with a new material. Definitely go and check!

It would be a lie to say the app is perfect. The navigation is not particularly intuitive for the user, even for such a simple app - there is an extra step to get to the image folder, and the button which leads there says ‘Cancel’ (must be default interface used, but that does no make a lot of sense); it would be much better if the whole screen was a Shoot button, not just that tiny little one; and, probably the worst of it all, it crashes occasionally, while processing the picture and you can never recover that shot. But the app got a great feedback from other users and a warm reception so I hope the developer will continue to work on its flaws.

It also helps to have iPhone 3G with a letter S with its much much better focusing. I saw few shots and they were beautifully crisp (can’t get that with my phone).

One last thing. Of course there are tons of other similar apps in the Apple store, free or more advanced, and you should feel free to try them, but exactly the simplicity of ShakeItPhoto is what attracts me. Having said that, I would really recommend you to download an amazing Mill Colour app for a more advanced colour correction. It’s free and I use it sometimes on a picture before taking it to the ShakeItPhoto. They work really well in tandem.

Posted on Sunday, November 15th, 2009 at 3:57 am under Apple, Creative, General.
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