Photos taken with the camera app on the iPhone have become sort of an art form, typically referred to as iPhoneography. It’s not that the iPhone camera is superior to other mobile camera apps; rather, it's the assortment of artistic processing apps that make iPhone images unique, and sort of a genre of their own.

Not all images taken with the iPhone can put into the iPhoneography category, so what does an iPhoneographic image look like?

The Best Camera

My introduction to iPhoneography was probably based on Chase Jarvis’s iPhone camera app, The Best Camera, and his website of the same name. The app is not free, but his site displays images that incorporate one or more of the dozen filters in the app, that enhance and transform iPhone images.

the art of iphoneography

BestCamera.com showcases tens of thousands of images users upload to the site from within the app. The subjects of shots vary (e.g. animals, cars, shoes, buildings signs, trees) and shots are processed using exposure and contrast filters to darken or lighten images, as well as an application of warming, vignetting, and other filters to give the images a more artistic style.

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iPhoneography.com

iPhoneography.com, started back in late 2008, is a blog site featuring news and reviews of free and paid iPhone camera apps, tutorials, books, and iPhone camera accessories, such as Fisheye Lens case and Camera Plus Pro. His blog also features a fine collection of iPhoneographeres showcasing their work though video slideshows posted on YouTube.

iphoneography

The iPhoneography site and camera app, which we reviewed here, is an extremely popular and growing collection of iPhone images. While you can view Instagram images within the application, there's no dedicated website for those images. But you can use a new site called Wallgram to download sets of images and display them on your iPhone or iPad.

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The "Recent Popular" stream of photos display some of what is voted the best iPhoneography from users of the applications.

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iPhoneography Flickr Groups

Flickr.com includes over a dozen popular iPhoneography groups, including Through the Lens of an iPhone, Life in LoFi: iPhoneography, iPhoneography (with close to 6,000 members), and fotogriPhone, an "iPhoneography lab" learning and sharing the photo processing of iPhone images. Each group includes useful discussion threads about iPhone camera processing and the art of iPhone photography.

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The Art of iPhoneography

Award winning photographer and author, Stephanie C. Roberts, has recently created a companion site to her book of the same name. In addition to her blog which discusses her work, she includes links to the individual sites of the nine photographers whose artistic iPhone images were featured in her book. Each of the contributors have galleries of some of the best artistic iPhone photo images around.

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iPhoneography Showcase vol.01

iPhoneography Showcase vol. 01 a iPhone and iPad slideshow app that features hundreds of images by The iPhoneography User Group Japan, and photographers who posted to the group's Facebook site. The shots vary widely in subject matter, and all manner of photo processing are used by the photographers.

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365 Per Day iPhone Project

Photographer Michael Sutton completed an iPhone photo per day last year, and his work is exemplary in depicting the art of iPhone photography. Completing such a challenge is seriously easy, but nearly every image in his collection depicts the art of iPhone photography.

the art of iphoneography

His images were created using one or more of over 80 iPhone camera apps, including 3D Camera, Darkslide, Genius, Hipstamatic, PS Express, and CP Pro.

Of notable mention are photographers Colin Vincent of iPhoneography.org and photographer Dixon Hamby who produced five self-published books of his iPhoneography work. Previews of his books can be seen on his Blurb.com profile page.

What you will notice in the all the works of these photographers is that they just don't snap pictures. Many of the finest pieces of iPhoneography are based on the art of good composition, interesting subject matter, and of course experimentation with post processing. Based on the work I've seen through these sites, I'm sure iPhoneography will not be just a fad. It will have a strong tradition that will get even better as the iPhone camera and related apps improve.

Let us know what you think of iPhoneography. If you have a selection of iPhoneography images, please share them with the readers of our site.

As for tips on taking better iPhone photos, check out these how-to articles: Take Better Pictures With Free Camera Plus and Learn Digital Camera Exposure Settings Using Your iPhone.