I remember watching one of the iPhone keynotes and hearing this quote by Phil Schiller “The Best Camera is the one you have with you”. Those words stayed with me and I would often think about them as time passed. As a child, I discovered I had a talent for fine art, I could draw and would spend most of my time drawing comics in the class room. In college I also ventured into fashion design, leveraging my artistic talents to create unique images and patterns hand painted on T-shirts and hoodies. I am a Technologist by profession, but a creative at heart and have finally connected the dots that have lead me to photography.

I view photography as art, just like drawing or painting. In my mind it’s the easiest way to paint a picture. If you draw portraits or paint landscapes you can eliminate all the brushstrokes with the click of a button granted the same rules apply, composition, light/shade, clarity etc. Now the iPhone is the reason I fell in love with photography, once I discovered all the Photo editing apps which actually made editing photos really easy I was hooked. This was the first picture I took with my iPhone 3G in 2008 that changed my life. I loved it so much I was hooked.

I would go on Facebook and download my friends photos and edit them creating a before and after album and the feedback I got was great. As time went on I would look for reasons to take pictures, I started biking 2 years ago and would use that as a reason to take pictures. Whenever I ran into something that looked interesting or a place I had never been before I would find a way to incorporate my bike into the picture and take a photo. This was one of the best times I had with Photography and was really glad my iPhone was always there to capture the moment.

I feel the mistake people make is thinking your camera is responsible for great pictures. I was at a birthday event and took a picture, the person sitting beside me leaned over, looked at the image and said “Wow, your camera takes great pictures” I laughed and said “Because the camera is floating around taking pictures by itself right?” If I never heard that quote I would always just assume a picture wasn't worth taking because I didn't own a DSLR or have one on me. These Phones we have in our pockets are capable of so much and are able to produce really good images with minimal effort or understanding of photography technicalities. I believe anyone new to photography should embrace the smart phone as a great learning tool and try to make every shot they take with it meaningful and the moment you get your DSLR you would have already built a strong foundation for composition and post processing at the very least. Below are a few of my favorites taken years ago. As always “Happy shooting”.