I’m a portrait photographer.  I am obsessed with my Nikon FX and DX bodies and lens collection, but the majority of my memories are captured with my smartphone. In fact, most of what I post on my social media personal  pages are taken with my humble Iphone 5.  Surprised?  Don’t get me wrong, I do take a ton of pictures with my DSLR, but after a few years of toting that monster around, I just got tired of everything it took to actually see my memories, and how much I actually missed in the process (adjust the exposure, take the picture, convert file, sort, adjust, edit, put in a folder, print…hopefully sometime in the next 3 years).

 I told myself in 2014 after my daughter was born,  that I could be not just content, but thrilled with  the pictures that I take with my phone’s  camera, and I would be selective and discerning  in what I kept, posted, and printed. Now, of  course these don’t replace the pictures that I take  and have taken professionally (yearly family and  individuals, 1^st birthday, ect) and occasionally I do  still like to pull out the ‘ol DSLR to get some creative  shots that I just can’t get with my phone, but for the  everyday moments I like that I can just pull out my  phone, capture the moment, delete the blurry  pictures, and not miss a moment. Seriously, Life is  too short to miss those little moments  fussing  with some settings and JPEGS.  I  wanted to share  a little bit of the enlightenment I've come  across on the proper use of  a smartphone camera so  that you  can photograph  your kids, your family,  your dog, your Pinterest project, yourself,  your coffee and whatever else needs remembering with confidence!

Quite a few individuals have asked that I teach a class, but with my kid's schedule, I'm afraid this is the best I can do right now.  At first I wanted this to just be just one blog post, but after I started typing, I realized that just wasn’t going to cut it, and I’m pretty sure no one was interested in reading a Smartphone Photography Thesis, so I broke it into 7 mini posts ending with a 52 week challenge (clearly, you are not required to participate in the challenge to benefit from the information, but I hope you do, because it will give you a chance to practice all of this). I hope to post at least once a week on this subject.