10 Examples of Street Photography Taken with an iPhone

The subject of this week’s Mobiography Flickr group showcase looks at 10 examples of iPhone street photography. All the images this week include people portraits, some at close quarters and others as they enter the scene.

From David Ingraham’s black and white ‘Deep in the Canyon’ to street portrait’s by Clay Benskin, all the images featured in this weeks showcase make good use of interesting compositions and contrast in order to draw the viewers eye to the subjects in question.

This week’s featured photographers include Lee Atwell, David Ingraham, Luison, Rob Pearson-Wright, Clay Benskin, Shel Serkin and Alejandro Cendan Rodriguez.

Let us know if you have a favourite and in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

The Hat

‘The hat‘ by Lee Atwell – “I was inspired to take the photo at this location because of the interesting shape of the shadow. It was a great surprise to have the pedestrian walk into the photo wearing such an interesting hat – that mirrors the shape of the shadow. I used the Hipstamatic app with Lincoln Lens + BlacKeys XF Film.”

Deep in the Canyon

‘Deep in the Canyon‘ by David Ingraham – “The band I play with was doing a gig up in San Francisco a few months ago and I had an hour or so to go shooting before sound check. The great thing about a city like San Fran is you don’t have to wander far to find interesting subject matter. If you’re hotel is in the center of town, all you have to do is step out the front door.

I was on my way back to the hotel when I noticed a little island/median that split the street into two. It had a crosswalk in front of it so it made for a perfect shooting spot: buildings on both sides with people walking directly in front of me –all I had to do was crouch down, wait and shoot.

I try and avoid the fedora “hat man” due to the fact that Koci Hernandez owns him at this point – it’s become his trademark. But sometimes the best shot out of many will happen to involve a hat man, and that’s when I just surrender to the best shot, despite the feeling that I’m copying Koci a bit.

There was a little more involved with this shot than meets the eye: the sky in the original shot was almost entirely blown out with no detail or any real interest. David Alan Harvey says “when in doubt, leave the sky out”. I decided to take that further and add a more interesting sky in editing. The following day, while walking to the supermarket with my girlfriend in Paso Robles, I saw this interesting cloud formation and shot it with this image in mind, later blending it in using the app ‘Image Blender’. In the world of photojournalism or even traditional street photography, this would be breaking the “rules”. But in art, there are no rules, and art is ultimately what I’m trying to create with my work, so I usually toss most rules out the window and just let my imagination run the show.”

Maybe a hard day…

‘Maybe a hard day…‘ by Luisón – “I was crossing the Tevere river to arrive to the center of Rome. The view was just superb. There was a strong sunlight, although the sky was very cloudy. I saw this man approaching, he seemed to be worried somehow. I just waited for him to pass by me and shot.

This is the kind of street photography I love, people´s expressions, captured as close as possible. This photo was shot with a iphone 6, using Hipstamatic (Jane lens + BlacKey supergrain film), and just using Snapseed to crop the frame and slightly sharpen the image.”

Very Normal People

‘Very Normal People‘ by Luisón – “I was standing beside this woman, waiting to cross the road. I was attracted by that necklace on her head, the coat, and those lips which seemed to be somehow tight, under pressure. Again I used using Hipstamatic (Jane lens + BlacKey supergrain film), and just using Snapseed to crop the frame and slightly sharpen the image.”

Freestyle snacking

‘Freestyle snacking‘ by Rob Pearson-Wright – “I noticed this guy on the side of a pavement, munching down a sandwich in the sunlight. He had a certain sense of character and a rockabilly look. I got close to him for more detail and composed the shot on the iPhone screen squinting from the corner of my eye, pretending to make a call besides him. As he took a bite, I took my shot. Even though he looks like he’s looking straight at me, I’m sure he was looking directly past at something behind me which gives the image a feeling of contact between him and the lens. I decided to edit this in colour as a concerted effort to try to introduce more colour in my work this year. Although I did do a black and white version first as habit dictates. I liked how the colour edit popped out of the screen more than the black and white version and so I felt happy to post this edit.

Firstly I used Snapseed to tweak the brightness, contract and warmth. I also cropped the image to cut out some street furniture that I didn’t feel added to the composition. Then I used BigLens to create the shallow depth of field effect with the guy as my subject. Finally, I played around with the basic presets on VSCO cam as an experiment and found that the G3 preset seemed to give the image a little extra something which made it pop out of the screen.”

Untitled

‘Untitled‘ by Clay Benskin

Untitled

‘Untitled‘ by Clay Benskin

Theresa

‘Theresa‘ by Shel Serkin

Mags

‘Mags‘ by Shel Serkin

Arcturus

‘Arcturus‘ by Alejandro Cendan Rodriguez

Which was your favourite?

Do you have a favourite from this weeks selection? Let us know your thoughts on the featured photos in the comments below.

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