14 Superb 'Into the Distance' Inspired Smartphone Photos

The theme of last week’s Mobiography Photo Challenge was ‘Into the Distance’. The photos submited to this challenge show how different photographers have approached this subject. While some have used leading lines and perspective to convey the idea of distance, others have used the weather conditions and awesome landscape vistas to convey this theme.

Featured photographers this week include; Ann Hecht, Joseph Cyr, Arturo Lopez, Arkadiusz Durczewski, @bertie_iphonephotography, Georgina Collins, Charles Read, Laurence Bouchard, @photodjbe, Debbie Rawson, Renee Clark, Elaine Taylor, Evelyne Sieber, and Zoya Zen.

Take part in next week’s showcase challenge

The theme of the next Mobiography Showcase Challenge will be ‘Beautiful World’. For this challenge think about sharing your best mobile photos which convey the idea of a ‘Beautiful World’. Think landscape photography, nature, and portraits.

To enter the challenge simple start sharing your best images on the theme of ‘Beautiful World’ that were taken and edited with a smartphone by using the hashtag #mobiography_challenge_35 on Instagram.

The best ones will be featured in next weeks showcase, so get sharing now.

Join the Mobiography Facebook Group

Mobiography has just setup a Facebook Group as a place where the Mobiography community can chat and interact, share your photos, ideas, tips and news. Head over to Facebook and join the group, introduce yourself, share some of your images, and leave some comments on other people’s photos.

Join The Mobiography Facebook Group

Black and white days

‘Black and white days‘ by Ann Hecht – “The tiny dot in the distance is Sophie the spaniel. Her wandering paw prints lead the eye to the tiny person. I decided to convert to black and white in order to emphasize the prints. All editing was done in Snapseed. Snapseed is not working at all today. Devastation!”

Into the distance

‘Into the distance‘ by Joseph Cyr – “I’ve been to Sedona, Arizona several times, and during each visit, a highlight for me is being able to go for an early morning run among the junipers and red rocks, watching the remarkable landscape come to life at dawn. The combination of evergreens, cacti, and startlingly colorful geology is a balm for the eyes. I took this back when I still had my iPhone 6s, using snapseed to balance the exposure.”

L i g h t s p o t

‘L i g h t s p o t‘ by Arturo Lopez – “This photo is a composition performed with Enlight Photofox of two independent ones: a shot of a tunnel with stairs taken from a low point of view, where the eyes are pushed to the sky, and a plane… cut and pasted to be intentionally in this interesting position.”

Aljezur

‘Aljezur‘ by Arkadiusz Durczewski – “This photo was taken in Aljezur, a beautiful and wild place, at the very bottom of high rocks. In Aliezur and around are some of the most beautiful views I have seen. Edited in instagram only.”

Großer Feldberg

‘Großer Feldberg‘ by @bertie_iphonephotography

‘Every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance’ – Nikola Tesla

‘Every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance – Nikola Tesla‘ by Georgina Collins – “I’ve always wanted to get an image of train tracks, I’ve seen other photos of them and they always look stunning. I love how the tracks disappearing into the distance create mystery, as you don’t know where they end their journey. I was out with friends on a summer day and we came across some train tracks surrounded by fields, they were still in use as when we were there a long cargo train went by, I took the opportunity when the tracks were clear to step onto them and finally capture the image I’d been wanting to capture for sometime. I wanted to capture from a low angle as then the tracks would be elongated and disappear into the background. I edited the image using my iPhone and an app called Snapseed. I altered exposure levels and increased saturation to make the tracks stand out from their surroundings. I’m very pleased with how it turned out and it’s given me encouragement to go out and capture more amazing moments.”

The Long Wait

‘The Long Wait‘ by Charles Read – “The day after President Trump was inaugurated, millions of people showed up in protest at marches all over the US. It was slow going in Manhattan – two hours to move just a few blocks, and then another three hours to march the rest of the route (about three miles in all) through city streets on a path traced by well over a half a million marchers. But even with the slow going, it was worth every minute.

The city”s north-south thoroughfares – here, Second Avenue looking north – offered vistas stretching seemingly as far as the eye could see, with the faces and crowds giving such beautiful scale to these streets as they stretched into the distance.

And yet today, 18 months later, there is so much work still to be done.

Shot on iPhone 6s in BNW using Blackieapp, with cropping and fine tuning in Snapseed.”

Scratching the surface

‘Scratching the surface‘ by Laurence Bouchard – “‘Scratching the surface’ was shot in King’s Cross subway tunnel on the 1st March 2018. It was around the time of the ‘Beast from the East’ and it was absolutely freezing – I thought my fingers were gonna drop off!

It’s such a cool location and I’d been wanting to shoot there for ages. I spent about 30 mins shooting – trying to shoot it from as many different angles as I could. The best shots came from a puddle on the floor which gave a cool reflection of the tunnel’s black and white lines and the silhouettes of people in the distance. I then made a few tweaks in Snapseed.”

Highway to… Church⠀

‘Highway to… Church‘ by @photodjbe – “This was taken this year in May in Iceland (Ingjaldshól). That day there was exceptionally hard wind. So no DSLR and even with the smartphone it was a challenge to take sharp pictures. As soon as we got on that road leading towards the church, I knew I needed to take that picture. How many streets do you know with at the end (of a straight road slightly going up) a church? I also like the vertical black part in combination with the horizontal white/grey/blue.

I hate PhotoShop and prefer to spend time trying to make pictures that don’t need PS. Consequently I also hate VSCO (the equivalent of PS for pictures taken with the smartphone). The only thing I did was darken the picture a little bit so that the church became more visible and also increased the contrast between black and white.”

Keep looking straight ahead

‘Keep looking straight ahead‘ by Debbie Rawson – “This was taken when my husband and I traveled to Yellowstone and the Tetons. I wanted a picture to emphasize the majestic mountains ahead of us as we were heading in that direction. That scenery and area is just magnificent. This was taken on my iPhone 7+ and edited and converted to bnw via Snapseed. “

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

‘Rothenburg ob der Tauber‘ by Renee Clark – “This shot was taken with my iPhone 8 and edited in Snapseed with a bit of straightening, cropping, and tuning of color and contrast. I was on a short, whirlwind trip to Europe to visit my daughter who was studying abroad. We were on an early morning exploration of this beautiful walled city in search of coffee. The pastels and light sprinkling of snow felt like a confectionary dream complete with powdered sugar streets.”

Charlie and Billy on Blackpool beach

‘Charlie and Billy on Blackpool beach‘ by Elaine Taylor – “This is day 99 of my 365 Hipstamatic photo project for this year. I had made a last minute decision to take my boys, Charlie and Billy, to the amusements in Blackpool on that morning. They both absolutely love rides – the bigger/faster the better! We’d had a crazy couple of hours on the rides then decided to have a break and eat lunch on the beach. What a pleasant surprise to find we had the beach to ourselves (or so I thought!). I took a few shots of Charlie and Billy as they were running around, messing about and chatting. I had time to position myself for this shot while they were looking at something on Charlie’s phone. I was so focused on getting the composition of the boys and the pier to my liking, that I hadn’t noticed the tiny person in the distance who appears to be balanced on Charlie’s phone.

I captured this with my iPhoneX through Hipstamatic (Jack London / Irom 2000). No exciting editing process to share – I simply played around with different lens/film combos and made some minor adjustments once I found one I liked.”

Untitled

‘Untitled‘ by Evelyne Sieber

Cold sea

‘Cold sea‘ by Zoya Zen – “This shot was done while walking along the seaside in Odessa, Ukraine. After a few hours of walking we looked for a place to stop and have a coffee from our thermocups. And then we found this place on the precipice with this breathtaking view on the wild beach where this girl was. We were fascinated by the view and she was hypnotized by waves. All I had to do is to press down the camera button.”

Don’t forget…

The best ones will be featured in next weeks showcase, so get sharing now.

If you haven’t already done so, follow Mobiography on Instagram and hashtag your photos with #mobiography. Don’t forget to sign up to the Mobiography email list to get the latest news and updates direct to your inbox.