Working from home the whole week supporting the fight against the Corona virus by not leaving my home for no reason, I had to get out last weekend. After a rough few weeks - weather wise - Saturday morning I was woken up by a beautiful sun while Thor was as far away as he possible could: Blue sky, No Wind, Early spring-ish temperatures. Little side note: Before I could go into the streets, some white clouds entered the space above me again.

I wanted to go to a place of green, with no people. Difficult to find in a city - although a little one - but with some thinking effort I figured it shall be our Rembrandtpark: A long - kinda narrow - park at the border of my city centre, generally in use by dog owners, joggers, cyclists and the occasional recreative walker. Haven't been to this one for years; Perfect time and conditions to explore this part of my tiny city. Although I generally don't take camera's with me, I decided I will take the effort to shoot some pictures in order to test me new-ish smartphone with - supposedly - a much better lens, chip and software. The promise of this phone is that it can take photographs with depth, like any decent camera can do for more then a century.

Since I don't trust my phone screen to qualify if a photo is good enough - I simply need a larger screen to determine what shot I like best - I decided to bring home at least 2 to 4 photographs of the same, shot in slightly different ways. I hardly do this type of studies, and I must say: I was quite surprised when reviewing all the photographs at home. Note: for a real study, one may need to take dozens of stills, but I can't even classify myself as an amateur photographer, hence 2 to 4 stills are good enough for me :)

I know: Details matter when trying to make a good photograph, but I was surprised how big an influence the smallest changes can have.

Let me take you through some of the studies I made...

Both shot in panoramic mode; Such a big difference in colours and details! For both I didn't change anything regarding focal point, or other settings, just the tilt (first one tilts slightly higher) and the start/end points of the panoramic recording. I suppose the auto settings of the phone makes the difference in colour/contrast and other elements; Probably based on the starting point of the recording. I do like the blue-ish character of the second shot; But the first one I do like from a composition point of view. Would've loved to see one combining both.

The first one I took with standard format photo setting; While for the second one I used panoramic setting. Don't you feel the first photo is more open, gives a more free feeling compared to the second one? I do like the second one more; Firstly I like the sizing of the still better; Secondly I think the second one has a better harmony in the picture showing the wet/dark and green-ish areas in a better perspective. I should've tilted the camera a little bit more upwards though to increase the like factor.

Closeup photographs never were great with my previous phones, hence I didn't expected a lot. But I must say, I do very much like with my current phone is able to do; Proper depth; Great blurry backgrounds. Both shot in normal photograph mode with the only difference portrait versus landscape. I do like both of them, although the portrait one may give an extra value since the environment of the flower is shown better, although it also - somewhat - distracts our mind from the object of choice, the flower.

Three shots for which I - very consciously - tried to get the best angle. Not that I took the other photographs without thinking, but most of them I just took without thinking or changing my position too much. For this series I wanted to get a cool depth in the photo. Therefore my first one was with the cane at the foreground; Nice idea but failed miserably if I may criticise myself a little here :) Then the sun appeared - always good for photographs in nature - and took the second and third one. The way the tree is viewed from this angle, I thought it would be nice to have it not in the middle but at the right side of the photograph. But I guess, it should've been more to the right in the third photograph. From all three, I think I like the second one the most. But as with the previous 'series', I'm not very happy with any one of them. The mirroring of the tree in the water, is best in the third one, I think.

To finish this photographic study, I like to show you the impact of a wider shot versus a slightly zoomed shot. I took these shots because I liked the contrast of the cane and trees; Light versus Dark. In general I do like portrait shots of trees, but the second one - the landscape one - I do prefer much over the portrait one. Maybe this has to do with the larger and wider shot, revealing the surrounding of this setting more. Maybe it has to do with the different elements: In each quadrant of the photograph something happens, while in the first one the emphasis is - by far - more to the right side of the photograph.

All in all

I can safely conclude shooting great photographs is something that requires a lot of experience, and a lot of focus.

• Shooting Great Photographs is an Art: I need to learn a lot still!
• Details MATTER!
• Three photographs is not sufficient to get a single good one
• Auto settings can have major impact on colour, contrast and details
• Slight different angles can change the outcome dramatically
• Todays smartphones have great cameras, however nothing compared to the real deal

And You?

• What You Think?
• Any tips? Even the most basic ones are welcome

This article is written for the "Behind the Photo" contest run by @nelyp and @johan.norberg and sponsored by @appreciator to give context to our cameras results in order to induce a learning effects and entice engagement. Find the contest launch post here and the most recent (nr8 edition) contest post here.

Carpe Diem