When visiting Paris earlier this month, like I usually do, I spent an evening with photographer-artist Kevin Abosch and his family. Kevin has become a dear friend over past couple of years. Kevin very well knows that I love taking photos with my iPhone and I actually have been trying to take more black-and-white photos. During the course of festivities, Kevin installed an app on my iPhone — Lenka App.
Lenka does one thing — take black and white photos in an atmospheric style that is Kevin’s own style of taking photos. The app has automatic focus and exposure features, so you can’t really do much. You can take a photo and if you don’t like it, you can take it again. The only choice you have as a photographer — normal or high contrast. I prefer normal and the photos look pretty awesome. Lenka costs $2.99, which might seem steep to those who want more from their B&W apps. I like mine basic and simple. I have been clicking away with Lenka already. I wish the photos were sharper and were higher resolution that what is the default. (Update: Kevin tells me that I am using an alpha version which doesn’t support full resolution offered by iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s.
Kevin, who designed and coded the app, doesn’t think of writing apps as his main job — his lucrative photography career is going great guns — but he is a believer in the iPhoneography. I personally would love to see him offer more presets — portraits, kids, scenery and objects. I would pay for those any day.
Abosch’s efforts are very akin to Cole Rise’s Litely, which too is based on his specific photo presets. It had received a fair amount of attention at launch, but you truly appreciate the presets once you have taken a few 100 photos with Litely. It is already on the first screen of my iPhone 5. A lot of photographers have massive social media following and the app-economy is offering artists, whether they are photographers or digital/visual manipulators, a chance to create a new source of income.
Here are some photos I took with Lenka.
Thanks for the article. Decades ago, in my Canon AE-1 days, I’d take black & white photos almost exclusively because it was easy to develop them and ‘print’ them. I’d love it if the app would support digital color filters. That would really bring back memories of manipulating the shades of gray…
Reblogged this on who is brianjonesfrancis ? and commented:
ahhh, that’s what we call it – iPhoneography. Anyways, here is an iPhone app for taking black and white shots – looks interesting,