Cell phones have changed photography, but the basics remain, regardless of one's equipment. They are composition and simple edits that every cell phone can perform. Only after learning those techniques should one consider moving on to advanced photo editing and videography.
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. | COMPOSITION is what makes Phil Vickery a great photographer. He is always looking for that unique image and/or exceptional picture that tells a complete story. (Phil took Mt. Fuji from a bullet train window.) Next, he uses only the basic editing tools in his iPhone to adjust color, brightness, and contrast, none of the advanced stuff. He often takes a dozen snapshots but keeps only one good photo, and doesn't show us numerous versions of the same idea. |
SESSION #1:
This tutorial, The 15 Elements of Photography Composition (31), is a bit lengthy but covers all the essential concepts of photo composition.The second tutorial, Photo Editing for Beginners – 9 Simple Steps to Improve Your Photos (24), covers the basic photo editing steps for both cell phones and desktops. Study the techniques and not the software.
Homework:
Use the Cells to read and watch tutorials on how to use photo editing on the iPhone and Pixel.
Before getting into the advanced tutorials for Photo Editing and Video Editing read the content in the BACKGROUND. It explains why I have selected the YouTube tutorials.
SESSION #2: ADVANCED PHOTO EDITING
Click on the PHOTO tab to watch two Photopea tutorials. Included are two optional courses for anyone's homework.
The session also includes a video tutorial about Photo files.
SESSION #3: VIDEO EDITING
Learn the tools from YouTube tutorials. DaVinci is a professional-class tool for visual and audio editing, and it's FREE. Click on the VIDEO tab to start the tutorials. Both an abridged and full tutorial are included, plus optional homework.
The session also includes a video tutorial about Video files.
Homework:
Create "video snippets" and "stills" via a cell phone. Capturing a video snippet on a cell phone is as easy as taking snapshots. Please use landscape format (preferably 16:9) rather than portrait (ugh).
As an auxiliary tool, use VideoProc Converter AI to “scrape” any video on a desktop and save the results as MP4s. Drop them into and edit them into DaVinci story. It costs a few bucks, but it is well worth it.
SESSION #4: AUDIO EDITING
Use FREE Audacity to fetch music, commentary, and personal annotations for a DaVinci story. Here is an AUDIO tutorial.Use ChatGPT to find FREE (non-Royalty) music, images, and videos. Before ChatGPT, I had to spend hours looking for this stuff.
