Before my recent trip to Amsterdam my husband and Tech Support bought me an iPhone. I believe his hope was that I may ACTUALLY use this cell phone and it wouldn’t end up long forgotten in the basket where all other cell phones have gone to die.
Taking it from my husband with the same unsure expression I give him whenever he presents me with a new technological challenge, but inside I was thinking….”GREAT, another over priced cell phone”.
There has been great concern by friends and family lately for my safety on my wanders alone about the streets and forests of Europe. I vowed to remember to keep this one charged and on my person always…knowing full well that when presented with the choice of carrying extra memory cards/film and dog treats OR the phone…the former would most definitely win out. But I promise to try to remember it’s importance.
There I sat in the tightly packed car, my role as nagivator recently taken over by a lovely soft voiced European woman on the GPS, (she btw never gets yelled at for holding the map upside down)…I checked my gear yet again…CAMERAS…check. Ah, well I thought..perfect timing to check out my new gadget.
In the many different things offered by the iphone’s applications, I discovered the camera setting and well…being a photographer, it was the first to be really explored. Selecting camera I held it up to the subject for the first time… with no expectation of actually being able to create a decent image with this “brick-like” device. “SNAP” I consistently pointed and shot the beautiful German landscape speeding past my car window, (I am known for shooting constantly while riding in a car…keeps me from being an endless flow of back seat driver dialogue…thus saving my marriage). “SNAP” again…Luxembourg flew by…next thing I knew…we were in the rich forests of the Ardennes in Belgium.
The trip to Brussels, our first stop along the way seemed to fly by in moments. I was astonished by what this simple camera was able to capture and all with one click of a button. I had found my 4th new addition to my camera family. Simply said…I found now a reason WHY to have this device with me…perhaps not for the security everyone wished, but at least it will be with me. THOUGH we have discovered I tend to run the battery out using the phone as a camera constantly…and for the first few weeks missed every call due to the fact I had the ringer off and was too busy playing stealth camera girl than to figure out why it never rang. BUT in my defense…it is on me…but back to the adventure.
Once I hit the busy streets of Amsterdam…armed with my myriad of cameras, digital and analogue…I decided to give the iphone a whirl. It was here that my camera took on a life of it’s own. The images it was producing seemed to be straight from the “coffee houses” that lined many streets here….could it be my camera was having the “REAL” Amsterdam Experience? Why had it not bothered to share a brownie or two with me….it sure did give the name “Brownie” camera a new twist.
Well, I hope you enjoy the adventure for yourself but in the meanwhile I have created a slideshow of iphone images to share with you.

by lthek
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