Photo Friday :: Best of 2006

"Seaweed" is my favorite of the year. "Seaweed" was previously posted here at Black Phoebe and at Around Ireland back on Aug. 27, 2006 from the beach at Burtonport, Co. Donegal, Ireland, but is getting trotted out again as my favorite photo that I took this year with my camera phone.

To me this photo is a great example of why I love camera phone photography, constraints and all. Yes, my Nokia N80 has a 3 megapixel Karl Zeiss lens and so I am able to capture good high resolution photos, but I would not have been able to take this photo easily and without changing the environment around the seaweed with my Nikon FM-3A SLR camera or a big digital SLR.

I noticed this clump of seaweed in the tidal zone, I leaned over, put my camera phone on level with the seaweed, snap!, moblogged it to this site and Around Ireland right then, and when I viewed it in a browser a couple of days later, wow! I was able to leave the beach with nothing more than a few footprints and a great moblogged photo.

The more I moblog from my camera phone, the more I love the immediacy of deciding which shot is to be blogged right as the photos are taken rather than downloading them to my computer and photoshopping them into perfection before posting them. I like the constraint of no on board / on phone photo editor. What you see is what you get. Unaltered. Unfiltered.

Either I get the composition, the light, and the subject right at the time of snapping the photos, or I don't. Camera phone photography and moblogging the photos within 5 minutes or so, has forced me to hone my eye and decision making process.

My other favorite moblogged photos from 2006 and 2005 can be found at this flickr photoset. Thank you to my beloved Nokia N80.