Author Archives: Experiment Station

Capturing the Perfect iPhone Photograph

Posted on by

Did you know your iPhone is capable of taking professional quality photos? Here are some settings and techniques that will instantly improve your iPhone photos. We hope you’ll put your photo skills to the test with our upcoming July 1-31 Frank Stewart-inspired Photo-a-Day challenge. Follow @phillipscollection and share your results with us using #PhillipsPhotoChallenge!

iPHONE SETTINGS

Turn on the Grid
Grid lines are key for photo composition. They help you level the horizon, center the subject, and balance your photos.

Mirror Front Camera for Better Selfies
While you’re in settings, switch on “Mirror Front Camera” so your selfies will turn out how they appear when you press the shutter (and aren’t flipped).

Turn on “Grid” and “Mirror Front Camera” in your camera settings

Set the Focus
Look for interesting colors, textures, and patterns in your subject and shoot them up close. To set the focus on your subject, simply frame your shot, then tap the screen where you want the camera to focus. A yellow box will appear to indicate the focus area.

Use the yellow square to help focus your image

Adjust the Exposure
After you tap the screen to set the focus, you’ll see a yellow box and a sun. Hold your finger on the sun and drag up for more light to make your image brighter. Drag the sun down for less light to make your photograph darker.

Slide the sun icon up and down to change the exposure

Get Closer Instead of Zooming In
Zooming in degrades the quality of your photograph. If you want more of the subject in the photo, take a few steps closer. Or take the full scene and then crop your image later.

Use the Leveling Tool (+) for Overhead Shots
Trying to take a photo of your picturesque meal? Go for a bird’s eye view with an overhead shot. When you hold your phone above your subject, two plus signs (one yellow, one white) will appear on your screen. When the two + line up and turn into one yellow +, your camera is level.

Use the leveling tool to straighten your shot

Use Portrait Mode for Portraits
Portrait mode has features to add depth to your photos. You can add more focus to your subject by blurring the background. To use Portrait Mode, open your camera and swipe over to “Portrait.” Tip: make sure you’re standing far enough away from the subject (the screen will tell you) and tap the screen where you want it to focus.

The f-stop decides how much the background is blurred in a Portrait Mode shot. To do this, go to Camera > Portrait Mode > “f” in the top right corner of your screen. From there you can slide left and right to find the right amount of blur you want. Tip: You can also change this after you take the photo!

In Portrait Mode, f-stop turned all the way up on the left has a sharp background, compared to the blurry background in the right where f-stop is turned all the way down

Use the Timer Mode for Steady Shots
Sometimes using your thumb to tap the shutter button can make the camera shake at just the moment you’re taking the picture. In addition to using the timer mode for a no-hands selfie, you can use it for any shot to keep both hands on the phone when the shutter opens. Check the top of your camera screen for the timer icon!

0.5x vs 1.0x vs 2x
To use the widest lens, tap 0.5 (at the bottom of your photo screen). Tap 1.0x if you want to capture a scene that has a moderately wide field of view. And if your phone has it, 2x is your telephoto lens.

The 1x lens on the top shows a tighter crop than the 0.5x lens on the bottom

COMPOSITION TIPS

Shift Your Perspective
Try taking photos from outside your regular standing or sitting position. You can shoot your subject from up high or down low. Taking a photo from a slightly higher position is flattering for your subjects. Shooting from a lower angle is great for a few reasons: It makes your photo look intriguing by showing a unusual perspective. If you’re outside, it also shows your subject with nothing but sky in the background, which makes your subject stand out. It can also show interesting details in the foreground.

Try a low angle to capture foreground details

Create Depth
Use leading lines in your composition like roads, paths, railway tracks, rivers, and fences. At the beach, you can use the water’s edge or ripples in the sand. Compose your photo so the lines lead from the foreground into the distance. This draws the viewer into the scene.

Use leading lines in your composition to create depth

AFTER THE PHOTO

Editing your Photo
In addition to editing apps than can help clean up your photos and adjust the lighting, you can do plenty with the tools already on your phone. From the photo, click “Edit” in the top right corner and you’ll see a menu in the bottom. Play around with the magic wand and other features to get comfortable with what editing options you have. Below the photo you’ll see options like “Studio Light,” “Contour Light,” “Stage Light,” and more that will add professional studio light effects and make any photo look professional quality!

Straighten the Horizon
A straight horizon is key to a good composition. If you don’t quite get it as straight as you want it in the moment, you can open your photo and click edit. Then select the crop tool at the bottom and the first option is “straighten.” Slide your finger left and right to rotate the image just how you want.

Washington School for Girls Explore Self-Expression through Studio-Portraiture

Posted on by

Education Assistant Davinna Barkers-Woode used Frank Stewart’s work as inspiration to develop a studio portraiture workshop for the Washington School for Girls as part of the Focal Point: Shifting Perspectives through Photography student exhibition (on view through September 10).

Frank Stewart, Endangered Species: David Hammons (detail), 1981 (printed 2021), Gelatin silver print, 19 15/16 x 16 in., Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA, Purchased with the Lynne and Harold Honickman Fund for Photography, 2021

Last summer, I saw 7th and 8th-grade students from the Washington School for Girls blossom into their authentic selves during our time working together. This spring, meeting a new class of 6th graders reaffirmed the fulfillment I derive from my work in the Phillips’s Education Department. This project holds a special place in my heart for two reasons: the opportunity to dive deeper into Frank Stewart’s photographic process and the opportunity to foster the students’ self-expression by providing them with a way to capture themselves in this present moment forever. With these two things in mind, I developed a project that would give the students a foundational understanding of essential compositional elements in photography, such as perspective and viewpoint. Inspired by Frank Stewart’s masterful utilization of these elements to enhance the narratives of his travels and encounters, I sought to convey their significance to the students. For instance, in Endangered Species: David Hammons, Stewart skillfully employs an eye-level viewpoint to position the viewer directly in front of the model, fostering an intense and intimate encounter.

Through this example, the students learned how viewpoint plays a pivotal role in situating the audience in relation to the subject, influencing their perception and emotional connection. Following this, students were encouraged to experiment with different viewpoints, allowing them to discover the power of perspective in their image-making.

8th grade students experimenting with viewpoint using their iPhones

Mirrors and reflective surfaces are another unique component of Stewart’s artwork. These elements serve as conduits for expanding the perspectives within his photos, infusing them with depth and three-dimensionality.

Left: Frank Stewart, Self-portrait, Dominican Republic, 1986, Gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 in., Collection of the artist; Right: Frank Stewart, Ahmad Jamal, 2013, Inkjet print, 30 x 20 in., Collection of Sing Lathan and Bining Taylor

Drawing inspiration from this aspect, students were provided with mirrors and invited to play with perspective and explore the captivating possibilities of reflective surfaces. Through this activity, students honed their technical skills and deepened their understanding of how to add depth and space to a two-dimensional photograph.

6th Grade Maya S. Untitled

6th Grade Students being photographed

Most importantly, students reflected on self-expression and identified how they presented themselves to the world. Photographs of studio portraits in the Phillips’s permanent collection were incorporated into our lesson to facilitate this exploration. Students were invited to look closely at the facial expressions, poses, and even outfits of the individuals depicted, prompting them to question and interpret visual cues of their personalities. By showcasing how others utilize studio portraiture for self-expression, we dove into a thought-provoking conversation about how the students could authentically convey their unique personalities through their photographs. To further support this endeavor, Johnnies Flowers, a flower shop in DC, partnered with us and provided the 8th-grade students with flowers to create individualized bouquets that represented their personalities. 6th and 7th graders brought personal items that encapsulated their identities, facilitating a profound connection between their inner selves and the visual representations they aimed to create.

Left: 6th Grade Kaylee G., Feeling Myself; Right: 8th Grade Catherine J., My Season has Come to Bloom

With each click of the camera shutter, the students expanded their understanding of the transformative power of perspective and viewpoint. They realized that these choices could shape the narrative of their images, inviting viewers to experience the world through their eyes. They discovered the ability to infuse their photographs with depth and multidimensionality through reflective surfaces. Yet, this project was about more than technical proficiency or aesthetic prowess. It encouraged the students to embark on a journey of self-reflection and self-definition, capturing moments that authentically expressed their individuality and personal narratives.

8th grade students waiting to take their photos with their bouquets

Group photo of 6th grade students

Duncan Phillips Writings on Art

Posted on by

The new book Duncan Phillips Writings on Art (published by The Phillips Collection in association with Spring Publications, 2023) is the first gathering of these texts devoted exclusively to this essential side of the man who founded The Phillips Collection. The book was edited by Chief Curator Emeritus Klaus Ottmann, who shares some thoughts on the book.

The idea for putting together a collection of Duncan Phillips’s writings on art first came up during our initial conversations about the Phillips Centennial in 2021, as a way to honor Phillips and share some of our rich archives. Over several decades, Phillips wrote scores of books, articles, and addresses that reveal his views on art—his idiosyncratic collecting philosophy remains a guiding principle for the museum’s growing collection. He wrote about a wide range of topics, from an art-historical treatise on Giorgione to his evolving thoughts on his collection as it grew and shifted toward modern and contemporary art to catalogue essays on individual artists and editorials and articles for various art journals. I worked closely with Karen Schneider, the Phillips’s former Head Librarian, and Curator Sue Frank on selecting the texts; we could not have published his volume without Sue’s insightful and well-researched introduction. Among Phillips’s better known texts, such as “A Collection in the Making” and “The Artists Sees Differently,” there are many lesser known, yet equally compelling texts. One that I found especially interesting is “Art and the War,” published in June 1918, three months before the end of World War I, in The American Magazine of Art.

In his 1918 article Phillips made a case for artists to be sent to the battlefields: “Our nation, from the very beginning of its physical participation on the battlefields of the war, should have artists at the front to represent it and to collect for its archives standardized pictorial records. General Pershing has asked for American artists and the men who compose the Division of Pictorial Publicity have already, with the authorization of the Government, selected eight artists to sketch what they see on our sector of the Western Front. It may be wise to send more artists later on, but the quality of the work they would do must be the first consideration and a few artists of brilliant talent for vivid artistic expression will meet the need of the nation for pictorial records better than four times as many mediocrities, however excellent their intentions and ambitious their efforts.”

George Luks, Blue Devils on Fifth Avenue, 1918, Oil on canvas, 38 5/8 x 44 1/2 in., The Phillips Collection, Acquired 1918

The US Army indeed began enlisting artists during World War I, when eight artists were sent to the war in Europe, and during World War II, more than one hundred U.S. servicemen and civilians served as “combat artists.” In 1943, Duncan Phillips was appointed one of the members of the Art Advisory Committee that selected the artists.

Pick up your copy in the Museum Shop or online at shopphillipscollection.org!