The Story of my ‘Shot on iPhone’ Photograph (Milan)

Posted by Brendan Ó Sé on March 17, 2015

A week has passed since I last posted an update to this wonderful story. In this time, I have seen or been sent by friends images of my photograph on display on billboards or posters from cities all over the world: Santiago, San Francisco, Yokohama, Bógota, Bangkok, Berlin, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Berlin, Boston, Philadelphia, Hamburg – the list goes on. And I can say that it still is the most amazing thrill. Nothing I could ever have dreamed up. My photo on billboards and posters all over the world! And now the print campaign is starting too.

Seeing the image pop up in cities across the world and being sent photos of friends standing next to it has been so cool, but I had to see it for myself to believe it; I had to see it with my own eyes. A few days into the campaign my wife encouraged me to travel to get to see it. The options in Europe were Berlin, Hamburg or Milan. I had previously been to Berlin and Hamburg, so Milan it was. Checking airlines, I saw that Ryanair had an early morning flight out of Dublin into Milan on Saturday 14th and a late evening one back the following day. I booked it there and then. The only downside to this would be that I was travelling on my own. We have two small kids and no babysitter at the moment. So it looked like I would have to travel on my own. Luckily, my sister who lives in Dublin got on to us and offered to mind the two kids for the weekend so as to allow myself and my wife to go together. We were delighted.

Cork is about a two and half hour journey to Dublin. We left around 7 in the evening, arriving in Dublin at about 9.30. The kids slept most of the way up, but woke with excitement when we arrived in my sister’s house. After some time getting them to settle, we went to bed too. After getting very little sleep we were back on the road heading to the airport at 3.30 in the morning on our way to Milan to see my photograph on a billboard.

A little after 12 p.m, we arrived at our apartment. Our host gave us a map of Milan and my wife, who can read these things, worked out our route to where the billboard was. We would need to take the metro and change at one station and then exit at Moscova station on Corso Garibaldi in the centre of Milan. We were getting closer. The trip there took about twenty minutes and when we exited the metro station on to Corso Garibaldi we were unsure whether to take a left or right turn. Fabio, a guy I had met on Twitter had previously sent me an image from there, so we had some idea of where to look for it, but take the wrong one and we could be traipsing this long street that runs through the centre of Milan for ages. We could not believe our luck when we turned right and within a matter of seconds we saw it. There it was. My photograph – huge on a billboard! We both looked at each other in amazement. I reached for the camera and began to click.

Corso Garibaldi, Milan

The billboard was located in a little area with a newsagent’s kiosk and some benches for people to sit – and admire my photo :-). We got down there and surveyed the area, walking all around, trying to see it from different angles. It was very cool to observe people passing by looking up at the image as it got their attention. I had in mind before coming to get a shot of myself standing in front of the billboard with my iPhone in hand showing the original image on the iPhone next to the billboard, to convey the idea of ‘from a screen of four inches to a billboard in a major world city’.

Now, like many ideas this is all very well in concept, but to convert this to reality can prove tricky. My wife is a very patient woman. For the longest time, she tried. What I wanted was to have the iPhone to the right of the billboard, showing the original image and the scale. But to get them both in focus was difficult and to avoid a glare from the iPhone was also not so easy. One I particularly like is the one below. I think she managed a fine job in getting this one of the scene.

Milan

Nowadays, selfies are obligatory and while I may not be the biggest fan of them, I think I am entitled to get one on an occasion like this.

Me and my photo

While we were there a few people stopped to take shots of the photo and normally, I would not be the most boastful of people, but I could not help myself in asking if they liked the photo and to tell them that I was the photographer. ‘No!?’ they replied. ‘Yes!’, I replied, showing them the original. One guy, Marco, even took a photo of me under the image.

After that, we set about seeing as much of Milan as we could in the short time we were there. Travelling with a photographer must be like having a dog on a long lead. You think they are next to you and then turn around and see they are miles back, perhaps not sniffing a lampost like a dog, but there they are, camera in hand trying to get that shot. How she puts up with me I do not know. I know I would not be as patient. We got to see sights, Duoma, Galleria Vitoria Emanuele, La Scala theatre, Sforsa Castle and we spent the evening in Navigli, which is a really cool area, before heading back to see the main attraction in Milan; this time to see it lit up at night.

We only realised it would be illuminated when my wife saw another ‘shot on iPhone‘ photo near our apartment all lit up. With great excitement we got back to Corso Garibaldi and seeing it in the dark of night brightly lit up was something I will always remember. We found a cafe with window seats that allowed us to look out directly at the billboard. It was very cool when the waitress seeing me with three cameras set up facing the billboard asked if I liked it. She was so surprised when I told her it was mine. She called the other waiter to tell him also. I got many shots and little videos while there. This was the easily the highlight of the trip, sitting with my best friend and love of my life and sharing this magical experience.

All lit up in Milan

The next day, we returned to say goodbye to the billboard. We continued with our tour of Milan, having a wonderful lunch by the canal in Navigli and later strolling along the banks of the canal. We arrived back in Dublin at about 11 at night. Drove to my sister’s house, collected our kids and drove home to Cork. Got snapped by a police car patrolling for speeding on the way (the wrong kind of photo), but got home safely. Milan will always have a special place in my heart.

The image being on display around the world is so cool, but the things I will remember will be the delight of family and friends in sharing this with me. There have been so many little incidents along the way of this story which I will never forget. So many examples. Here’s one. I get a comment on a blog post from Christelle who tells me she has seen the photograph on the back of a French photography magazine, Polka. I make contact with her and she offers to send me the magazine by post. I tell her I will pay for post and packaging, but she declines the offer. Fábio, one of the 77 photographers selected by Apple, sees it on a Swiss national newspaper and tells me he will send it by post to me, also free of charge.

Then there is Marta, from Colombia, who was on the lookout for my image. She sent me an email with lots of photos of my shot on a poster at a bus stop in her hometown. I had asked her to see if she could find it in Bogotá, bus she is from Medellin. In the email, she tells me that she was on a bus passing this bus stop when she saw the image. Paré!! (Stop!) she shouted at the driver! Got off and took this photo to send to me.

¡PARÉ!

Please click here to see more of Marta’s work.

From Chicago, my friend Michael sent me this shot taken opposite the image in one of the main train stations in the city. I like the human element in this. Please click here to see more of Michael’s work.

Chicago

Then there have been ones from total strangers who have been kind enough to make contact with me and send me images. This one from Sydney, taken by Norman Ma, is a particularly cool one.

Sydney

And this one from Santiago, Chile is my favourite. Chile, for so long, has been one of my dream destinations. I would so love to visit and to get there now to see this would be a dream come true. Anyone want to send me there!? A huge thanks to Roberto for sending me this. How big is it!?

Santiago, Chile

One other really exciting thing was to see that the world famous Saatchi Gallery posted my photograph on their Instagram page to represent Apple’s Shot on iPhone campaign. I was really pleased with this. To catch the eye of this gallery is something cool. Maybe someday it will be hanging in one of their galleries.

Saatchi Gallery

On Thursday, a newspaper article in the Irish Independent appeared with the photograph of my two ex-students sitting in front of the photo in Shibuya. They will be delighted when I send them a print copy of the newspaper, and a little surprise also when I get to see them next month.

Again, I would like to thank everyone for their kindness and support. It has made this so special.

You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Visit my website.

The Story of my ‘Shot on iPhone’ Photograph (continued)

Posted by Brendan Ó Sé on March 10, 2015

I finished writing my blog post yesterday about an hour before I went on live radio to talk about my photograph with Dave Fanning12. Driving over to my parents’ house to take the call, I realised that radio is perhaps not the best medium to talk about photography and that I would need to be as descriptive as possible to paint the picture of my photograph. I had chosen to go to my parents’ because with two small kids in the house it would have been hard to get a quiet space needed to take the call.

I was told that they would contact me between 11 to 12. Being a stickler for time-keeping I was ready well before 11. Waiting. Playing over and over in my head what I imagined the conversation might be like. I told myself to relax, to enjoy it. At 11.35, the researcher from the Dave Fanning show called telling me they would call back in five minutes and to be ready. I was ready.

I had the phone in my hand waiting for the call to come. Checking updates on Twitter and Facebook when an email came in from a very good friend in Hong Kong asking had they missed the interview. “No, any minute now. Get online to RTE2 and listen!’ Any minute now.

And then that minute came. I left the phone ring a few times, took a few deep breaths and answered. “Hold the line and Dave will talk to in a while.’ ‘OK, great thanks’ I said. A song was playing and I was on hold, waiting to do an interview with Dave Fanning. Crazy! Then that unmistakeable voice came in talking over the end of the song. A voice that *** right through my teenage years.

“What happens when the right person stumbles across a photo you took and they want to use it? Well, It happened to a Cork man, Brendan Ó Sé, by name, and a photograph that he took on his phone is on billboards all around the world, and he’s on the line now. Brendan how are you?

“I’m fine, Dave. How are you?

And my interview with Dave Fanning began. You can listen to the full interview here. Scroll down to see the link.

I was really pleased I was able to get in the request for my friend Liam who had recently passed away. He was a dear friend who would have loved all of this. I just wish he could have been here for this. After the interview, the beep beep beep of the phone started. Messages of congratulations came in from family and friends. I found myself very emotional after the interview and found it hard to talk even to my wife. When things settled a little, I began to read the messages sent in to me. All were so full of praise and kindness. They meant so much to me.

My parents had not heard the live interview. So, about an hour later I headed back to their house on my way to work and cued up the interview on my mother’s laptop. I was in a bit of rush for work and did not have time to listen to the interview myself, but as I was heading out the door it began playing for my parents and I heard Dave Fanning introducing me. How cool! I don’t know if I will listen back to it. It is strange listening to your own voice.

After the interview, it was great to get tweets from people who had been listening to the interview and in particular from people in Cork. Some of them were really kind. This is one I enjoyed a lot, particularly as the European headquarters for Apple are in my hometown, but there is no promotion here. I should get on to Tim Cook.

Tweet from Jennie O Sullivan

While in work, I was able to check the phone every now and then and I was thrilled when I saw an email had come in from a Flickr friend, Dirk (check out his excellent Flickr stream), based in Hamburg with images of my photograph on billboards there. Wow! A very big thanks to Dirk. I like the way he composed the shot with pedestrians crossing. It is a fine composition.

Hamburg

Later in the evening, myself and my wife went out for a meal to celebrate. It was lovely to get some time together after the all the excitement of the week. When we sat down in the restaurant, I said to her I would turn off the phone so as not to be distracted by Facebook or Twitter updates. “No, no, no, she said. I want to know. This is why we are celebrating and it is so exciting.” I left the phone on and during the meal a few updates came in via Twitter. One of these was a a link to an Instagram shot of a billboard on Freeway 280, just outside San Francisco. This one was surreal. There was my image on billboard perched on the side of a green field taken from an open stretch of the highway. It looked crazy.

Highway 280 San Francisco

Immediately, I got on to Instagram to make contact with the person who took the shot and to see if they would be so kind as to send it to me. She agreed and the next day she sent me another shot of the billboard this time taken from her car. Part of this whole experience has been the people I have met along the way and the positive responses and kindness they have shown. Barbara is a great example of this. Thanks Barbara.

Highway 280, San Francisco (Thanks Barbara)

Definitely, one of the great things about all of this is the little community that has developed among the photographers who are part of this campaign. We are all working together trying to unearth our images in the different locations around the world. I have been really struck by the kindness of some people. Nat – @pineylonesome – came across my image on a billboard in San Francisco that someone on Instagram had posted and alerted me. Cielo de la Paz – @cielodlp has offered to drive to this location (apparently on the 280 freeway) to see if she can get a shot for me. Jen Pollack Bianco @lax2nrt has been particularly kind in taking many shots of the billboard in Hollywood. And I really cannot leave out Megan who is doing such great work trying to pull all the images from this campaign on her Twitter account @ShotoniPhone6. If you come across any #shotoniphone image, you should send them to her. And please, if you see my shot, send it to me.

It was really nice to see the piece on the Irish Examiner was one of their most popular on the day it was posted. This one is really pleasing because, while this is one of the biggest national newspapers in Ireland, it is Cork based and known to all in Cork as de paper.

Irish Examiner

There have been so many appearances of the image on different media sites over the past few days and I have been gathering them together. These reports tend to make a selection of images to make their reports and it is so cool to see that mine is chosen so often. The Huffington Post’s report of the campaign was a real thrill. It used my photograph as the lead image of the report. Thanks to my friend, Jon-David for sending me this.

The Huffington Post

Another one very cool one was seeing my image on Time Online’s report.

Time Online

Looking at the headline to many of these reports and you will see the same sort of headline. Show people an image taken on the iPhone and more often than not the response it first elicits will be “I can’t believe that was taken with an iPhone!” I have been hearing if for years and I know it is understandable, but do you ever get someone responding to listening to music on a iPhone saying “I can’t believe that this music sounds so good on an iPhone!”? No! There is an expectation that the technology can allow for music to sound great from a phone; but to produce really beautiful photography from a phone? Never. Well, yes it can! And it has been like that for years now. Check out the standard of iPhone images on one of my iPhunography Flickr group. There is some stellar work being done in the mobile photography world. If you are looking for people to follow, here are a few I recommend. @mdkistler, Mark T. Simmons, @shelserkin, Janine Graf, @mimokhair, @leethatch, @lee_atwell, @albionsamson to name but a few. There are so many I could list.

I woke up on Sunday morning with a direct message on Twitter from Fábio telling me he had seen my photo in Chicago. It is so cool when people I have been sharing photography with over the years find the photograph. I do wish it was not such a treasure hunt, though. My fear is that this campaign will end and I won’t have seen all the places where the photograph was posted. I am still waiting to see billboards from Kuala Lumpur, Bogotá, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Milan. We have been told that the image is in 70 cities, but where exactly, we do not know. It adds to the excitement when you find one, but I would love to know where they are. Particularly New York. Unfortunately, my brother, who is in New York for the weekend, has not been able to find the poster of mine there. I had seen a shot of it earlier in the week from the Port Authority metro station, but he went there and was unable to find it. It is a real pity because I had hoped to get a shot of him standing next to it. That would have been super cool. Who knows maybe today he will be able to find it. Let’s hope. So, please if any of you find my image anywhere, please take a photo and send it to me.

Big thanks to Fábio, who sent me this from Chicago.

Chicago (Thanks to Fábio)

News about Milan. Originally, we had no sitter for our two small kids, but my sister has now kindly offered to mind them. This means that my wife will get to travel with me to Milan. That is just so cool. Got to say thanks to my friends who also offered. Thanks!

You can read about Part 1 here and Part 3 here.

The Story of my ‘Shot on iPhone’ Photograph

Posted by Brendan Ó Sé on March 7, 2015

The past five days have probably been the most exciting days of my life. Seeing an image I created on the iPhone going on display on giant billboards in different cities all over the world has been beyond my wildest dreams.

My photo on a billboard in Hollywood, Los Angeles

It all started back in Copenhagen last October. I was there on a week’s visit to the University of Copenhagen as part of an exchange program from my own university. Before heading out there I had arranged with one of my friends on Flickr, Thomas Toft, to meet up for a photo walk (which in Copenhagen means a photo cycle). I had seen one of his images from Copenhagen of this location with crazy curved white lines on the black tarmac. The way Thomas created the image with the strong contrasts of the black and white lines and with the shadow of the lone man really impacted on me. When I travel, opportunities to get out shooting are always highest on my list of priorities and if I know of a good location, it gets me excited. So you can imagine how I felt about having the chance to go shoot in this quirky place. I was so looking forward to it.

I had only ever been in contact with Thomas via Flickr email, but once we met, we hit it off immediately. We hooked up on a late autumn evening in October in the centre of Copenhagen. First, he brought me to this beautiful building that had an amazing spiral staircase and elevators without doors that never stopped – you just had to hop on and hop off – carefully. After this, we got on our bikes and joined the hundreds of other Copenhagen cyclists on the many cycle lanes that the city has, and we made our way out to the Norrebro area of Copenhagen where this park, know as Superkilen Park, is located.

Very often when you get to see things you have only ever seen before in a photo in real life it can take a while to take them in. This was the case when we arrived. Those long, curving white lines got my eye and I found myself following their path. It really was a cool spot! After some time shooting a few frames, I got the idea of how I wanted to create an image there. The lines lead the eye on a journey and to best accentuate that would to be compose it from an incline. We headed up this little hill for this different perspective. The shot below which I took with my DSLR shows this perspective and from where I took the iPhone shot.

King of the castle

Standing now in the position where the person is in the image above, I knew would allow for the kind of shot I was looking to get. We stayed up on top of this little hill for about 25 minutes, chatting and getting some images. It was a quiet evening and there were not that many people passing through. Knowing that I wanted to get the human element in the photograph, I waited. Photography can require a combination of patience and luck at times. Fortunately, for me four people entered the frame, three walking and one on a bike with the lines twisting down to meet them as they went on their way. Reviewing the image after I had taken it, I was reasonably happy. I knew I would later convert it to black and white to bring out the contrasts of the lines against the black surface. Here is the original image.

Original

Later in the evening, I used the iPhone app Snapseed to convert to black and white and play a little with the contrast.

God will send a sign. When he does, be prepared.

Now, here’s a funny thing. When I posted it to Flickr on October 31st, I gave it the title – ‘God will send a sign. When he does, be prepared.’ I am not religious, but I do have a God shaped socket with no plug to fit it. I seem to recall that the image made me feel that the four characters in the frame were just going about their daily business, each unaware of the other, but that maybe some day they would need to react and they would need to be prepared. I like giving titles to my images and while it can be hard, when it does work, it adds a dimension to the photograph. Does this title match the image? I am not sure. But it sure has gotten me thinking!

The photo received a great reaction on Flickr, getting thousands of views and some great comments from my Flickr contacts. Time moved on and the image lay there in my Flickr stream like all the others. Then out of the blue in December I got a Flickr mail from a person who had zero photos asking me to contact them about a research project. I ignored it. It was spam. But when the person sent the mail again urging me to be swift in response, I replied. Details were sketchy. There might be interest in my photo, would I be interested? Ehm… OK.

Then to my amazement I saw the name Apple and I was definitely interested. They were interested in two photos, the above one and another from I had taken in Berlin. Through the jigs and reels and many emails later we arrived at the end of February and I got an email congratulating me on my image being part of the Apple World Gallery. I was thrilled! Later, I got a phone call to congratulate me and I thought I heard the woman say that as part of this my image would be on billboards and posters in 70 cities in 24 countries. She couldn’t have said that, though. No.

Monday came and the page went live on Apple. What a buzz to find my image there, and in fifth place as you scroll! It was so great to see the other images selected. One after another and I was going wow, wow, wow. They all looked amazing. Apple had done such a great job in choosing these. Really impressive.

Later that morning, I got an email with a list of cities where, I was told, my image was on billboards. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Charlotte, Bogota, Hamburg, Berlin, Milan, Kuala Lumpur. Ya!? Really. Could it be? So, she actually had said that. Wow! How super cool!.

But how could I get to see them? As you can imagine, I wanted so much to see them. I got on to Flickr. Checked the locations of my friends there. Were any in these cities? A few. Anton was in Berlin. Dirk was in Hamburg. Nigel in LA. I had a chance. I set about writing emails. Please, please if you are anywhere these locations can you find if my image is on a billboard there? Of course, came the reply and the next day, Anton had located my image in Alexanderplatz Train Station in Berlin. It was true! My photo was on a billboard.

Berlin

It was hard to take in. I stared at the screen, eyes wide with amazement. Wow! A few short months previous I had been standing on that very platform in Berlin and now there was this huge billboard with my photo.

On my social media platforms, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr, things began to get a little crazy. So many messages of congratulations. Then I began to do a search on the #shotoniphone hashtag and lo and behold images of mine started to appear from New York and Boston. Then I found someone had set up a Twitter account @shotoniphone6 and that they were tweeting images of people’s shots from around the world. From that I got to meet some of the other photographers whose images were chosen. This has been a great thing also in that we can share our excitement and awe of finding our shots in the wild. Thanks to Ryan Healey for sending me this image.

Boston

On Tuesday night, I hardly slept. There were so many updates on Twitter, and then my friend in LA, Nigel sent me a shot of my image on a billboard in Hollywood. Hollywood!

Hollywood, Los Angeles

I got this about 5 in the morning. There was no chance to get back to sleep. I was exuberant. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined this. It is beyond cool. I was working early on Wednesday and I had already told my boss about it and she encouraged me to share the news in my university. She kindly wrote a little piece with the accompanying photo from Hollywood and this then appeared on my university’s social media platforms. This thing was gaining momentum.

The next day was probably the craziest. It the space of about 20 minutes, I got a request from a Danish journalist for an interview, an email from Apple’s P.R person about an interview with the Irish Independent and then this came in:

Shibuya, Tokyo

Now anyone who reads my blog or follows me on Flickr will know that I absolutely love Tokyo and that if I love Tokyo then Shibuya I a d o r e! I immediately rang my wife. ” You can’t believe it!. It’s in Shibuya! It’s in Shibuya! And to make it even more cool was the fact that Laurence had created such an amazing shot of it. I was so delighted.

Later in the day, I did the interview with the Danish journalist and Adrian from the Irish Independent. Here is the Danish piece. Still waiting to see of the Independent publish the interview.

On Twitter, more and more images began to appear of shot on iPhone ads from around the world, but no new ones of mine, unfortunately. Apple is so clever. They don’t sell products, they sell experiences. The hype surrounding their product releases is something to behold. An Apple product launch is headline news. This latest campaign of theirs has those involved in it on a treasure hunt. We do not know when the campaign will end. We don’t know exactly where our images are appearing. We have to scour the net for them. Sure, some photographers are lucky that their images are on billboards in their hometown, or they are like Austin Mann who gets to film the unfurling of his awesome ad (this is well worth watching), but I am from Cork, albeit the home of the European headquarters of Apple, there is no promotion here. But I guess it all adds to the excitement. If anyone reading this comes across the photo, can you please send it to me?

On Thursday night, I tweeted the image Nigel had sent me of the billboard in Hollywood and it got retweeted so many times. From this, the Irish Examiner contacted me and did this piece on me. From that, numerous people got in contact to congratulate me. Then on Friday morning, I got a tweet from the Dave Fanning radio show. Now, anyone around my age would have grown up listening to Dave’s iconic radio show. This was before the Internet. Dave is Ireland’s John Peel. He gave bands their big break. U2 have a lot to thank Dave Fanning for. Anyway, back to the story. The radio station were enquiring as to whether I would be interested in talking to Dave about my experience of being part of the Apple World Gallery. Of course, I would. I spoke with one of the researchers and as I write this it is only about an hour before I go on and talk to him on his Saturday morning show. I could never have imagined all of this.

Later on Friday, a good friend of mine living in San Francisco, Jon-David messaged to say that he had found my photograph on a poster in Van Ness train station in San Francisco. I wrote back telling him to get me as many shots as he could, but to make sure he got one of himself standing next to the poster. My wife has come up with the great idea of having a wall of framed photographs of the image from around the world. It will be great to have friends of mine in the images too. Thanks JD.

Jon-David in San Francisco

As it turns out, my brother is in New York this weekend and someone has told me that the image is in Port Authority train station. I really hope he can get a photograph of it with himself beside it. That would be super cool. Even more super cool, will be next weekend when I fly out to Milan to try to find for myself one of my billboards. My wife decided this was a too-good-to-miss opportunity. So hopefully I will get a photo of myself in front of a huge billboard of my own photograph. Unfortunately, we cannot get a babysitter for the kids. I really would love if she could come with me.

And where do I go from here? I had never expected all of this. Photography is my hobby. It is what I do for fun. The iPhone puting Phun – iPhunography. Maybe I can sell Apple that slogan! Where do I go from here? Back to enjoying photography – back to having fun. And who knows where that will lead to.

One of the most lovely things about all this experience has been being able to share it with family and friends. Their reaction has made it so special. I always try to make myself realise how fortunate I am; I have an amazing, loving family, and I if my kids grow up to have just one friend like I have, I know they will be OK in life. I need more than one hand to count the great friends I have. Thanks!

Thanks to all who have sent photos, congratulations and kind words. It means so much to me. Thanks to Jen Pollack Bianco who sent me that great panoramic shot above. Thanks Jen!

You can read Part 2 of this here and Part 3 here.

Photographic Punctuation

Trying to see what can be seen and how to see it.

Category Archives: My Story of my ‘Shot on iPhone’ Photograph

The Story of my ‘Shot on iPhone’ Photograph (Milan)

The Story of my ‘Shot on iPhone’ Photograph (continued)

The Story of my ‘Shot on iPhone’ Photograph