Learning photography : First month on Instagram

One day last month I went to flickr and deleted my account. I do not know why I did this. I was spending a lot of time posting photos there, commenting on others' photos, managing my favorites and galleries, but my photos were not getting any better.

Since I had been given an iphone 4 during my trip back home, in June, I decided to open an Instagram account and take upon the challenge of posting one photo a day. The phone is small enough that I can carry it around when I go running, to work or to my chores. Furthermore, it does not grab people's attention so much, which makes it very convenient for street photography, to take candid shots.

My idea is to practice more framing and exposure and to do it consistently every day. I have been doing it for over one month now, and so far I have come to the following conclusions:

Rather than being amazed at how incredible the iphone camera is, and unlike a lot of people out there, I have come to appreciate my DSLR a whole lot more. The iphone camera is so limited that it down performs my first digital point-and-shoot by much;
The best photos I have been able to take are close-ups of people, patterns, and minimalist compositions; lens flare is easy to accomplish also, and with the use of filters, I have been able to achieve interesting effects;
Landscape photos leave much to be desired. The small sensor of the iphone 4 can only handle even light, and the so-called “golden hours”, because they are relatively dark for the small sensor, yield poor photos. The only way around the poor depth of field, poor focus, inability to deal with uneven light and noise in landscape, is to use filters on the final product to mask the imperfections.

I like the ones below best: