TIME issues a set of covers shot on the iPhone
Sep 12, 2017
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
Share:
“Phoneography” seems to be gaining in popularity when it comes to magazine covers. After Billboard, Sports Illustrated and Elle, TIME Magazine also went down this road. But, they went a bit further than just issuing one cover shot with a smartphone. They hired a talented Brazilian photographer Luisa Dörr to shoot 46 portraits and 12 magazine covers with an iPhone, using nothing but natural light and a reflector. The portraits and covers are a part of TIME’s “Firsts” project, featuring 46 women who are changing the world.
TIME’s Director of Photography and Visual Enterprise, Kira Pollack, shares the story of how he got to choose Luisa for this project. Like many great things in life, it was a mere coincidence. She was browsing Instagram when she stumbled upon Luisa’s profile. She was instantly attracted to her work, and then saw the bio line that says: “100% iPhone made.” This got Kira even more intrigued, and she decided to contact the photographer.
Hillary Clinton, Aretha Franklin, Serena Williams, Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres are only some of the inspiring ladies Luisa photographed. They were in front of the camera thousands of times, along with all the gear you can find on set. But this time, there was only a photographer with an iPhone, natural light, and sometimes a reflector. A simple approach that gave powerful portraits of these groundbreaking women.
As Luisa says in an interview, she used iPhone 5 for the first portrait session of Mary Barra. Later on, she switched to the iPhone 6, and then the 6S Plus. Since the project was long-lasting, the iPhone 7 was released. Therefore, she was able to photograph the last 36 subjects with the iPhone 7. She used a regular camera in the square format, and she started using automatic HDR because she only had the natural light to work with.
All the ladies in these portraits and on the covers were the first in something. I’d say Luisa belongs with them, as she’s the first woman who shot a portfolio and a set of magazine covers for TIME using only an iPhone. This is a great and empowering project, and I think Luisa was a great choice to do the job. If you’d like to see more of her work, make sure to visit her Instagram page.
[via SLR Lounge, TIME Magazine]
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
Join the Discussion
DIYP Comment Policy
Be nice, be on-topic, no personal information or flames.
25 responses to “TIME issues a set of covers shot on the iPhone”
I feel that it would be lazy for a photographer to show up and shoot a magazine cover with their cell phone. Your Not giving your client the service they are paying for.
That’s was basically vogue’s opinion when David Bailey used a 35mm for a shoot in NY back in 1962.
Except think about who the actual client is. Apple. Apple very clearly paid Time and the photographer for this publicity stunt.
People hire photographers, not cameras.
Ok let’s say for shits n giggles you hire a professional professional is the key word in this sentence… A professional photographer to photograph your family Christmas card. I show up with my cell phone n do your photos. How would that make you feel? Maybe a bit cheated. IDK about your clients but I know almost everyone who’s paying for premium photos wants that big camera experience.
That’s not how this went down. They hired a photographer, someone pitched a creative idea to use the iPhone as either a headline grabber or an advertisement ploy and the team executed on the idea. This wasn’t a senior photo.
For reference here they hired a reasonably famous photographer at that, who worked entirely in that medium. Would you be just as weirdly upset if the photographer worked entirely in the medium of Fuji instax? Those exist as well.
One is a thief and liar the other no. Guess who!!
You sound pretty triggered.
Waiting room reading haha
I guess DIY Photography has joined other site in promoting cell phone photographers. The more you report on it, the more acceptable it becomes. As a photography site, you should be critical of the trend not supporting it.
No matter what “camera” was used, the portraits are mediocre, the lighting is flat and the colors are unflattering to those women.
Another DSLR fanboy ! :-)
Clinton changed the world for the worse.
Are you people blind
Just regular pics.
At best it’s a stunt to highlight mediocre photography and worst it foists feminist ideals at a chattel like public.
Phone photography isn’t up to spec regardless how badly bored creative teams want to think it is ..
How about a woman that isn’t a Leftist wackjob … there are plenty of them
We call them “female misogynists”.
They’re just cell phone shots, if not for the subjects they are shooting, or the fact it is time magazine doing it, these shots would hit the trash bin before they were offloaded from the camera. One has to wonder why exactly 4 sites have all now had this story, someone is paying you guys for this. I am guessing this to be the Apple marketing team attempting to build hype around the next minor upgrade, but instead what it does is make everyone with a phone think they are professionals. This in turn dilutes the gene pool of true professionals, and causes all photographers trying to make a living off of it have even more free by night shooters with a phone to fend off. Stop promoing this garbage, phones are good for basic stuff, but a studio set up they are not and will not be esspecially not while using natural light.
I am not sharing this, Hillary is a war monger…
so bad
Shitty politics talk. What does Hillary inspire you again?
Was the Hillary cover shot on her iPhone, before she smashed it to bits??
They look shit.