Glimpse: Stop, Look…See

Photography isn't just about capturing images. Have a peek inside our contemplative photography feature from the October issue of Mindful magazine. 

Photographs by Terry Bell

We wanted to tackle contemplative photography in the October issue, with Andy Karr suggesting three ways to explore the experience of looking itself. We wanted to emphasize that photography isn’t just about capturing images and having all the right gear. Photographer Terry Bell brought that to the table with his accompanying shots, almost all of them taken on his iPhone.

“If you tell me I’ve got to carry a camera bag and lenses and all that stuff, I bow out of that a lot,” says Bell. “So that’s really where the iPhone became so big for me.”

Bell has three tips for people looking to snap better photos with their iPhone. He’s working with an iPhone 4, so some of the tips might not apply to newer phones.

1. Find a good camera app for your phone

“The native camera app on the phone isn’t very good because it doesn’t give you control over focus and how you expose the picture,” says Bell. He suggests the VSCO Cam (available for free at the iTune store) because it gives you control over where you want to focus the camera and the level of exposure.

2. Get familiar with the…