Classmates Reunited

Saw this group of young women after dark attempting a group selfie in front of city hall with the Christmas tree in the background. It wasn’t going well. Not because they weren’t trying hard enough and being young enough that selfies are probably a normal part of their lives. Getting all three in the frame with camera at arms length and the tree in the background after dark was difficult at best.

As I’m oft to do, I took the phone and made a quick set of photos of them with the tree in the background.

I gave back the phone and then made this one on my iPhone for myself explaining that I wanted to do a little editing and would share it with Airdrop.

Now the technical aspects.

The iPhone can make a very good photo in the dark by using some magical AI computational mystical fairy dusting algorithmic incantation with bat wings dragon tails super-heated water absolute zero freezing process prayerful calling better than what might be done with a high-end off-the-scale super expensive professional camera and lens combination.

I had a secret plan.

Edited the photo with an app named Focos on my iPhone. It uses the iPhone’s selective focus algorithm to blur the background and then lets me select the look of the bokeh in the background.

This particular blurred background simulates the look of an old, very old large format camera lens with twisted bokeh around a central point of focus.

Very effective for this quick portrait of three Westerville Central High School friends who all went to OU together and now live states and continents apart but came together for this Christmas.

And I got to make a photo for them.