Photographer Stephen Wilkes shot his latest series, “The Endless Summer,” on the iPhone 15 Pro Max.Photo:Stephen Wilkes/Apple
Stephen Wilkes/Apple
The much-anticipatediPhone 15 serieswill beavailable to the publicFriday, but two renowned professional photographers got a sneak peek of the device — and PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at their images.
“I think it’s a really great upgrade in terms of the image quality,” saysStephen Wilkes, who used the new iPhone 15 Pro Max for his photographic series,The Endless Summer. “To be able to have prints that look the way these do at that scale [and] captured from a phone is an amazing thing.”
Wilkes’The Endless Summercaptures the natural beauty of Block Island in Rhode Island, a place that is special in his heart.
“Especially in summer, it just has these beautiful beaches, dunes and topography,” he says of Block Island. “To me, that’s iconic summer, and I thought it’d be really beautiful to take this new device and capture that type of beauty, that kind of energy.”
Meanwhile, fellow photographerReuben Wuused the phone for his series,The Inner Landscape.
“My approach to photography shows familiar scenes under an unfamiliar light, capturing a unique and never witnessed before point of view,” says Wu. “The Inner Landscapeis a series of unearthly desert landscapes in Southern Utah, exploring minimal compositions which feel more intimate than epic, more ambiguous than explicit, to produce a body of work that feels cohesive through its sense of connection and psychological space.”
Photographer Stephen Wilkes shot his latest series, “The Endless Summer,” on the iPhone 15 Pro Max.Stephen Wilkes/Apple
Wilkes' photos are above, and Wu’s photos are below.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max was unveiled on Sept. 12, along with the new iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus and iPhone 15 Pro at Apple’s “Wonderlust” event in Cupertino, Calif. Both the 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max carry an A17 bionic chip that will make the phone perform faster.
Per an Applenews release, the Pro models “offers the very best of Apple innovations, featuring a strong and lightweight titanium design with new contoured edges, a new customizable Action button, and Roadside Assistance via satellite.”
Photographer Reuben Wu captured his latest project, “The Inner Landscape,” on the iPhone 15 Pro Max.Reuben Wu/Apple
Reuben Wu/Apple
Wilkes, of Westport, Connecticut, is known for depicting epic scenes that also feature a touch of humanity.
“One of the things I tried to do with this work was capture people in context and scale, not just a figurative element, but within a special moment,” he says. “The idea that you’re shooting with a phone, and that you could actually capture a decisive moment with such detail within the breadth and scale of this scenery, is really exciting to me.”
A feature of the main camera function on the phone, said Apple, is the ability for the user to switch between different focal lengths: 24 mm, 28 mm and 35 mm. (Along with the main camera, the phone also sports improved Focus and Depth Control, Night mode, Smart HDR and an optical zoom of 5x at 120 mm). It’s a feature that appealed to Wilkes when he used the Pro Max. “I really love that feature. I mean, 24 mm is great, but sometimes it pushes things away from you a little bit. So it’s nice to be able to have a lens that you can push in slightly.”
“I loved the 120 mm lens because I found that it was its own individual lens,” Wilkes adds. “I could see the brightness of it. I could see the clarity of it very quickly when you see the image come on the screen.”
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Wilkes’ tip for anyone using the phone is to keep its camera function focused on one lens starting with 24mm and then gradually work up to 35mm, and “ teach yourself how each one of those lenses sees.
“I think that’s a great tool… what happens is every time you pull out the phone, your eye is already now sort of integrated with the way the camera is framing based on whatever you’re shooting at,” he shares.
“I think that’s a great tool… whenever you pull out the phone, your eye is now integrating with the way the camera is framing based on whatever you’re looking at,” he shares.
Thenew iPhone 15 series, including the Pro and the Pro Max, will be available beginning this Friday and in the following colors and finishes: black titanium, white titanium, blue titanium and natural titanium. The prices for the 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max start at $999 and $1,199, respectively.
“I think it gives people an opportunity to create very scalable art in a very beautiful way so you’re never at a deficit,” Wilkes adds of the device. “If you have your phone with you, you can make a picture and have a photograph that actually is something that you could hang on your wall. As a photographer and an artist, it’s a great thing to be able to have a tool that’s always with you like that.”
source: people.com
