How can it be almost a month since I added a new post? With the hustle and bustle of the holidays, the dark grey days of winter and an increasingly distracted mind, I find myself here, in January, 2012, making my first post of the new year.

For Christmas I was lucky to get the newest iPhone4s. Honestly, Siri is a joke. For me the real excitement is a new and improved lens! It's also four times the size of my old iPhone, giving me lots of room to hold tons apps, all my favorite music, but most importantly, many, many photos!!

Took this shot with Hipstamatic, near sunset, while on my first photo-walk with the new camera. I was waiting and hoping for such glorious late afternoon winter sun, which due to the angle of light, makes for a brilliant effect.

One thing about being a Hipstamatic addict is that I now greatly prefer a square (ratio 1:1) composition. Hipstamatic shoots in that format, with a view finder that size. However, with the improved quality of images with the new lens, I feel strange about putting a vintage or toy camera effect on every image. The clarity of picture begs for full color and quality. Sure, I can always go to one of my many apps and crop, but so prefer to make my composition through the viewfinder, not after the fact. It actually makes me feel like a cheat, if you can believe it. That's how strongly my early photography teachers aesthetics still sway me, even when using the latest technologies. Perhaps there is a setting on Camera+ or one of my other apps that will let me take photos in that size, I'm guessing not. So, off to the app store I go, hoping to find such a tool.