Over the past five years I’ve developed a love for photography. I may not take as many pictures as I would like to, and fewer yet end up online, but those that I do post I am quite proud of.

Shot on iPhone has become a “thing” on social media and with mobile photography, so I figured i’d take a shot (pun intended). Luckily I have the iPhone XS Max, which captures amazing photos, especially with portrait mode activated. I wrapped up a photoshoot with Nicole, a fashion blogger from Leesburg, VA, and thought it would be a good idea to capture some photos on the iPhone too. Below are a few shots I took of her on the iPhone XS Max. This is no way a review on the app at all, but just a big high five really. I have so much fun creating on it, and wanted to share some of my thoughts.

Photography, as an art form, has seen many evolutions over the years. Far from the days of splicing film reels together, we've now entered an era of photo editing with such advanced tools that the possibilities are truly endless—almost too far in respects to Adobe Photoshop, my Photojournalism Professor would argue. While a part of me may have to agree with his "too far" sentiment, I must also admit that another part of me can only marvel in the endless special effects that we have at our disposal.

Because video stories are processed 60,000 times faster by the human brain, photographers and artists are using animation to tell their stories both as previews for social media and finished art.

Hello,

When my friend Garred Perronie and I had first performed a photo shoot with us as the subjects to model, I created a video to put in my vlog (AKA a video blog; in "I GOT POWERS" a vlog on my channel). As I finished I made a promise to myself, that I would continue to push more content out, while challenging myself to learn more techniques with my camera, and in post production editing. Now I have a Panasonic LUMIX G7, and ever since I bought it, I've fallen in love with it, as if it were my first. As cinematographers say "your first camera is always the best one no matter how old it gets."

Finally, after finding what I've been chasing most my life, I'm willing to dedicate my time, effort, and comfort to achieving this dream. The dream of becoming one of the most well known filmmakers in the world. This goal in mind, I'm 19, broke, living with my parents, trying to run a company, not going to college, and working a job that I gotta do to make money (stereotypical story you hear from any aspiring dreamer). With my dedication I've managed to say "F#$% You" to my excuses, and push as hard as I can at this ambition. This film above, Garred and I captured these videos about 20 minutes each, along with the three hours of taking pictures. Each clip in the video had to be redone, due to me messing up on my organic transitions. So we had to go back to each street corner to capture them twice over. The reason why this is relevant to pushing limits is because in the middle of filming it began to snow, as it had snowed earlier that same day. In the first shot you can actually see the snow fall; if you look closely enough.

Instagram is one of the hottest social media platforms today, and it's kicked off a pretty intense competition to see who can have the most glamorous Instagram account.

You hear a lot of jokes about Instagram photographers, but there are several artistic, creative photography filters for Instagram that result in breathtaking pictures. It is one of the best mobile apps for photo editing for a reason. You shouldn't rely on them to turn a mediocre photo into a visual stunner, but you can—and should—use filters to make your best pictures pop. That's what real photographers do, both the pros and the hobbyists. Never try to spiff up an average snapshot with Crema or Ludwig. That's lazy, plus it's kind of like cheating. For those eye-popping pictures that you capture on your phone, however, feel free to add to their appeal.

So this is going to be very Photoshop heavy, so once you have your great picture, you could come see if this helps make it better.

Even amateur photographers currently have the tools to give their portraits a professional makeover, and they don't need the best computers for photo editing to do it! If the subject of your portraits feel insecure about their skin or have blemishes you’d like to correct, you can make those corrections. Check out these 10 tips for retouching skin in Photoshop to maintain the natural skin look.

Hyejeong is wearing Ida Double Button Shirt from ANDERSSON BELL & Cutting Jacket from X2.