Aside from the whole "seeing family" thing, I was excited to take a trip home last weekend because it would give me the opportunity to take pictures of stuff outside my normal routine. So, of course, I had to go and forget to bring the charger for my camera, which meant that by Sunday I had to use my iPhone if I wanted to take any pictures at all.

As usual for our trips to Big Sur, we ate at the River Inn several times. Jason was entranced by the umbrellas on the lower deck, and kept wanting to see them. Monday morning, his cousin—"Other Jason"—showed him how to throw pebbles into the river, which was hugely exciting for him. Seeing him delight in such a simple little game made me nostalgic for my own small-town youth. We don't have any rivers near our house, but the bright side is that I think Big Sur and the Monterey Peninsula will probably become a very special place for Jason as he grows up.

Technical info: Shot with an iPhone 3G. The EXIF data says the aperture was f/2.8, with nothing about shutter speed. Post-processing in Aperture 3: applied the Cloudy WB preset first. Then added edge sharpening and bumped vibrancy (0.2). I added a strong mid-tone curve, then a medium (0.4) burn to the river and background. Desaturated reds a little (-15). Finally, I added some vignetting (intensity 0.6, radius 0.9).

Thoughts for improvement: Tough to get a great technical shot out of an iPhone, but for what it is, I like this one. The main thing when using a cameraphone like this is to try to avoid high-contrast scenes and moving subjects.