‘It makes me feel nostalgic’: Lisa Carney’s best phone picture

The photographer enjoys the sadness in this shot of her son lost in thought against the backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge

On a family holiday with her son to San Francisco Bay in 2019, Lisa Carney was practising taking photographs in extreme lighting conditions. It's pretty amazing the tonal range you can get with smartphone cameras," she says. Here she was using an iPhone 10. I was experimenting with exposure for highlights," she explains, while still being able to bring out lots of detail in shadows."

Carney shoots only on smartphones, usually editing with the Lightroom app, and says that she finds no need to use large sensor cameras. I enlarge many of my images to poster size and I'm still able to get the quality I need. I like to say, It's the wizard, not the wand.'"