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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Grace Holliday

‘With the snow and the dark lines on the road, it screamed monochrome’: Ivor Levin’s best phone picture

A black-and-white photograph taken from a bridge, looking down at a roundabout below, with car tracks in snow, road signs and a solitary pedestrian
At a Crossroads, 2021, shot on iPhone 13 Pro Max. Photograph: Ivor Levin

“It rarely snows in the city,” Ivor Levin says of Vancouver, where he lives. “When it does, it really declutters the urban landscape – something I find most favourable for creating minimalist urban photography.”

Levin – a dentist, who photographs as a hobby – was crossing a bridge on his way home from visiting a friend when he noticed the geometric configuration of the car tracks in the snow.

“They prompted me to set up my iPhone 13 Pro Max, to frame the image appropriately, and then I waited. I wanted a figure to walk into the frame, to give the scene a focal point and a sense of scale. Eventually, they did,” Levin says. “I was very pleased with the end result and the so-called decisive moment I captured.”

After shooting on his phone – “It’s unobtrusive, portable and generally far easier than a digital camera” – he edited the image with the iPhone camera’s software and then the Snapseed app.

“I try to keep editing to a minimum, but it was an easy decision to convert the photograph to black and white. With all the snow around, and the dark lines on the roads created by passing cars and trucks, the frame screamed monochrome.”

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