Life is full of moments: good, bad, happy, sad. Full of colour and breadth or detail and depth. We have a personal and unbreakable connection with a memory but we make our own judgement of an image. Thanks to the phone camera in our pockets, we are all photographers and this makes us individually responsible for capturing the most incredible moments.

I used to be a dedicated SLR photographer. Having pursued an education in photography (if not a career), I had progressed from several film-based SLR’s to the digital variety. I loved the feel of a full-sized camera, the perceived quality and the flexibility the lens selection and manual controls offered.

The reality was, my eldest daughter Olivia began life with a set of ‘perfect’ photos. I would painstakingly photoshop food from her face and unwanted toys, pieces of furniture or poorly shaped friends and family from my photos – just to aid composition!

By the time my other daughter Hattie arrived on the scene, I had ditched the cumbersome D-SLR and replaced the full digital darkroom with the iPhone in my pocket.

This was a revelation.

I moved from the selection of perfection, to a lifetime of moments. Rather than hoping to capture something whenever I had my camera, I would take 100 casual shots for one visual memory – and that is why I’ll never turn back.

I find being able to photograph the unexpected a far greater reward than a staged set piece. You know when a smile is real, because the rest of the face wasn’t expecting it.

That doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop being a ‘proper’ photographer at heart, or a designer. I love to create, so the moments I capture are the ones I’d like to see – and I have a critical eye. Most shots are edited in Snapseed or Black and many never reach a public audience.

It has never been easier to share great photography with the world. That doesn’t mean I haven’t got myself into trouble trying to do just this during my world travels. I was detained at gunpoint in Beirut for snapping architectural photos where I shouldn’t, I ventured into the most dangerous parts of Moscow to capture street lighting and walked back out – thanks to ignorance rather than travel awareness and I have taken risks for great automotive shots by hanging out of a few car windows, off-roading a Bentley GT and many more.

Smartphone technology moves on every year, but I still use an iPhone 7 Plus. The phone isn’t slow, the battery life is acceptable, and the camera is great. Do I need a new phone? No. Would I like one? I’m an Apple fan, so of course.

Will an iPhone 11 Pro make me a better photographer? Absolutely not. It will deliver greater detail and perform better under lower light conditions. But a phone doesn’t make a moment…

…we do.

You can find all my photo highlights on Instagram if you’d like to follow the journey.

As camera technology changes and social channels multiply, we find ourselves with increasing opportunities to share a visual record of our lives with the wider world. The one constant is the subject matter and how we think about its creative execution. Or is it?

I rarely feel the need to update my blog entries or online articles as they stand as reflections of the moment and passing observations. Occasionally, a product or service upgrade prompts a change of information or time spent with the same requires some additional thought based on a long term review.

I originally wrote the article below as a non-Instagram user, which with hindsight seems a little unfair and ill-informed. All my original opinions still stand regarding composition and over-filtering of images but I'm now sleeping with the enemy… and it's not as bad as it sounds.

The main reason I chose to make the jump was the ability to share. I wanted to broadcast my photography, travels and life experiences through yet another social channel – square or not. I managed to upload 2 years worth of carefully selected 'square-friendly' photos and I'm now up to date.

The photos and videos featured on my other social channels are merely the tip of the creative iceberg. I don't post direct if they won't preview inline so all the rest now lurk on my @activrightbrain Instagram feed.

Here's the original article...

I’m going to be controversial here... I don’t like Instagram. I’m not rebelling against filtered photos or tenuous titling, rather it saddens me that in the quest for the square crop, we’re losing the art of composition.

What do I mean by this? Well, Instagram’s square format is perfect for an avatar but when Twitter’s preview image and both Twitter and Facebook’s header are landscape and Nelson’s Column, the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower all deserve a format to match their stature, square doesn’t quite cut it.

If you want an image with four sides of equal length, it should be because you chose that crop, not because it was the only option available. My header image (above) certainly wouldn't have worked on Instagram!

With a full landscape format, we understand the distance jumped and tell a story beyond the captured moment.

The smartphone and tablet revolution has given us more than digital independence or the office in our pocket, it has equipped us with a still and video camera so we’re always ready to capture the moment. Here’s the thing, the screen is a rectangle with a ratio of 4:3 to 16:9 and beyond. It seems a shame not to use the digital real estate.

A square crop would have forced us too far from the boy on the train or removed the focus of his attention – the castle.

A square format works for video platforms such as Vine (and Instagram) as you can pan horizontally and vertically to capture the full height of a subject or the panoramic vision.

However, in a rectangular viewfinder it’s still the general rule that portrait is better for... portraits and landscape is better for... landscapes. If you really want to be a rebel (or just add impact), try it the other way around.

The landscape format illustrates the sheer scale of the beach without overpowering the surfers with too much sand and sky.

I can’t deny I have an interesting life and I love having the ability to capture every relevant second on my own terms. To prove the point, I recently sold all my DSLR kit as this represented hardware dictating the terms. There were fewer and fewer opportunities for me to carry all the equipment with me yet my phone travels everywhere I go, especially with a waterproof case. The phone won, the DSLR lost.

Some images just deserve a portrait format. Without it, they're topped and tailed or given too much either side.

The upside of Instagram’s popularity is the fact that many more people are taking and sharing great photos, I just wish we weren’t settling for a single format when we’ve had centuries of painting, drawing and photography to show us that life’s more fun when you’re not trying to be square.