Nokia Asha 300, A Two-Themed Sunday

Mobile Photography: On a budget, a cost-conscious digital alternative for simple, fun, and nostalgic photography.

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The Nokia Asha 300, released in November 2011 as a simple fare for the mass market, came with a 2.4-inch touch screen, a 5 MP rear camera, an FM radio, MP3 support, a microSD memory card slot, and 128MB internal memory that could store up to 112 JPEG images.

Weighing 85 grams and measuring 112.80 x 49.50 x 12.70mm (height x width x thickness), the Nokia Asha 300 was the smallest, slimmest, and lightest phone I have used.

The cell was one of the leading phones on the market, then, for battery life.

I started using the phone again recently, after having placed it in storage for quite some time, with what seemed a small resurgence in the interest of vintage digital genres, and as a recourse for an alternative to my interest in film photography, which is going off track with the ever-increasing cost of film and its associated services for film photography.

For the shoot, I took the camera out for a city walk, had the JPEG images cropped to a cinematic 2.4:1 image aspect ratio on the post-processing software, and tweaked with Auto Tone Correction, Tilt Adjustment, Tone Curve, Brightness & Contrast, and Unsharp Mask. The result of the shoot is as seen in this two-themed photo essay.

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The Ride

It was a quiet and unassuming Sunday, with gray skies above, sparse traffic on the street, and just as calm at the LRT stop where I usually departed for my outings. Not many passengers on the front coach of the train either, with just a family with kids on an outing, and another passenger dozing off for the duration to his stop.

The stops along the line were almost empty, with little or no passenger activity at all.

I did disembark at a couple of stops on the way, grabbed maybe a couple of shots at each, and continued the ride on the next train until my last stop.

The Crowd

By the time I reached my destination, the square where I was going to be was already fairly crowded, with people sitting on the steps leading up to the entrance of a shopping mall, milling and walking around, waiting for a presentation by a local handicapped musical group.

Others among the crowd were getting involved with a group of street artists encamped further down the side of the square, who were working on earning their keep with their artistic skills, surrounded by exhibits of their work for sale.

The day, alas, ended all too soon.

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