- Sony c902, my weapon of choice
For about 18 months, I’ve had a photo blog over on my other site goat karma. The photo blog is set up to allow me to take a photo with my camera phone and email it to the site (well, an email address that is then checked by the site and the contents extracted), allowing for instant unmolested photos in the public domain. I started out with great intentions, to document my life, not daily, but just when interesting things happened. It was fantastic when i took a cycle tour of France last summer, allowing me to share photos directly back to my partner and family stuck in not-so-sunny Britain (actually that’s a lie, there was flooding everywhere in France we rode!), and it’s great taking photos of friends when you are out, and knowing that they are already shared on the internet.
But then complacency and laziness took hold. I would take photos of stuff as an easy way to get it onto the computer (i.e if i was ebaying something, I would take a photo of the item and send it to the photo blog so i could grab the photo), not really bothering about the blog readership or the results. This is going to change however. I’m going to put an effort into taking some decent photos with the phone to inject some much needed life into the photo blog.
Which leads me onto the main question…phone camera photos, are they as ‘worthy’ as photos taken using other means? In my eyes, a photo is a photo, it’s about capturing a moment in time and capturing the essence of what makes that moment great. The medium doesn’t matter, it’s the photo. And look, these days phones have 5MP cameras with decent flashes and night modes and all sorts of gubbins, so many people would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between a photo taken with a nokia or a nikon.
Anyway, I’ve been looking back through my photo blog to have a look to see any decent photos I could show here, and surprisingly there are very few. There is one clear reason for this: the photo blog is for connecting people, so most of the photos are of people I know in certain situations in order for us to connect (if that makes sense!). There are a few that are ok though in my eyes (I would hope so, there’s been about 160 entries over the last year into the blog). so here they are:
(you will notice they are all landscape, that’s one of the limits of insta-phone-photography-blogging!)
Bonus shots, that sum up probably what my photo blog is about:
Comments
Let me start by saying, up front, that I’m a bit of a low-fi/vintage, film camera aficionado (read: snob). I used to carry a digital point-n-shoot everywhere I went. Now, I carry a Lomo LC-A, in addition to whatever other camera I might have with me (Holga, Seagull, Kiev 6C, Canonet, pinhole, etc…). I much prefer the ability to use different film and to work within the limitations of film; once you’ve loaded a film type & speed, you’re pretty much committed. However, there are some times, when you simply need to be able to change ISO speeds on the fly or shoot in color when you’ve only got black and white film in your bag. Or, when you run out of film. Recently, I found myself at a local beach at sunset. It was, quite frankly, an amazing sunset but I only had one roll of color film, which was quickly spent. So, I used my Samsung Omnia, which has a 5 megapixel camera. Not a great camera, lots of vignetting, but at 5mp, certainly adequate for making a 5×7 print. The results were surprisingly good, considering the camera’s limitations:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhettredelings/3232400001
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhettredelings/3233260276
Sure, if I had a Canon 5D MKII with me, I could have done better, but the truth of it is, I’d never have had it with me; the bag was already full with my Seagull and my pinhole.
My point? My point is that a camera is just a camera. It’s always the photographer and the spirit of craft that makes a good photograph. The limitations of the device always affect the outcome. The trick, I think, is to know the strengths and limitations of each device and know when to use each. It just might be that your phone has the best camera in your arsenal for a given situation or subject.
Hi rhett,
I completely agree. I think you managed to sum up what I was trying to say, in a clearer and much more eloquent manner!! It is the final product that counts, not how you got to it.
It’s interesting you say about the limitations of each camera, On a recent trip to Paris, with my TLR, Praktica SLR and Holga, I really started to realise what camera was best for what situation, and even in some cases, my Cameraphone was the right camera (http://www.flickr.com/photos/goatkarma/3232524892/in/set-72157609122776368/) !!
ps, that second photo of the tree is brilliant, and proves it’s definitely the photographer,setting rather than the tools!
Thanks very much! Lovely things to say. Your phone pic is Paris has just the right softness and heightened/unreal quality.
Camera phones are a fun addition to the quirkiness that my toy/vintage cams offer. I love taking photos with my iPhone and use it the same way I would any other camera. In fact, it’s almost like a digital toy cam. I proudly use it! Thanks for sharing your thoughts!