A stop on the way to the grocery store to get milk. Day fading and in a hurry — the iPhone was the perfect tool to record the scene — launch the Instagram app, press the shutter button, done.
Looking at recent pictures has me wondering if I have the complete digital tool in my pocket. I wonder.
Often.
The morning dog walking ritual at times done half asleep. I don’t want to drag a big camera along with me but there are moments I don’t want to forget so I use the iPhone.
Arguments of quality rattle through my brain as I point the iPhone at a subject — “Use a real camera fool, get the high res file, be professional…”
I tell myself I should use a better camera. Give myself more pixels to work with but I don’t. And then I find myself somewhere special — the light, the forms, it’s all working and all I have is the iPhone.
The big digital SLR sits on a shelf as the Vespa rockets (poetic license) down the road and I accept a sacrifice in photographic quality using the iPhone compared to every other digital camera at my disposal. Still — the iPhone is easy, present, available — it makes pictures that otherwise would not exist.
A piece of chocolate cake at lunch with a friend; a quick photo with the camera phone before devouring everything short of licking the powdered sugar from the plate. I think I understand my dog’s obsession with tennis balls better now. I’ve embarrassed to admit how many times I have looked at this image. There’s something powerful at work in my head with cake.
Mental recrimination about the iPhone and what it means to be a real photographer and the programmed obsession with sharpness, resolution, resolution and megapixels. Bigger camera equals better pictures. Or so the myth goes.
Fog on the way to work as I cut across campus on a farm lane and I wanted to remind myself later how great it is to commute to work and all I have is the iPhone.
A recent discussion with a photographer friend had him outlining his quality concerns with a Canon 5D Mark III (no slouch of a camera in the DSLR realm) and his decision to move to a Pentax 645D medium format digital camera (huge files and a $10K pricetag for the body alone). He showed me 18×24 prints that seem impossibly detailed with color, tone and texture not normally discernable to the naked eye. My hand fingered the iPhone in my pocket as I tried to not drool on my shoes. Beautiful prints.
Kim in the garden — another fleeting moment that I want to backup my memory in a digital form — the light, the place, a piece of our lives without the mechanical intrusion of too much photographic gear. I know I could use a little pocket camera but the iPhone allows me to shoot and process the final images in moments and send it on to Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr…
Early morning in State College. Another digital snapshot using yet another filter in the Instagram collection. I can’t remember what it’s called.
I really should buckle down and take this stuff more seriously and shoot with a real camera and methodically process the images. It echoes in my head over and over.
But I’m not that photographer. My nature and personality chafe at the tyranny of that kind of process and I’ve accepted I’ll never be comfortable in that creative landscape despite how much I admire that kind of work.
Horses wander onto the horizon on a pasture at Penn State. Their lazy movements under a gray sky remind me of something I can’t quite put my finger on. A fast capture on the iPhone and I can think about it later. A digital post-it note.
Moments pass quickly in life and on the road and the fuss-free performance of the iPhone makes it possible to reach into the flow and snatch moments at will. I consider these images sketches — snapshots that reflect a creative freedom not possible when I’m enslaved by the tyranny of photographic law.
But that’s me.
A recent ride with Paul and Gordon began at my driveway. Paul wandered up the street to watch the sunrise. I know that feeling. The iPhone makes it so easy to remember.
While the iPhone is not the complete tool for digital photography I’ve been impressed how valuable a tool it is for me while I’m on the road, out in the world, engaging a life.
I’ll write about the downside of the thing some other day…
I completely appreciate the sentiment of this struggle. My D800 sits in it’s case having done wonderfully on it’s last outing four months ago. Since, all I’ve shot is with my iPhone and the occasional G12 (only because I was pretending to be a serious photographer).
I written before about “… the best camera”. That statement is so true. The adequate on in your pocket is just perfect. It’s just art using a different tool.
Cheers
Tom
If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.
Steve
Sometimes, the light is so right, or the timing is so short, or the will to drag out the regular camera is not strong enough….the iphone’s camera does a very good job for such times. Heck, I just did my entire last posting (publishing planned for tomorrow) just using the iphone because it was handy (I was listening to music while changing tires on the Ural)and getting grease on it is no big deal.
Nice pictures as always, I liked the one with the setting sun best.
dom
Something about a man and cake. :^ )
I continue to crank to my timid friends that all the expensive equipment in the world doesn’t make you a better photographer. Just take what you have and use it. The image is the thing…
And all these photos are excellent.
I used to own professional full frame sensor digital SLR’s. etc etc. Now I either shoot film or go all digital with the iPhone. Ordered the iPhone 5 mainly for the even better camera than my current 4th generation iPhone. Love editing the images on the iPhone. Some apps are easier to apply certain corrections that with Photoshop on my big Mac….
It appears Junior has been to the groomer in the recent past. As to the iPhone, seriously looked at the device, and decided it was just too small a device for my enormous fingers. I had thought of the
camera division however then placed
that idea elsewhere. As has been mentioned if the tme and place are present.
Photograph the damn thing; and deal
with the images at a later time
Steve, Martha is right, all those pictures are excellent.
What makes your photos outstanding has nothing to do with the camera, and everything to do with how you see.
Ten other people with ten other cameras of any sort you care to mention, standing in the same spot at the same time wouldn’t produce the same result.
Producing the photos you produce can only be done consistently (and you are very consistent) by seeing the scene the way an artist sees, translating from three dimensions to two.
It’s about line, colour and contrast implying the three dimensions that our eyes see. It’s about composing the picture in the viewer, evaluating the relative size of things in the scene, balancing shapes and volumes by subtle shifts in how the camera is pointed.
I like to try. I sometimes get lucky.
Tom Hill: There is an amazing amount of mental conversation related to doing “the right photography”. Camera, film, software, whatever. Getting to the point where the subject and situation dictates the camera is a good place for me.
Troubadour: I love the iPhone camera. But then I was riding today and only used the Canon G9. Go figure…
Charlie6 {dom): I agree with your appraisal of light, time and motivation and where the iPhone shines.
You are definitely a setting sun kind of photographer — so many great skies in the west.
Martha Tenney: Cameras do not make a photographer. I can still find myself musing how much better my pictures would be if I only had…
Thanks for the kind words about the pictures.
Rogier: I still have my view camera and Leica M6 and the draw to the darkroom is still present even though it has been many months now since I’ve processed prints.
Digitally I have some pretty simple processes for the blog. At work it’s more complicated and doesn’t easily translate to photo life on the Vespa.
It is weird isn’t it how easy it is to process images on the iPhone versus using Photoshop or Lightroom on the Mac.
Bryce: Junior NEEDS to visit a groomer. His appearance is deceptive — lots of summer within his coat — all that stuff from field and stream.
I like your suggestion — shoot now, worry later. Better than just worry…
David Masse: Thank you for your kind and generous comments about my photos. I suppose anyone who has tinkered with a camera for a long time will begin to see in their own way and it will eventually be reflected in the images they make. No quick way to get there like buying a better camera.
It’s just work work work.
Years ago I had a philosophical discussion about photography with a friend who is the most world traveleld person I know. This was after a driving trip from here to Alaska, during which I did nothing but take pictures. He never takes any pictures… ZERO. I realized that whole trip I did not look at the world through my eyes, but was always thinking “how does the camera see that?” I put the camera away… Well, that didn’t last long.
I don’t take quallity pictures. I used to. I now take pictures for memories, and I do get out my old pictures and look at them often.
I-touch; 15 snapped moments at speed on the way home from work, post 3 they all draw comments – no-one asks what camera I used.
This blog is awesome. I’m glad that I found it!
poppawheelie: A camera can certainly distort our view of the world. If you use it to twist things into a preconceived notion of how things should look then you certainly run the risk of missing a lot. It’s a long running issue in photography.
I’m more like you I think — photography is about memory and pictures are reminders of the details.
Loving the I-photography. hey it’s working for you and you seem to have The “eye”. I particularly like the tree in for with Vespa peeking!
http://ddo2jl.blogspot.ca/
The folks in the CCW world (no politics or judgements, please) have a saying that “the best gun is the one you have with you”.
I think the same thing applies to photography. Big camera, little camera, whatever you have in your hand when opportunity shows itself.
Thanks for sharing what you see.
Having only recently upgraded to an iPhone 3GS (hey, 99 cents was all I could afford…), my quibbles are the lack of the zoom I see on 4s and 4Ss, and the relative darkness of the images, which I have to fix in Photoshop.
Otherwise, I’m very happy. I can shoot from the saddle more easily with the iPhone than even the G11, a nice feature for the group rides…
__Orin
Scootin’ Old Skool
I agree with Orin, my 3Gs takes awful pics for the most part. Out of focus a lot even when using focus.
That being said I have caught excellent moments on my iphone so fuzzy or not I would not want to do without.
Those are some great looking pics. If you are like me you could go on and on about bikes all day long. Here’s a cool place I found to talk about similar topics: http://tinyurl.com/8r75rpz
This images are looking awesome. I would like to suggest that you consult to my photo sharing who is teaching the basics of photography and I have recently found this site on internet.
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