iPhone Photography-It's The Real Deal

iPhone capture outside Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis

It's a good bet that you've shot, created and printed a photograph you captured with your smartphone. And, why not? The quality is good, it's instant, the device is small and non-intrusive, and with thousands of app's available to tweak your creative vision, smartphone photography has found its way into assignments, workshops and galleries.

Changing of the Guard, Athens, Greece

Sunset, windmills-Rhodes Island, Greece

I some ways I'm amazed how many people still criticize these devices as flukes, cheap photography, snapshots,  something less than real. This stereotype is diminishing as more and more fantastic images are being published using the variety of smartphones out there.

David City Airport, Nebraska

Certainly, I've been swayed. I adore the simplicity of using my iPhone. I pull it out of my pocket, raise it, fire it quietly and raise no attention to myself whatsoever. Everyone else is doing it so it fits right in. In my mind, I see the end result as if I were shooting to make prints in B/W. With all the app's that I enjoy using, I previsualize many of my iPhone photographs. What is in front of me is only the first step.

I think this is what I like most about iPhone photography, It allows me to experiment with ease, conjure up moods utilizing vintage style app's, layering textures and adding multiple images for making a visual statement or merely to have fun.

Fish & Chips cafe, Fulton, Texas

Rest assured, my iPhone has its limitations. And, I feel those limits deeply at times when I want the compression my 600mm gives me or the wide perspective of the 14mm while aiming my iPhone at a likely image.  

Fear not. I am not going to sell or shelf my Nikon's, Hasselblad, 4x5 or pinhole cameras. I am simply going to choose the instrument needed at the time to make the type photographs I wish to create. It's just another camera in your visual tool bag.