It’s not about the camera
The images above are just a few of my favorites from the last two months. They were taken in three cities on two continents, outside schools and monuments, inside bars and churches.
One thing they have in common is that they were all taken (and edited) on my iPhone 3GS — that is to say, on a 3-megapixel camera phone without a flash.
My interest in “iPhoneography” was awakened several months ago after a conversation with a friend who was shopping for a new camera. Her burgeoning interest in photography had led her to begin to look seriously at digital SLRs for the first time, but she wanted to know if they were really worth the price.
When I thought about it, (and this surprised even me, given how frequently my Digital Rebel is attached to my hand) my answer was… no, not necessarily. An SLR can be a great tool if you have a firm grasp of the technical aspects of photography and want more manual control over your photos, but it’s not by any means the key to “better” photography.
In many ways, in fact, they can really be a hindrance — they’re bulky and fragile, which makes them difficult to carry around and can inhibit you from pulling them out at a moment’s notice. In the time it takes to adjust your settings, your shot can disappear. Perhaps most frustratingly, their presence is obvious and intimidating to some people, which can make it very difficult to capture comfortable candid moments.
And they’re a distraction for the photographer, too. Although it’s easy to forget, adrift as we all are in an endless sea of marketing ploys designed to sell the latest gadget, photography is not just a science; it’s an art form. Creating compelling images requires us to train our eyes, not just to memorize settings and cough up the bucks for more megapixels every year. In no other field would we give more credit to the tools than to the people using them, so why do we chalk up “good” photography to the camera? Cameras don’t shoot people — photographers do.
I’m not saying there aren’t benefits to more advanced technology; I still shoot with my DSLR all the time, and I love it. But to really improve as a photographer, I think there are times when we need to step away from the technology and embrace the artistic, mental aspect of the process. I like shooting with my iPhone because it limits my options and challenges me to focus exclusively on composition. There’s no zoom, no flash, no choice for me but to physically respond to my surroundings: seeking interesting light, moving in closer, and adjusting for a better angle, because my photography is about my relationship with a subject or a place — not about my camera.
