This cyber warfare photo became possible when I happened across an army tank and grabbed a shot of it with my iPhone.
New Freedom With Photography
New Freedom With Photography
When I say I hate Instagram I am using
the word "Instagram" as the category of pictures shot with a mobile phone. Now I didn’t
always have such a dislike of mobile phone camera photos. I first took notice
of such images when a friend of mine, Nevada Wier, showed me the images she was
shooting with her iPhone. Damn they looked good! We were on a trip to India and
here she was getting awesome looking images with her phone. I had visions of
finally being able to discard my DSLR bodies and lenses and all that other
camera gear and enjoying a new freedom with my photography.
An
Excursion Into iPhone Photography
Unfortunately my brief (so far)
excursion into iPhone photography hasn’t quite gone as planned. First, I find it
very difficult to shoot great pictures with my phone. I have a hard time
holding it steady, a hard time not getting my fingers in the pictures, and a
hard time triggering the shutter at the moment I want. Too, I have a hard time finding the beauty
in my phone pictures when viewing them on my desktop display (as opposed to my
camera screen). Did I mention it is a pain in the butt to learn new things too?
Looking on the good side, I sure have a lot of pictures of my cat now!
A
Different Reality
Further, grab shots are not what I do.
I shoot carefully composited concept images. Sure, the idea of never missing a
shot appeals to me, as well as the idea of supplementing my stock library with those
spur-of-the-minute opportunities. Yet I find the reality a bit different. I
don’t seem to be finding those significantly good spontaneous opportunities and
instead I feel constant pressure to produce, and constant disappointment in my
own failure to come up with the awesome phone-camera shots that so many of my
peers achieve.
Opportunities
And “Breaks”
Yes I do continually look for
opportunities with my iPhone in hand. Which means that now I never get a break
from work! I spend so much time thinking about and “doing” stock photography
that I am in constant danger of burn out.
Not having my equipment with me gives me a kind of break from that
self-imposed pressure. Or rather
it did, because now I have my "equipment" with me all the time! To be fair I do get some interesting and useful images. In the “cyber warfare”
image at the top of this post, the war tank was shot with my iPhone when I
unexpectedly saw it on a trip to the dump. Without my iPhone handy I would
never have created that stock image.
A
Good Attitude And A Great Tool
Okay, yes, the camera phones are a
great tool and, I guess, are already contributing to my career. The trick for
me, as with most endeavors, is having a good attitude and the
self-discipline to keep my approach a healthy one, one that contributes to my
way of working rather than distracts from it. For some photographers mobile phone
cameras can open up a whole new set of opportunities (check out David Sanger's Instagram work), for me it is one more
love/hate relationship to be managed. And, I guess I don’t really hate
Instagram after all:).
