Cell Phone Cameras - a _Good_ thing!

[wlewisiii]

(originally a response to "Guy or Gal?" but it deserves a new thread, I think)

or worse <meow!> cell phone cameras.

You know, I actually think that the cell phone camera is the single best thing to happen to photography since the dawn of the SLR era. Much as Mr. Eastman's Brownie, it puts an image maker in the hands of people who wouldn't otherwise take pictures and they always have it with them... this has some very interesting practical effects on the world - witness the shots we had of the orange revolution or the London subways long before CNN could provide thier conventional video?

The best thing they can do is make people a little more aware of what surrounds them - and then make them want to remember it. "The first taste is free... " Later those who care will run into the limits of those cameras, much as I did, once upon a time, with a Canon Rebel XS, and that's where the next generation of real photographers will come from. For many, no, by far most of them, that will be a DSLR. But some will get burned by losing images from the garbage that is CF and other digital media. They will want something that they know will last. That will lead them to silver halides instead - and that is what will keep our little niche alive in a real world (ie as something that generates enough profit 🙂 ) sense.

Like that proverbial Brownie, the Cell Phone Cam needs no technical knowledge to get the images out of it. Both are the ultimate low quality point and shoot cameras of their respective eras... But it can lead to better things. After all, Mr. Adams' first camera was a classic Brownie box... 😉

William

 

[dexdog]

I agree with your idea that camera phones are a good thing, but have to object to your characterization of CF, and presumably other digital formats, as garbage. Most of the photography produced in the media of the developed world is digital, and hardly junk.

Reminds me of a particularly hilarious rant that I saw on Pnet a year ago- real photogarphy is only produced on film cameras! Someone replied, sarcastically, that the only real photography was produced on glass plates.

 

[wlewisiii]

That wasn't what I was trying to say, by any means. I only wanted to imply that digital media is going to be, inherently, less archival than silver. By the same token, there is a long article in the April Shutterbug about bad CF media. This probably had a ... bit ... of an infulence on my wording... The images could be the most glorious pulitzer winners yet captured. But, I can go to the national archives and make a print from the glass plate the Wright Brothers shot on Dec 17, 1903 while it would be difficult, at best, to make a print of any digital image made on Dec. 17, 1993.

I have nothing against digital as such - however, I believe that anyone pretending it's archival is in for a very nasty surprise sooner or later.

Hope that makes sense.

William

 

[pvdhaar]

They will want something that they know will last. That will lead them to silver halides instead - and that is what will keep our little niche alive in a real world (ie as something that generates enough profit 🙂 ) sense.

Not necessarily so. The volatility of the product may be the essence for an artist.. It's not uncommon to destroy the source material after a print or a limited series is made. This isn't only restricted to silkscreening, or bronze sculpture casting. It also holds for photography. Make a print, erase the memory card/cut the negative/smash the glass plate, and noone is able to re-create exactly that output ever again. Vanity may have something to do with it, but it's certainly a statement..

In its extremes, it is even key to Polaroid colour transfers where you have to destroy the original by peeling off the dye layer to attach it to the object of your choice..

 

[dexdog]

I have nothing against digital as such - however, I believe that anyone pretending it's archival is in for a very nasty surprise sooner or later.

Hope that makes sense.

William

Thanks for the clarification. I agree that digital images have issues with archive status, but would argue that it is not significantly different than film or glass plates. All technologies become obsolete at some point. Currently we are on the cusp of the film/digital archive timeline. Both are economically accessible at this time, but no one can predict the future. I have to wonder if photographers who recorded an image on film or glass in the past did so thinking that their particular image format was immortal, without regard for future technologies.

Images that persist in society over time are meaningful for any number of reasons, but are carried down through the ages by new technologies. I have not yet seen the Mona Lisa in the original oil painting, but still think that it is a beautiful work of art, having viewed it in photographs reproduced in books.

 

[dmr]

Well, since it looks like I'm the one who started this one ...

it puts an image maker in the hands of people who wouldn't otherwise take pictures and they always have it with them...

My problem with this is that it replaces what would be a higher quality and more versitile device with something that is, in essence, a toy glued on to a telephone.

{introspective moment ...} I guess I must just take photography too seriously. I feel that these cell phone cameras cheapen the art and craft of photography overall.

Point {sorta}, shoot, chimp, forget. That's what seems to happen to the images taken with cell phones. I can't help but think that those who use them would, if cell phone cameras weren't available, use at least a semi-decent P&S.

Oh well ...

 

[VinceC]

Brownies and other box cameras of long ago had rotten image quality, too. I'm all for the democratization of image-making, and those who get hooked can search for the level of quality that suits them.

On the archival aspects of silver versus digital -- Just about every longtime photographer has plenty of disaster stories involving film. We've just grown used to dealing with its faults.

Among my long list:

The old Canon F1 that, when jarred, would superimpose half a frame onto the previous frame.

The several times the film wasn't properly loaded on the take-up spool.

The time I didn't hit the switch properly on the flourescent darkroom light, and, while loading pictures of an ice-skating performance, the light suddenly flickered on.

The time when I was loading film of a boxing competition when the writer nonchalantly walked into the darkroom and flicked on the lights to see if I was there.

Discovering the temperature sensitivity of Microdol-X while in Honduras, where ambient water temps were in the 80s.

The time in my impoverished youth when I was developing half rolls or rewinding partial rolls to move them from one camera to another, then forgetting and superimposing images onto the one another.

SCRATCHES.

DUST.

WATER SPOTS.

THUMBPRINTS ON THE EMULSION (Look in the sky on the upper right of a clean print of Eddie Adams picture of the police chief shooting the man in Vietnam).

Robert Capa's D-DAY photos.

Film left in a hot car.

 

[dcsang]

Hmmmmm
I'm not a big fan of them (Cell Phone Cameras).

1) quality is horrid
2) Up here in Toronto there was a guy using his Cell Phone camera to surreptitiously take photos of little girls.. and I don't mean in a "smile for the camera" sort of way... they are small enough that it provides too many opportunities for weirdos like that.. just my opinion mind you.

They ARE good though during times of emergencies/crisis when "normal" cameras are no where to be found.

Still, I prefer the phone to do just one thing - be a voice communication device - I don't need it to take photos, organize my life, or play games with me. I can take photos with my IIIc or any other camera that I always have with me and if I wanted to organize my life or play games with someone....... I'd get a wife/girlfriend 😀

Smirking,
Dave

 

[dazedgonebye]

That's quite a little journey there...from phone camera to film.
I think more likely they will transition from phone cameras to higher quality phone cameras (as they become available). I doubt even this transition will be intentional. How long do people hold on to their cell phones, 1 year, 2 years?
It won't be long until phone cameras rival dedicated digital cameras in quality...which is to say, plenty good enough for most folks who just want to snap a picture now and again.

 

[oftheherd]

Cell phones are a form of P&S camera. So were Brownies in their day. Not known for their quality by the standards of today's 4x5 for sure. Doesn't mean people can't enjoy recordng scenes in their everyday life. Today's media is no more at risk that glass plates of yesteryear. Glass plates can be protected, and transferred to other media. So can electronic images. Not all glass plates were so protected, nor will all electronic images. Doesn't mean they can't be, they just haven't been.
So what's the point?

 

[kmack]

The archival properties of film have a down side. My wife just inherited 9 cubic feet (One Hundred and Twenty Years) worth of her families photographs. It is a mini history of photography. We have everything from 8x10 glass plates of people and houses unknown and unknowable , to Polaroid's of people and places unknown and unknowable.

We are in the process of weeding out the significant from the dross. So far, most of the keepers are of sentimental value (Uncle Cheks Farm type of stuff). I have found less than a dozen photos that have any kind of artistic merit, but we have only been through half of the pile.

The point is, most photography is ephemera, important pictures will be archived. and enough of the ephemera will survive (like roaches) to give future historians a headache. The transitory nature of cell phone phototgrapy is not a bad thing.