Smartphones ruin my photography-not what you think.

Coldkennels said:
I've always found cars to be the worst thing for photography. Here in the UK it's rare you find a street which isn't cluttered with dozens of the ******* things; it's hard to get a clear shot of anything.
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Also, signs and utility poles often make it challenging to get a nice photo of a building or house.

I think there’s a famous (?) photo of the Guggenheim museum with all the city clutter edited out (signs, poles, traffic signals).

These days, I’ve come to accept these things as part of the environment that my subject resides in.

As for cars, I like older cars, have owned many British cars, and these have their own character and fix a moment in time. These days I’m scanning photos I made in the 1970’s and have never seen before (I just kept the negatives tucked away). One of the many surprising things I see in these photos are the variety and distinctiveness of the cars in the photos - usually 1950’s to 1970’s.
 
Bob Michaels said:
I think that those who are bothered by too many people using cellphones in their photos have biases based on the past when such did not exist. As several posters have said, we must photograph what is and not what it used to be. Very similar to those who wished the number of cars was only what it used to be or those who find the modern era number of commercial signs in the background to be distracting. Were photographers years ago bothered by so many wearing hats? Or, today's photographers bothered by so few wearing hats? Who knows if years down the road people looking back at today's photographs will find the focus on cellphones to be interesting.
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Let's be realistic here. Hunched shoulders, close-focused eyes, blank expression, minimal body language... what's interesting? There are universal things about human expression and body language that are just missing in people wrapped up in their phones.
 
agentlossing said:
Let's be realistic here. Hunched shoulders, close-focused eyes, blank expression, minimal body language... what's interesting? There are universal things about human expression and body language that are just missing in people wrapped up in their phones.
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Terrible-terrible times.

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agentlossing said:
Let's be realistic here. Hunched shoulders, close-focused eyes, blank expression, minimal body language... what's interesting? There are universal things about human expression and body language that are just missing in people wrapped up in their phones.
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I am just baffled at those who photography is impacted by too many people talking on cell phones. There are a lot of people on the street and many many who are not distracted by their phones. Simply photograph them. Even if half the people in sight (a huge exaggeration) are talking on their phones, just photograph the other half.
 
Bob Michaels said:
I am just baffled at those who photography is impacted by too many people talking on cell phones. There are a lot of people on the street and many many who are not distracted by their phones. Simply photograph them. Even if half the people in sight (a huge exaggeration) are talking on their phones, just photograph the other half.
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Maybe we're on different wavelengths: I don't mean people talking on their phones (who does that anymore?), I mean people looking at them. If you're in an area where people are more likely to be talking with the phone held up to their ear, then at least their faces aren't downturned and they could have an interesting expression. I rarely see people doing that though.
 
retinax said:
Have you been to a rock or pop etc. concert in the last ten years?
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Yes that reminds me of a concert I went to. Was feeling rather cagey that I scored a seat in the 10th row only to find a bloke that was shooting video with a freaking 17 inch laptop which was cranked wide open. Told him he was blocking our view, he just smirked and continued. That is until we did the old push and shove routine. He got the message, but I digress. :angel:
 
agentlossing said:
Let's be realistic here. Hunched shoulders, close-focused eyes, blank expression, minimal body language... what's interesting? There are universal things about human expression and body language that are just missing in people wrapped up in their phones.
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Well said, my point exactly and masks, forget about it!!
 
I don't see anyone making the argument that phones are strengthening the photos, and if nothing else they tend to make everyone look the same, in the same pose, with the same face, so are they not less interesting? I like the above photo a lot, but not because of the phone.
 
This is a funny thread because it's complaining about what is a visible sign of improvement of life for many, if not most people, around the world. Quality of life and access to information is better for most people now, than at any time in history; there will be arguments against this, of course.
As if we have a right or entitlement to photograph people in a state without their mobile devices. To some it just makes them work harder, and we've seen some good photos from it. If you don't like the posture, body language, facial expression, whatever, then move along.

Phil Forrest
 
I’ve spent the last hour in my car, parked, reading this forum on the phone. LOL

But: use things in moderation to avoid becoming obsessed. So often I’ve seen four young people at a table in a restaurant, each of them on their phones texting other people. Are they enjoying each other’s company? Why are they even together?

Even without the phone - as someone mentioned - you’ll see people at a memorable location quickly make a photo and move on and not really experiencing the moment or the significance of the occasion. Basically they’re ticking off a check box: “Yes, I was here.”
 
Phil_F_NM said:
This is a funny thread because it's complaining about what is a visible sign of improvement of life for many, if not most people, around the world. Quality of life and access to information is better for most people now, than at any time in history; there will be arguments against this, of course.
As if we have a right or entitlement to photograph people in a state without their mobile devices. To some it just makes them work harder, and we've seen some good photos from it. If you don't like the posture, body language, facial expression, whatever, then move along.

Phil Forrest
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I myself certainly wasn’t “complaining” about “access to information”. I’ve got an iphone, which I rarely have any good reason to access in public, and an Ipad, and two desktop computers. I’m obviously on them all the time, “accessing information”, which should be obvious, as much as I post on here at all hours of the day and night. So, that’s not what people are “complaining” about.
If someone took a photo of me, on a street corner, looking at a phone instead of engaging the world around me, the real world instead of the virtual one, it’s liable to be a photo not worth looking at, not in comparison to the work of others I mentioned earlier.

So, maybe it comes down to where one draws the dividing line between memorable photos and everyday dross. Maybe that’s where the disagreement stems from. If there are great photos, many of them, which revolve around people ignoring life around them while immersed in their devices, I have not seen them, not interesting ones, at any rate, ones that are worth a second look.

When public life was teeming with people more engaged with each other, in public, for good or ill, simply because they were in the here and now, there were more photographic opportunities to capture something interesting, and there was no need for one photographer to tell another photographer that he just needed to “move along.” It wasn’t the same scene over and over again, different people, different day, same basic scene. If I can put words in his mouth, I think that is what the OP was getting at. Everyone here is aware that there are still some people out on the street that don’t have a cell phone out, and it’s certainly possible to photograph them. Possibly even interesting as a photo, provided they are doing something more than just existing, on the street.

But, I’d enjoy seeing these interesting photos of people on a sidewalk looking at their phones, because I have never seen any. Please show.
I mean interesting, like Kertész Gypsies interesting. And, if that isn’t the level we are aiming for when we get up every morning, why even do it?

Spending 15 minutes browsing through Winogrand’s NYC work should be enough to convince anyone but the most obstinate that, yes, he was an artist with talent, but there was more available to him at the time, easier pickings than there are now, when as now, many more people outside in public are engaged in exactly the same activity, an activity that is exclusionary of human interaction or outward, photographable emotion.
 
Phil_F_NM said:
This is a funny thread because it's complaining about what is a visible sign of improvement of life for many, if not most people, around the world. Quality of life and access to information is better for most people now, than at any time in history; there will be arguments against this, of course.
As if we have a right or entitlement to photograph people in a state without their mobile devices. To some it just makes them work harder, and we've seen some good photos from it. If you don't like the posture, body language, facial expression, whatever, then move along.

Phil Forrest
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I think most if not all of us have enough grasp of nuance to accept that we are complaining purely on aesthetic grounds.
 
I rarely do much, if any, street photography, but when I do, it's always amusing to me to take photos of someone engrossed in their phone not paying attention to something happening literally right next to them. Maybe I'm just shallow that way. The phones are here to stay, we just have to figure out how to say something interesting with what we see.
 
Bob Michaels said:
I think that those who are bothered by too many people using cellphones in their photos have biases based on the past when such did not exist. As several posters have said, we must photograph what is and not what it used to be. Very similar to those who wished the number of cars was only what it used to be or those who find the modern era number of commercial signs in the background to be distracting. Were photographers years ago bothered by so many wearing hats? Or, today's photographers bothered by so few wearing hats? Who knows if years down the road people looking back at today's photographs will find the focus on cellphones to be interesting.
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As usual, Bob Michaels, nails it! Nails it!

All the best,
Mike
 
It is what it is. I accept and embrace what is happening on the streets. I photograph what is happening in front of me... no more, no less.

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Yokohama, Japan - March 2021
 
What makes 99% of our street photos totally uninteresting is not so much the fact that many subjects are fiddling with a smartphone, as the fact that millions of such pictures are taken each day, and are promptly shared online.

Bresson's or Doisneau's photos show way fewer cars and signs and no one talking on a mobile, but they would also be terribly boring if there were millions of nearly identical photos around. We're spoiled by too many cameras, more than by too many smartphones.
 
Andrea Taurisano said:
What makes 99% of our street photos totally uninteresting is not so much the fact that many subjects are fiddling with a smartphone, as the fact that millions of such pictures are taken each day, and are promptly shared online.

Bresson's or Doisneau's photos show way fewer cars and signs and no one talking on a mobile, but they would also be terribly boring if there were millions of nearly identical photos around. We're spoiled by too many cameras, more than by too many smartphones.
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Agreed. .... there's a sort of viewing and frequency fatigue that comes along with that... whether posted on web sites or peppered in forums in almost daily rapid-fire succession.
 
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