An Almost Anonymous Blog

re: I don’t/can’t enjoy mobile photography

This morning I read an interesting blog post from gobino: 📱I don’t/can’t enjoy mobile photography.

I enjoy seeing his photos every day in my RSS feed. He finds some interesting things! And as noted in his post, they're mostly taken on his iPhone (a lot of them through camera apps I wish I had on my Samsung Galaxy S21). But, he says:

However, I don’t feel anything when taking these shots. It’s just point and shoot and move on. There is no experience. It doesn’t evoke the same emotion as when I use a real camera.

I agree with this! The difference in using a smartphone to snap photos vs. a dedicated camera evokes different feelings. With a camera, there's an intent in taking the photos, while a smartphone can be disposable. In a way, you could look at it from a perspective of point-and-shoot vs (D)SLR in the days when all we had on our phones were low-quality lenses that were an afterthought meant as a selling feature1 to separate themselves from phones without cameras.

With a more advanced camera—digital or film—there's an implied intent that when you're using it, you're taking the time to frame your shot, fiddle with ISO/shutter speed/aperture etc. to get the right shot. With a point-and-shoot, you're taking the best photo possible and usually it's something that can fit in your pocket.

Gobino, excuse me if I'm misinterpreting your post, but I feel like the impetus to write this was inspired by the YouTube video you linked:

iPhone is not a real camera

I enjoyed this video, it was well-made and the author made some salient points. However, this is also coming from someone who owns a lot of cameras and photography/videography is their profession. Ditching an iPhone for photos/video and using their cameras comes from the privilege to do so.

I'm not saying that it's impossible for anyone else to do this. You could very easily get a cheap digital camera that does the same thing an iPhone (or Android) can do, and it's just as portable. I just think that a person who has all these cameras available and has an eye for photography with cameras is better-equipped to do this than the average person. Smartphones have built-in software that help you take the best shots (and in many cases, add more processing on top of the photos to give you what it thinks is the best "look"). For many people, the best camera in your pocket is their smartphone.

That said...I think he is completely right about the disposable nature of the photos we take with our smartphones, and where I come back to gobino's point about the lack of feeling or memory-making when shooting with a phone. If I look at my camera roll I have many photos I take and forget about. They are automatically backed up to OneDrive. Compared that to the photos I take with my dedicated devices, I actively take them off my memory cards and back them up to the cloud AND a dedicated hard drive.

I think it's possible to adopt Peter McKinnon's "no-iPhone" philosophy while using your smartphone. I hate when I see people take themselves out of the moment at sporting events to record almost everything instead of watching with their own eyes, so that's already something I choose not to do.

Some other things I've taken away that I hope to internalize:

No matter what, when you stop to take photos you're going to take yourself out of the moment. When you're behind the lens you stop being part of the moment and become an observer. There's no way around this. But you can do your best to become that observer for a few seconds and pop back into reality.

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  1. Camera lenses are still a selling feature on phones - aside from "AI" features, the advances in camera technology are the biggest marketing points you'll see for new phones.↩

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