Dixon Hamby: When illness strikes, just pick up an iPhone and keep on shooting
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 10:00AM | Glyn Evans A few days ago you may have seen the "iPhoneography Showcase of Dixon Hamby", and if you read his bio, then you will know that with the aid of the iPhone Dixon was able to keep his passion for photography alive.
Well Dixon very kindly wrote this short article about how he was able to keep shooting, despite his illness.
"About a year ago I was struck with Fibromyalgia, a very painful syndrome that effects the nervous system and muscle strength. At the time I was working part time at Trader Joes and traveling in the winter shooting stock photography. This put an abrupt halt not only to my part time job, but also to my photography. I no longer had the strength to hold up my Canon Mark III, let alone take photos. After going through the usual trials and tribulations of finding the best treatment I found my condition was caused by neck injuries and started on several paths to healing.
But, in the meantime what about my photography? Life hardly seemed worth living if I couldn’t pursue my passion. Dorthea Lange said “It’s no accident that the photographer becomes a photographer any more than the lion tamer becomes a lion tamer.” Enter the iPhone. I started taking photos with my iPhone and would post one on my blog each day. It gave me a vehicle of expression that I sorely needed to help the healing process along. I soon found out, as we all know, its not the camera but how we view our environment that makes good photos. And I always had my camera/iphone with me so I could take photos at anytime. I was happy with the results and it really helped me to observe light and design and keep my eye sharp. Most of all it enabled me think about something other than how crappy I felt.
Another aspect of my iPhone blog is it increased traffic to my regular website and I am presently putting together a show of prints made with the iPhone. It's an amazing tool.
In the past year my health has gradually improved. I traded in my Mark III for a lighter 5D Mark II and now can also shoot video, which I hadn’t done since college. I still put an iPhone photo on my blog every day. They can be viewed at my website - http://dixonhamby.tumblr.com/. So when illness strikes, and it does to everyone, just pick up an iPhone and keep on shooting."
Dixon Hamby
Reader Comments (3)
Glad that you are on the mend Dixon. The photos are great especially the last one. Hilarious.
Inspiring Dixon, thanks for sharing your story. Keep on shooting and continued best wishes. Ed
a good achievement.... photos are ok