iPhoneography and me, by Daniel Holland

When Apple released the iPhone in 2007 I got hold of one as soon as I could.  The idea of having all my music and the odd film in one place on my phone made a huge amount of sense to me, the opportunity to carry less rubbish in my pockets has always appealed to me.  The fact that there was a little camera lens on the back of the phone didn’t really register on my radar at first. I would find myself taking the odd picture of friends and family for posterity and I realized how convenient having a camera with me all times was, and pretty soon the style of imagery I would shoot in art college on my old Nikon FE started to appear in my camera roll on the phone.

By the time the iPhone 3GS came out in 2009 I counted the days before I could get my hands on one. I started attending different events that could provide the type of street photography that I try to capture, combine this with the apps that are available through the App Store, and I was able to combine shot’s that looked like they were straight from 60’s London.

© Daniel Holland

I’ve now progressed onto the iPhone 4, and have found myself reducing the number of apps I use quite dramatically. Today I have three or four that I’ll use on a regular basis, namely Photoshop Mobile, PhotoForge and sometimes Camera+.  As the field of photography that appeals to me tends to predominately be street photography I don’t want to over embellish my images with effects.  A lot of the time people assume the shots that appear on my Flickr stream are taken with a normal camera rather than an iPhone.

© Daniel HollandI feel very lucky to have been around at a time when iPhoneography was in it’s infancy, especially from a street photographers point of view, if you look back at photographers in days gone by they would create all kinds of equipment so that they could photograph the streets without being noticed – which I think is the key with street photography, to be able to capture images of everyday life without actually interacting with it.  The iPhone allows you to shoot scenes whilst remaining invisible, people will just see you as someone that is fiddling with their phone. With the evolution of the iPhone, iPhoneography has grown along with it; we are now seeing exhibitions taking place around the world, books being published and courses being taught on the subject.  iPhoneography is now recognized as a genuine art-form in it’s own right, the amount of creative websites dedicated solely to different aspects of iPhoneography are astonishing.  I am responsible (along with my creative partner) for a website called solomondutch.com. The idea behind it, is that it combines the written word and iPhoneography, where both subjects are given equal importance on the site, I think it’s a nice idea to have images that inspire literature and vice-versa, and being able to add to the site directly from the iPhone just goes to show what a versatile and creative tool it is.

© Daniel Holland

In terms of uploading pictures from the iPhone, I think this is one of the most important and exciting aspects of iPhoneography.  The speed in which you can get your images out into the world, with the aid of Twitter & Flickr, your images can go viral within minutes, the earliest example I can remember of this is when a plane crashed into the Hudson river a few years ago, images were taken by a passenger on the plane and were posted on Twitter and spread around the world before the emergency services had arrived.

In years gone by you could never be sure what images had worked until you processed the film and printed the negatives, I still love this process, but just from a nostalgic point of view.

Hopefully people will recognize the art of the iPhone in it’s own right, and not just a phone that happens to have a camera attached to it.

I hope you enjoyed my guest post here on the iPhoneography blog, and if you would like to see more of my iPhoneography, then please check out my Flickr stream.

Comments

[Matt Burlem]

Great article, Dan! :)