Cellphones: The Enemy of the Photographer. Or Maybe Not?

I resisted getting an iPhone for a very long time. As I tried to develop the habit of always going out with my camera, I knew if I got a phone with a camera I would just get lazy and photograph with my phone instead. My reluctance to this digital, fast approach to photographing was accentuated by a budding love for shooting film, which really connected me with the romanticism of letting my photographs "brew" for a while, before analyzing them and deciding if they were any good. Then, why did I get an iPhone?

The only reason I got one is because I feel you can develop your own community of photographers by using applications such as Instagram. You get exposed to the work of other photographers and get to share your photographs with the larger world; you get to participate in reciprocal feedback, which is instrumental when developing your vision as a photographer. That was the selling point for me. But, little did I know that I was going to love using my phone for photographing this much.

When photographing the streets, using a conventional camera is a serious investment of time and patience; combing your way though the people, and waiting for those magical moments is both spontaneous  and something you construct by observing long and hard. Sometimes, the moment it's perfect; you know you found your subject, but you get cursed out because you are photographing them without their permission. They cover their faces, go away, confront you, your moment is gone. Mitigating this requires one to become quick on its feet and devoting a lot of time, a lot.

This is where the cellphone started to pull me in. All of the sudden, I was able to walk the streets and photograph people in very intimate moments without getting noticed; I could get as close to their faces as I wanted to and disguise it as if I was just browsing an application on my phone. I could place the phone on some many different angles, weaving it into the moments I wanted to grasp, and immersing myself in them with very little effort. I started to see the images coming out of this practice, and was so pleasantly surprised at how true they were to what I wanted to convey. I am finally able to practice photographing more prolifically, with less hurdles than I usually encounter when I shoot with my camera.

But somehow, it still doesn't feel right to photograph with my phone; I feel as if this medium is a not a valid one, an easy one, a sure path to truncating my eye as a photographer. Also, all these other concerns arise: there's no real depth of field to these photographs, the lack of desirable texture and that lovely film grain, the limited print size. All of these are real limitations. Yet, these images I have taken with my phone speak to me, and to my intentions. I don't know if this is an extension of our modern tendency to cut corners, to choose the easier path, or if this is just the unexpected, beautiful discovery of another medium just as valuable and respect-worthy as the analog and digital ones.

(All photographs taken with iPhone)