Prejudice, Guilt, and Shame

I've made a decision: I'm no longer going to be prejudiced about smartphone cameras. Ten years ago, when Janis Krums took a cellphone picture of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, we still had reason to be amazed that a non-photographer could take a news picture with a phone and it could be, like, meaningful. It seemed like a brave new world then. No longer. Now, smartphone cameras are just another kind of camera. Like any other kind of consumer camera from the Kodak Brownie to the point-and-shoot to the digicam, they can be used for any kind of photography up to and including expressive artwork. Any kind of contempt for their "unseriousness" is hidebound and old fashioned, merely the residue of older attitudes clinging to the present.

For example, I was doing my daily battle with the goldenrod in my "wildflower garden" (inherited with the house) a few days ago, pulling it out by hand, when I uncovered yet another poor plant that had been engulfed and smothered by the rapacious weed. It had large buds at the top so I suspected it was not a weed itself. The next day, returning to yank still more goldenrod from the ground (I have a feeling I will never win), a single day in the sunlight had encouraged the recently liberated be-budded plant to do this:

Blooming while the blooming was good! You could almost feel its gratitude at being freed from the clutches of the rampaging goldenrod. So I ran to the house, got out the full-frame camera and the 85mm lens, and took this. Do you like it?

Just kidding. This is an iPhone picture, in portrait mode.

Does it make any difference? It's just a picture, and it's just for here. I'm not going to print it. Anyway, I think scorning pictures made with phones is an outmoded behavior now, and so is feigning amazement that good pictures can actually be taken with phones. They're just another kind of camera, among all the other kinds of cameras. You might scorn them if you are disposed to scorn other consumer cameras—few photographers ever respected the Kodak Instamatic or Disk cameras, for instance—but don't forget that there have been people who have done interesting work with toy cameras and things like pinhole cameras made from shoe boxes.

Toy camera?!

I suppose it's sort of old-fashioned that I even bother mentioning this, at this late date. The whole rest of the world has already accepted that smartphone cameras are just cameras...it's only crusty old photo-dawgs like moi who have been holdouts. But really, I don't want to be the kind of person who holds other peoples' choices against them, like the crusty old pros in the 1930s and '40s who scorned the tiny 35mm cameras made by Leitz as "toys." Some pretty decent work was done with those, too.

Nothing but colors
I ate some ice cream on Friday, for the first time in this calendar year. I had a kiddie portion. I didn't enjoy it. I felt a bit sick afterwards, half because of the massive dosing of sucrose and cancer-promoting casein, and half out of guilt for betraying my fealty to WFPB. This is an iPhone snap a picture of the ice cream shop in Naples (New York, not Italy, don't get excited):

I'm so ashamed.

Not a great picture, and I'm not proud of it, but it illustrates a point I want to make. I admit I've had various bigotries about materials and methods over the years. For instance, back in the old days when black and white were the colors of photography, I could never seem to bring myself to make serious prints on RC paper. I had used some of the very earliest ones, and they tended to discolor and acquire craquelure, so I never quite trusted them and I could never take them seriously. RC was for work prints, fiber-base for final prints. Which is ironic, because some of my fiber-base prints made on expensive fine-art papers thirty years ago are showing a touch of age, looking a tad dingy (probably because of aging or fading brighteners), whereas prints made on Ilford RC papers still look very good. Some of them look like the day they were made. The RC papers seem to have lasted better than some of the fiber-base papers. If I were going to print traditional B&W today, I'd use Ilford RC papers. Well, except for the fact that museums and galleries are prejudiced against them too. Or are they, still? They used to be.

But I'll tell you one thing I can't get over—taking pictures like the one of the ice cream shop that just depend on pretty colors. I'm not talking about all color photography, just photographs that are entirely "of" bright colors. Whenever I take a photograph that's "just" of color, it's like I get hit by this paintball pellet of guilt and shame. This is just me—I know there are superb photographers known for doing just that their whole careers—but something about it just seems illegitimate to me, and it makes me feel guilty when I catch myself doing it. I find it very hard to concentrate on shooting carefully when the only thing that draws me to a subject is just a bunch of strong happy colors. Something in my brain screams at me for it and makes me feel bad. Bright colors? It seems to say. Is that all photography is?!?

Maybe I need to work on that. Or maybe I'm just not good at that type of color photography. It's all right not to be good at things.

Again, this is just me and my own brain, my own...feelings. For my own work only. Nothing against anyone who pursues colors as a subject, so please don't think I'm insulting you, or anyone. As with many things in photography, I try to separate the way I feel about things for my own work and my openness to the same things in the work of others.

I mostly succeed. Heck, sometimes I even take flower pictures now. That's a change!  :-)

Mike

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

John Camp: "I do disdain cell phone cameras when used to make art photos, but I use mine all the time to make notes, record prices, take quick candids, etc. The only time they're removed from my phone is when I discard them or message them to someone, who most often won't remove them from her phone except to discard them.

"You're not far from Manhattan. Go to the Guggenheim, take a look at the huge Robert Mapplethorpe photos on display right now, and tell me how you'd make those prints after shooting the same subject with a iPhone.

"My daughter has access to a very fine, beautifully printed Mapplethorpe retrospective book; she says seeing the Mapplethorpes at the Guggenheim was, for her, a totally different experience. (And it is.)

"I don't run your blog, but it seems to me that you can either have a camera blog, in which all cameras are more-or-less equal, simply because they're all cameras, and that would be a fine thing to do; or you can have a photography blog in which all photos distinctly are not equal. Of the not-equal photos, the iPhone shots are the least equal."

JimH: "Congratulations, Mike.You have crossed the threshold from cause to effect, camera to image. It's easy to focus on what makes the image but that's understandable when we're dealing with an art that uses such seductive tools. I wonder if artists experienced angst over brushes or sculptors over chisels like photographers do over cameras today.

"I recently had to take closeups of some tech products for an online newsletter we produce and I was not pleased with the shots with my Pen F. I tried my iPhone 8 and got much better results. That was it—the whole lot of Olympus gear went on eBay and was sold (got a nice price too!) Why should I leave it sitting here unused? I had only taken about a hundred photos with it in a year.

"Thom Hogan rails at the camera manufacturers about ignoring connectivity and ergonomics and I agree. Using an iPhone is intuitive, simple and covers 90+% of what I ever did with a complicated 'camera.'

"And remember when it comes to art, there are Lomo, Holga, and pinhole groups doing great art. I even had Holga lenses for the Olympuses.

"Your comment about the purists scorning Leica 35mm users at first made me chuckle. My high school art teacher who got me interested in photography (and cars) gave me this drawing more than 50 years ago. Seems appropriate."

photoDes: "Like others who have commented, I just can't manipulate my phone well enough to enjoy photography. It seems to fight me when I'm trying to compose and then push the 'button.' I never seem to catch the picture I want. The photos I've taken are impressive enough but the handling is the worst of all my cameras (various types). I could comment on the lousy sound quality of the phone service too, but I won't."

Tom Burke: "Thank you! I too have been enjoying my iPhone camera. In fact I think that some of my favourite pictures of the last couple of years or so have been taken with it. In view of which, it’s interesting to note that in his 'One device...' anouncement, Steve Jobs did not include a camera as one of the three devices. The three were: a wide screen iPod with touch controls; a revolutionary mobile phone; and an Internet communicator. Yes there was a camera included as well, but Jobs didn’t think it was worth saying much about it. But the smartphone camera has disrupted an entire industry."

Henning Wulff: "I think my 'moment' regarding phone photographs was when I saw this print offer. This has now proudly hung matted and framed pretty much as you suggested in our house for the past six years. Definitely money well spent; the joy in viewing it is ongoing."

Mike replies: A beautiful thing, isn't it? I still love that.

Paul Van: "As a bit of a gear-hound, one of the things that has appealed to me about photography is the seemingly endless paths you can take. Cell phone photography is just another path, currently well-traveled with occasional footprints leading off the path. While I may be of an age or temperament that is not interested in going down that path (or at least not far), I can appreciate those who want to explore it."

Darrell Marquette: "Yes. They are another kind of camera which I use along with my digital and film cameras. I just love photography no matter what makes the photo."

Comments

[James Bullard]

I recall reading (I think it was in "How to Get Hung" by Molly Barnes) that Mark Rothko once explained a work as showing that yellow looks different against green than it does against red or something to that effect. A lot of abstract or minimalist painting is all about color.

The high art world has no problem with that (it smacks of a design 101 exercise to me but then what do I know? I only have a BFA, not an MFA) and they don't get hung up over materials and methods. They will even paint wit elephant dung. Photographers OTOH contort themselves endlessly over equipment, materials, and methods. In the end, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, 'It's the image stupid'. It does matter how you got it, what you printed it one, etc. If the images touches the viewer in a meaningful way, that is the point. All photo media are ephemeral to one degree or another, whether measured in 10s of years or hundreds of years but but an image that doesn't "speak" to the viewer doesn't gain value by lasting longer.

[Herb Cunningham]

Don't think you are alone in "colors" antipathy
b/w speaks more clearly

[steven willard]

The bit about RC coated paper reminded me that one of my very earliest uses for e-mail was questions-and answers!-to Ctein about a chemical solution for clearing the fog (or was that metamerism?) that plagued some of the early RC papers. I couldn't believe he got my question and bothered to answer. God, that seems so long ago, and I only "met" him because of you. Thanks.

[Mike Ferron]

I own that "toy" in the above photo. Just holding the camera and admiring the craftsmanship is worth the purchase price.

[Richard Jones]

I've made a decision: I'm no longer going to be prejudiced about smartphone cameras.

I made that decision some years ago after looking at the Mobile Phone Awards. See:

https://mobilephotoawards.com/

Click on the link to the 2017 awards and look at the architecture-design category.

R-click on an image to see some EXIF showing the phone used (if your browser does this)

- Richard

[Dennis]

I'll happily make pictures of colors. Still can't take my phone seriously. (And let's not even talk about ice cream !)

[Speed]

It's not the tool. It's the result.

[robert e]

What a postcard! (The ice cream shop.)

Like a Brownie, but critically not like a Brownie in that the smartphone is a camera connected to a publishing medium.

I think the discomfort with color is not uncommon among photographers. Perhaps it's something to do with the imposing edifice of pre-color-practice canon, combined with the perhaps even more imposing edifice of color-era practitioners of the black (and white) arts, reinforced by decades of art establishment prejudice.

Or perhaps it's just a personality thing.

Anyway, I empathize and commiserate. Color is such its own universe of design considerations that it can feel overwhelming to me--seeming to require an entirely different mindset or approach, as it can conflict with other compositional approaches that I'm more comfortable with.

The "genre" is far older than photography, though, and I think--or rather hope--that that very long history might make for a good approach for coming to grips with it.

Regarding casein: Despite being more orthorexic than most people I know, I can't get worked up about casein because, for one, the link to cancer is mixed--seemingly promoting one type but protective against others; and for another, the studies involve heavy lifetime intake.

To paraphrase MFK Fisher: a meal does not a diet make. One, two, or a dozen kiddie portions of ice cream in a year, all other things being equal, is just not going to have a significant dietary impact.

Which is not to say that the guilt isn't a useful regulator.

[Trevor Johnson]

I don't miss the extended washing followed by flattening of FB papers.

And my Ilford RC prints also look the same as the day they were printed, some over 40 years ago.

[Nick]

Man, Mike, you're about a cat picture away from filling in the bingo card on this post!

[Bill Poole]

There's some interesting light in that color photo. I would be tempted to convert it to black and white and see if you can cuddle up to it.

[Sal Santamaura]

...It's just a picture...

Quite an admission from a photo dawg to all the other photo dawgs reading this blog. A revelation that's crept into my consciousness lately. Yet, I keep making black and white darkroom prints on fiber-based paper. Why is that? :-)

[Steve Renwick]

I think you just need to emulate the old Seinfeld joke, viz.: "And that landscape image was done with a cell phone! Not that there's anything wrong with that."

[Tim Key]

I, like many are not prejudiced against phone cameras, but I enjoy the ‘craftsmanship ‘ involved in taking a photograph, from setting the aperture and speed to sizing up what is in front of me to take the best image possible. This is why your column is so good. It allows me to evaluate my skills and attitudes and enthuses me to try harder. If I was only using a phone camera most of it would be superfluous.

[Mark Cotter]

I think you have a point. I've lost track of the times I have thought: 'I could photograph that if I had a camera' while forgetting my phone was in my pocket. Perhaps, some photographers need a camera rather than a device that happens to take photos.

[Andrew Kirk]

Goldenrod is not a weed.

[Giovanni Maggiora]

Dear Editor. Of course they're cameras. They have the big advantage of being more available-at-all-times than most other cameras. Their recent sensors put to shame film cameras of old. They even do amazing tricks like creating bokeh from nothing.
But.
But they're bloody uncomfortable to use, with their flat form factor and unwieldy shutter 'buttons'. I live in forever fear of losing grip of mine. And they don't have an OVF. Hence, they are great note-takers, xerox-substitutes, whatever you want. But a camera is to me something to wrap my hand around, not gingerly hold with a few fingers...
Call me a luddite, I'll keep my Ricoh...
PS Glad your eye has recovered just fine!!!

[David Dyer-Bennet]

For me it was the magazine covers showing the space shuttle Columbia breaking up (in 2003). Newsweek and Time both used photos taken by amateurs with early digital or cell-phone cameras—I can't track down exactly which in the time I've spent so far, but it doesn't really matter to me. In either case it showed me the biggest news organizations using new-tech citizen photos for their covers.

[Charlie Ewers]

Mike,

The daylily is indeed beautiful, and giving it room to grow and bloom is certainly the kind of thing that gardeners do, but isn't treating another flower--goldenrod--as a weed even when it's NOT threatening anything else (especially in a "wildflower garden") pretty much exactly the same thing as disparaging some photos just because they were made with a phone or a cheap camera or in color? Just asking.

--Charlie

[That's an existential question if ever I heard one! However, the goldenrod (the species I have...apparently there are 120 different species of goldenrod) is definitely threatening everything else. It even smothered the peonies, and those are four feet tall. And, it has spread seeds to pretty much every other patch of open ground on the property--I have pulled juvenile goldenrod from every other garden on the grounds, including a garden on the far side of the house. It's on the rampage! --Mike]

[Chris]

Some fabulous pictures have been taken with phone cameras, by people who know how to photograph, how to use them well and process the images well... and who can handle the damn things! They're useful but I completely hate using mine... nevertheless an iPhone picture from the Alps last year came out looking better than the Portra 400 image I took a few minutes later!

[Dillan]

I don't really take 'serious photos' with my phone, but I do use the phone camera for note taking, and things like plant identification (with Google Lens). A cell phone is a handy device!

[xfmj]

Ok. So maybe I shouldn't admit this on line but I've started on-line dating. A match asked me to send them a selfie when I replied to their phone text. I think they either wanted (a) to verify that I actually look like my profile or (b) an easy way to add me officially/memorably to their ample contact list. Phones are good for that y'know. Anyway, they happen to be a professional photographer and I needed to impress.

I struggled like mad to take a decent selfie. The easier front-side camera gives me a big nose (or that's at least what I've chosen to blame) so I try the back camera and look into a mirror instead. I found I couldn't get anything passable without either sticking the phone right next to my face (obscuring it, maybe that's a plus?) or holding the phone to my side in some weird way. Continuing to try the latter, and in natural light, with me hunting for the damn "shutter" icon all I got was blurry messes (again, maybe that's a plus??). I hated all of them. What to do?

So I pulled out the old traditional digital camera, set the aperture and shutter speed as I know best, braced it against my chest, made sure the lens was facing me by seeing it squarely through the mirror reflection, and pressed the shutter. Bingo. A proper self portrait. And an "environmental" one at that. Okay!

So then my match immediately sends me a quick selfie back. Must've took a full second for her. The lighting was beautiful, she looked amazing and had this wonderful glow. It felt classy and properly intimate, relaxed, fun. Mine was as goofy and contrived as that famous Normal Rockwell in his mirror.

Two lessons here: (1) it's the person behind the phone camera that matters and (2) it's the subject of the phone's camera that matters. Oh and (3) in 2019, non-phone cameras are for when you gotta do a ton of heavy lifting to make any old fool look sorta golden.

[Len Metcalf]

It’s taken me many years to figure out I have a personal leaning towards Monochrome. It’s become a preference and to my own eye, an expertise. Colours trigger emotional responses, without colour I am freer to express and explore my own emotions. Monochrome also enhances the abstraction of reality that photography inherently does. I do also love the old world feeling of it too.

I mix my iPhone work in with the rest of my work. No one ever notices. Sometimes the best camera is the one you have at hand.

Just my two cents Mike... thanks

[David Lee]

My Ilford RC prints have aged very nicely, but also my FB ones, for that matter. Regarding my phone, I hate it. Keep it off as much as I can and the lens is so scratched that it can’t be used. It’s an ok timer, though.

[Scott Parsons]

This is an interesting article.....https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/7/11/20686194/antelope-canyon-instagram-page-arizona-Navajo.....I remember going there some 20 years ago. To the lower where you had to use ladders, not the upper that the article is about. It would give me the willies to think about using a phone it that setting.

[c.d.embrey]

Time changes everything. Today, for many youngsters, G.A.S. pain is no longer a problem.

On the 14th, The Guardian had an article on the new popularity of hiking: ...ties into broader consumer trends: we want to enhance our lives with greater experiences rather than more stuff ...Everyone is surrounded by technology and ‘on’ all the time ...a mental escape as much as a physical one – and it’s good for you. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jul/14/hiking-walking-younger-generation-ramblers

As a lifelong walker, I understand the attractions of trekking. As a lifelong shooter, my iPhone is replacing my fiddly cameras. It's OK if your mileage varies.

[Bill Mitchell]

I gave myself a iPhone for Christmas, 2018, and after 60+ years of carrying a pocket camera, resolved to use only the smartphone for 6 months. That was plenty of time to acclimate myself to it's use.
So far I haven't made a single image that is really good enough to print. Next month I'll be back to the Sony RX100/6. (One more damn thing that I'll have to keep in my pockets.)
I did discover one thing of interest, however. Many people (young AND old) who would never even consider posing for a nudie seem incredibly willing to do so if a smartphone is pointed at them, rather than a real camera. Like it's no big deal!!!
I'll be damned!!!

[Lex Stewart]

Casein proteins are abundant in the milk of all mammals, including human milk. Regarding the "cancer-promoting casein" in your ice cream, a recent meta-analysis of multiple population-based studies of dairy product intake (Google "Lu et al. Nutrition Journal (2016) 15:91" for a copy) showed that total dairy products intake was not associated with increased mortality risk in both men and women, for just about all the cancers studied, and that low total dairy products intake even reduced relative risk based on a dose–response analyses. This study thus suggests that casein proteins are generally not cancer-promoting. However, whole milk intake in men did contribute to a slightly elevated prostate cancer mortality risk, an effect not seen with skim/low-fat milk intake. The latter result suggests that milk fat, or fat-associated components, may be responsible for this effect, rather than the casein. I think it's probably fair to conclude from all this that the occasional indulgence in an ice cream cone is not a serious health concern, at least with respect to the cancer risk.

[Bill Stormont]

All else aside, the flowers you discovered in your yard are day lilies (we have orange, yellow and red varieties here in Oregon). Enjoy them, as their name suggests they don't last long.

[Bear.]

If only I could be happy with my iPhone. It would save lots of GAS. But I like to print at A2, and can't quite make that size reliably. And I just cannot cope without an eye-level viewfinder using a camera without a tripod. I don't know why, I just can't. So ... how about someone just building a decent smartphone into the back of a small-ish camera? The Zeiss Zx1 doesn't seem too far away.

[Michael Matthews]

For anyone not in the habit of doing so, clicking or tapping on the photos to see them in higher resolution makes a world of difference. Plenty of detail and sharpness in the ice cream shop view, for example, quite obscured in the inline image.

As for camera phones - my iPhone often makes better photos than I do.
Embarrassing, but true.

[Jim Fellows]

The best camera is the one you have with you. Not the most original comment I am sure, but it is nice to have a camera in your pocket all the time.

[Graham Byrnes]

Thanks for the defence of RC photo-papers. I worked through one box of FB, but the line of 8x10's on Ilford RC from 1984 propped against the wall are looking just fine.
Maybe one day there will be a similar acknowledgement of RC inkjet papers in the face of the baryta snobs... but in the meantime, I'm happy to have paper at half the price.

[Nature Lover]

Assertion: A weed is any plant growing where it should not.

I looked at the mobile awards, 2018, Nature, Landscapes, and the photo essays. Some nice colors and compositions but I cannot overcome the feeling that everyone is trying too hard by over processing. The photo essays were not overdone. Maybe I'm under processing??

[Robert Roaldi]

I don't understand the complaints about camera "connectivity". Who cares.

[GH]

Outside of the studio setup I used to have for professional work, I've long been primarily a single 50mm lens shooter (generally of the static nature,) so, once the iPhone came out with a 50mm lens equivalent for its second lens, I bit.

Well, it's now been about a year...and, in the digital world, I've owned Hasselblad digital backs, Sony A100/700/900, Fuji X100/XT-1/XT-2, amongst many others, to now just my damned iPhone and a film Hasselblad on the shelf, just in case I feel like fussing with it again.

[Paul B]

Digital cameras will never make fine art photos - you must use film! We all know how that worked out. The useless arguments about phone cameras vs “real” cameras are much the same, and only occur between “serious” photographers. The only thing that matters in the end is the image that is made by the photographer assisted by whatever tool he had in his hand in that moment. Who cares if it is a fine image!