the kid in me likes the iphone

I was recently reminiscing of the days when I was a kid with a camera. There was nothing technical to worry about. No processes, critiques, f-stops, shutter speeds. It was a simple time when I would just point and shoot with an auto film camera. The subject matter infinite. Back then a well composed frame was not even a thought. The only thought on my mind was what to shoot next. I was enthralled with what the world looked like through the view finder, the freedom to shoot anything and everything. When I received my film back from the developer I loved the surprise to see what I created. More often than not the images were throwaways. But there were winners that left me giggling with joy.
Those days of photographic innocence have long gone. I have learned the processes, survived critiques, and focused my attention on specific subject matter, often times denying certain subjects the click of the shutter only because it didn’t captivate my interest enough. I found myself shunning the free flowing, organic concept of the ‘snap shot’ for the creation of more focused and refined images. Gone are the days of shoe boxes filled with the throwaways and double prints. Digital photography has made things a lot more easier. You don’t like an image delete it, its only a moment in time right?

Last year I purchased an iphone. Not for the camera feature, or to jump on the band wagon but for connectivity to my work flow at home. It made organizing my life a little easier. Never did I ever think of using the camera. It was far below my canon 5D, and my G10 for that matter. I found myself using it occasionally to add images to people’s phone numbers on my phone. I wasn’t really happy with the quality but what could I expect from a 3MP camera. Honestly, I had no expectations. It wasn’t a serious camera to me. I continued using it for fun little moments or when I noticed something I wanted to photograph but was without a camera. The images were never posted anywhere. They sat on my camera, my digital shoe box of the crappy images that weren’t good enough to go in the album.
Bored one day I decided to look through this accumulation of images. I was surprised at what I saw—a rough collection of snap shots of this-and-that. Awkward moments, and half decent compositions. “Hey” I thought. Maybe there is something to this camera. No one said it had to be my pro camera. I realized it served a different purpose. It opened the door to the simplicity that is happening around me constantly. Those simple & subtle nuances of moments that I chose to ignore because it meant having to bring out my big camera and shoot. Using my iphone meant I could simply aim and click. It didn’t matter that the image wasn’t perfect—suffering from all the digital hoopla that can affect digital images. These were just snapshots. A quick click, a private moment I shared between myself and my subject, similar to those snapshot moments of long ago.
The point to all of this that the iphone helped me rediscover something that I lost when I became a professional photographer, my love affair with the act of photography—taking pictures of anything and everything for no reason—just because I like what I saw.