Get a 'real' camera
I love photography. I love looking at beautiful works of art, on sites
such as Instagram or EyeEm . On occasion, I also very much enjoy
trying my hand at photography myself. While I may not be very good at it , it doesnât stop me
enjoying it. Itâs my hobby.
According to Dictionary.com, the word hobby is defined as:
An activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation.
Keep this in mind, itâll be important later.
The last real camera I owned was a Canon EOS 500D . While, even at the time, it was not the newest, most powerful or generally impressive of devices, it did an admirable job, and it made me feel like a real photographer while I used it. The thing is, quite often, I found my time with the camera neither pleasurable or relaxing, so could my time using the camera really be called a hobby? My main issues with using it are as follows:
- Any time I took the camera out had to be a planned trip, generally specifically designed to use the camera. I had to make sure itâs somewhere I can go to with a bag , or where I had time or the ability to stop and change lenses etc. and it had to be somewhere worth going so I can get some decent shots.
- The Canon camera wasn't huge, or particularly heavy, but it does need careful handling, to avoid bumps or dust. Heck, it feels like you could do some sort of damage to a SLR with a stern glance.
- Most images you see in magazines or newspapers have been edited. The best photos on 500px and similar sites have been edited also. So, even after parts 1 and 2 above have been taken care of, there is still a general need to do some kind of post-processing. The images need to be uploaded to a computer (or iPad in my case), copied into Lightroom (or similar), edited and then finally shared. Again, more of a chore than anything else.
A big part of photography is the composition, which can still very much be learnt whilst using an iPhone. An image doesn't have to be 100+ megapixels in size, or pin sharp with perfect composition to be a work of art. As Ansel Adams once said:
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.
I often share an iPhone image to Twitter, or other social
media sites, only to be greeted by the words: âIf only you took your
proper camera.â Iâm always a little thrown by this statement.
Not because Iâm particularly upset or concerned by the comment, but, I
guess, I just donât get it. There seems to be a feeling around
that the camera makes the photo, not the photographer. The following
image, taken with an iPhone, by the very talented Kim Hankskamp illustrates my
point perfectly:
Kimâs image was awarded 1st place in the âPeopleâ category in the 2013
iPhone Photography
Awards, and is extremely reminiscent of a well known image of Sharbat Gula, a
young Afghan girl. The image was taken by National Geographic Society
photographer Steve McCurry and is undoubtedly a work of art. The image
was taken in 1984, so the chances are the original negative wasnât
amazingly high resolution, yet itâs quality cannot be denied. The same
can be said, in my opinion, about iPhone images. If the composition of
the shot is to your liking, then the image is art. Whether anyone but
you likes it is not the point at all.
My 3rd point, mentioned above, when discussing the aspects of SLR
photography that frustrated me a little, was the editing required to get
the most of the images. Another thing I love about iPhone photography is
just how easy it is to get some very decent editing done, and these days
there are some truly amazing, âdesktop qualityâ editors out there. My
main workhorse is the app Darkroom
which is an extremely powerful RAW editor for iPhone (there isnât
currently an iPad counterpart unfortunately). This article would be an
epic to put War and Peace to shame if I listed all of the great Photo
Editing options you have available to you right from the device youâre
shooting from. Believe me when I say you will not be disappointed with
the vast majority of the options available to you.
The camera doesnât take the photo, the photographer does. Iâm not particularly good at taking pictures with an iPhone or an SLR, but I know which one I enjoy more as a hobby. My âeyeâ needs to be improved, thereâs no question in that. This is, again, something that I can do just as well with an iPhone as I can any other, more specialist equipment. This is, of course, only my humble opinion, and the point of this article isnât to try and convince anyone in one direction or another, though as always itâs fantastic that we have choices.
Am I less of a photographer because I use an iPhone? Quite possibly, at least in some measurements, but I can safely say that if the iPhone (or any other smartphone I may choose, donât email me âŚ) wasnât such a powerful, capable camera, among many other things, I wouldnât be a photographer (I use this term very loosely, by the way. I appreciate I am amateur to the nth degree) at all. I would not have literally tens of thousands of photos of my daughter growing up, which I treasure, or some other more traditional photos that Iâm extremely proud of.