I believe that expression was coined by photographer Chase Jarvis.  At least, he has a book with that title, which features photos taken with a mobile device and discusses the idea of creating art without getting hung up on the technical things like resolution, dynamic range, lens selection, etc.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love gear, tech, and obsessing over all of that stuff.  I like to be near the forefront of technology and find that I often get more creative when I have great tools in my hands.  That said, I have been finding more and more that I am creating images I am really proud of with the camera I ALWAYS have with me, my iPhone.  Now I don’t have the brand spanking new iPhone 4, or even the 3Gs, but just the lowly 3G with it’s 2-megapixel camera.  But for a camera that I can also talk on the phone with, it’s pretty damn good.  And quite freeing to know that I can whip it out at almost any point and take an interesting photo.  (In fact, I’d say the upgraded camera is the only feature of the new iPhone that really entices me, but I am going to wait it out a bit, as I am becoming more intrigued by some of the Droid phones, and moving back to Verizon has its advantages.)

I don’t market myself as a photographer, but I have loved taking pictures for years.  When I invested in my Canon 7D last year (for it’s video capabilities), I got reacquainted with having a great stills camera and all that offered.  But I don’t always have my Canon with me, and even sometimes when I do, I’d rather shoot with my iPhone.  Largely because of the amazing photo apps that I have on my phone, and more importantly the ability to share my “art” almost immediately through sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc.  I can take a “better” picture on my Canon, but I find that I share those pictures less, because by the time I’ve loaded them into Lightroom and edited them, I just don’t feel like putting them online.  I think it’s partly that they no longer seem timely or relevant.  And I LOVE the fact that the immediacy that I have with iPhone uploads is allowing me to create a gallery of sorts of my work.  Certainly these are not all frameable, sellable prints, but they show a point of view.  And they get seen.  Prior to sites like Twitter or Facebook, it was much harder to get a large audience to view your work.

So here is a collection of some of my favorite iPhone shots.  A lot have been processed with some of my favorite photo apps including Shake-It, TiltShiftGen, and the AMAZING Plastic Bullet (which I cannot get enough of).

I will leave you all with a link to a really cool video of photographer Lee Morris using an iPhone 3Gs for a fashion shoot.  This sort of ties in to what I am writing about here and it is an interesting experiment with a very impressive output.

http://gizmodo.com/5580276/professional-fashion-shootwith-an-iphone-3gs

As I often do when watching movies, I looked at how it was shot, thinking of questions like “how did they light that?”, “why did they shoot it like that?”, or “could I do that?”.  (It’s sometimes a curse when watching tv or movies, but it keeps me occupied if it’s something bad, and usually on a good show I get sucked into the story after a bit, and stop thinking about how it was made.)  This movie had a cinema verite look, VERY handheld camera, lots of movement, a healthy dose of shake to it.  This look can be a bit jarring at first, and when I see movies that are shot this way it often takes several minutes (at least) just to settle into the visual style.  My assumption is that most directors choose this style as a way to convey more “realism”, to make the audience feel like they are voyeurs into their characters’ lives, maybe to give the point of view that we, the audience, are the camera walking through this story.  Certainly, though, we don’t see the world this way.  We walk around the world quite smoothly (like a dolly move or steadicam), and our eyes have an amazing capacity to “stabilize” the image.  We don’t bob our heads around mindlessly, otherwise we’d get massive headaches.

Anne Hathaway in "Rachel Getting Married"

But I am not trying to knock Demme on an amazing film.  In fact, the cinematography DID work for me, even if I was overly-conscious of it.  This got me to thinking about my own visual style. Certainly when I started out in this business, I didn’t set out with a “style” in mind. But, after working on various creative projects over the years, I’m fairly confident that I have established one. I tend to envision things very photographically; I try to make each of my shots stand out on their own. Typically I work on a tripod, using few, if any, excessive movements of the camera. If I had to categorize it, I guess I would describe my style as slow and thoughtful. While there’s certainly a place for that type of shot, sometimes the subject matter or director’s vision calls for something entirely different. In those cases, I value the opportunity to be able to stretch my comfort zone and try out new and different techniques.