What is iPhone Photography?

by Scott on January 1, 2010

Was just reading this post on photocritic.org this morning about the amazing iPhone photography of Sion Fullana.

It’s a bit of a shame that Sion has to defend his artistic methods and workflow, or clarify so strongly on his Flickr page that his photos are “NEVER” photoshopped.

Reading this post this morning, and especially the comments, has got me to thinking about what is iPhone photography, or “iPhontography”, “iPhoneography”, or “Phonetography” as I call it here. I hadn’t previously set rules in my own mind about what qualifies, except of course that the photo started on a camera phone (not even necessarily an iPhone).

One commenter, Knox Bronson from iphontography.org, said

I am obsessed with iPhone photography. I love the limitations of the 2 megapixel, no flash, no zoom, etc., camera. In fact I have created a website for iPhone photography (click on sig) and am seeking submissions for a gallery show in Berkeley Ca.

That said, I am afraid Sion disqualified herself as an iPhontographer the minute [he] manipulated the image on [his] Mac. Either the image stays ON the iPhone or then it’s just another photoshopped whizbang. That is not say she doesn’t create nice images, but once you pull the picture off the phone, you can do anything with it.

From iphontography.org’s submission guidelines,

3. Images must have been taken with the iPhone and edited with the iPhone ONLY. No exporting to Photoshop for levels adjusting, for example. To clarify, using any application on the iPhone itself to modify, enhance, manipulate the image is permitted; exporting the image to a computer for the same is not permitted.

The iPhone is a computer

There’s a photoshop app on the iPhone.

If you take a picture using the Hipstamatic iPhone app (such as Sion’s “4 Lives in or out of a Starbucks cafe”), it’s doing all sort of “photoshopping” for you, adding artifacts to the picture along the way in various ways. I fail to see the difference. You can pretty much do anything to a photo without first taking it off your iPhone.

I don’t mean to make this about the rules on iphontography.org. I respect what they’re doing. Their exhibit. Their rules. I actually think it’s totally cool to set a rule that everything has to happen on the iPhone itself.

I just don’t love that he called out Sion as “disqualifying himself as an iPhontographer”. I hope he just meant that he’d be disqualified as an “iphontography.org iPhontographer.”

As I said in the comment thread (which is awaiting approval on this New Years Day), as long as you’re being honest about what you’re doing, there should be no limit to what you choose to do with your own art.

Sion himself said it best just a few weeks ago in that post…

Please don’t take this as any form of attack to your comment. I totally value your opinion. I’m just trying to prove that when it comes to iPhone photography, the biggest joy of it all is that it’s a movement whose rules we write every day, and the sky is the limit. No one neither can nor should say what iPhoneography truly is. Just keep working all of us to make it become a permanent and rich artistic movement.

Tagged as: iphone, sion fullana

  • I am an iPhone photography addict. (see my work at Posterous, http://oregonmjw.posterous.com/) Over the last several months, with the acquisition of some seriously powerful apps (Photogene, Camera Bag, Best Camera, Hipstamatic, Polarize, Quadcamera to name a few) I have been able to limit all photography, from "click" to "post" to my phone. I agree that iPhoneography cannot be described as pure unless it originates and stays on your phone to publication. I off-load my phone about once a week, and some photos go on to other media. I may resize them for this purposes, especially in print publication but, frankly, that is widely available in post apps too. I have a 14.6GB iPhone 3g - purchasd just the day before the "s" joined the fray. I LOVE THIS CAMERA! Have a number of others, including Holgas, which I barely use anymore.

    The "Best Camera" app says it best: "The best camera you have is the one you have with you." That is, in my opinion, the iPhone and its several compentant Elvis impersonators.
  • Hi Maren, thanks for the comment.

    I've been thinking about this a lot while out shoveling snow all weekend :/ and I'm having a hard time with the concept of "pure" iphone photography. It just seems so ironic to use the word "pure" for something that involves digital manipulation of images.

    What's the difference between using an app on your phone to resize or saturate an image or using one on the web like picnik? or on the computer, like iPhoto. The apps on the iPhone are much more powerful than what you can do in either of those apps.

    And there are new apps coming all the time. Thanks to one app, you can now, at the push of a button, isolate all the red in a photo. (like you used to have to do manually with ColorSplash, requiring some dexterity and an eye for color.)

    It takes zero artistic skill to take a good photo and make it look really cool with post-processing. It still takes a LOT of skill to capture the great photo in the first place, especially with a little wide-lens, slow-shutter, camera like the iPhone with all its quirks.

    I guess for some people it is just a principle thing. And if they consider it a personal challenge to do everything on the iPhone device itself, that's cool. But prejudging others' art based on this notion is something I hope doesn't become commonplace. (And I'm not saying you're doing that Maren.)
  • Thanks for your thoughtful Reply. I'll bring up the "pure" comment in a moment, but the first line that drew my eye was "It takes zero artistic skill to take a good photo and make it look really cool with post-processing." Really?

    Leaving aside the fact that the iPhone - at least the 3g I'm using - does not focus or zoom on it's own (although there's now an app or 2 for zooming); and given it's focal length it remarkably unreliable and isn't really reflected on the screen; and given that you are limited to post-processing to correct lighting deficiencies or extremes - I posit that it DOES take some skill -and a pretty good eye to "take a good photo" with an iPhone.

    What puzzled me was the sentence that followed: "It still takes a LOT of skill to capture the great photo in the first place, especially with a little wide-lens, slow-shutter, camera like the iPhone with all its quirks." I agree with you.

    As for "pure" I meant to emphasize that we are talking about using a cell phone to take, process and post to other media exclusively. Certainly the iPhone's post-production apps are powerful and, in many cases, more powerful than those offered for PCs or other web apps. It's not the degree of difficulty that is at issue. It's do you use the iPhone or its equivalent exclusively to produce the finished photo? "Pure" is not a snobby thing (well, OK, just a little bit) it's a description. ;-)
  • I understand where you're coming from Maren. And I think we're saying the same thing about skill it takes to get and produce a great photo -- a lot of it.

    With "It takes zero artistic skill to take a good photo and make it look really cool with post-processing."
    All I meant is that even with zero effort and skill you can use post-processing to do cool stuff with all the iPhone apps out there. Take any picture, load up camerabag and flip through the effects until you see something impressive.

    That's not to say that people don't apply great skill with those apps. To me, the art is in having the eye and knowledge of the tool we're using to get a shot that may stand on its own, or to have some post-processing effects in mind that you want to apply to it. I'm guessing that the recognized great iphone photographers out there (I'm certainly not one of them) can picture the shot with the effects already applied before they take it... Like a Helga or Lomo photographer would.

    The catalyst of this post was one photographer telling another, clearly with a LOT of such skill, that he disqualified himself from being an "iPhontographer" because he edits some photos in Picnik in a web interface.

    This snobby thing (I'll use the word since you have) has surprised me a bit as I've delved deeper into the community of iPhone photography. I guess it shouldn't. The AppleLust does that to us sometimes. :)

    Thanks for the discussion, I appreciate it.
  • "Applelust" Mmmmmm. I'm going to steal that and use it! Excellent. ;-)
  • Don't worry Sion, we are all in this together iPhoneographers AND iPhontographers :) love your work and the fact that you're pushing things forward for this new (?) art form.
  • Hi, Scott!!

    First of all, Happy New Year! :-)

    And in second place, I came to find this post from the Referrers in my stats on Flickr today... and after reading it I have to thank you for your take on this and your support to my work. I totally agree with your opinion about the rules and what makes or doesn't make something to be called "iPhoneography" or any other way of calling it.

    For example: Three days ago, I finally upgraded to an iPhone 3Gs. One of the reasons is that as a filmmaker, I've wanted to explore the iPhone possibilities for videography, and I'm planning on trying to put together a simple short film, shot ONLY with the iPhone camera... but of course, any bit of video that I may record, I'll be uploading it to my Mac and edit the final work with iMovie, because I can fine-tune way better the cuts than any app on the iPhone would allow. Would that disqualify it as an "iPhone short film?" I say NO! But again, like I said on Photocritic, everyone is entitled to their opinion. I'll just demand that whoever has an opposite view at least respects the differences and doesn't dismiss the product just because it doesn't fit their rules.

    Thanks again.

    Best,
    SION.
  • Congrats on the new phone! Sounds like an exciting project in the works, Sion. You're an inspiration.

    Happy New Year!
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