Today I am going to open (or reopen) a debate, and it is hot, I know. Like the one who opens an open wound knowing the risk he is running. But I can’t hold back. I’m going to get smacked everywhere and more than one (or one) is going to put me on their blacklist.
I take it.
But as I always speak with respect, I hope that my opinion is also respected. And I am going to defend mobile photography.
Because yes, this is a photography blog, we write a lot about SLR photography, but that doesn’t mean that photography is exclusive to DSLRs, or EVIL or Bridge.
And yes, mobile photography is also photography, it is also art. If you want to know more about mobile photography, we have prepared this mega guide for you, with tips, tricks and much more.
The bad reputation of mobile
All this comes because the other day, a good friend told me something like I should stop taking photos with my cell phone because that wasn’t photography and I was wasting my talent. And he said it out of affection, I know, because he loves me a lot and wants me to take pictures with the camera because he thinks I’m wasting time with my cell phone. And I didn’t get it, because for the kind of photos he takes, clever, great, original and creative for my taste, he doesn’t need a SLR. I could make them with a cell phone or even a camera made from a cardboard box. Because he has that gift, that photographic eye. That is why today I am writing this article, to demystify “good” cameras and support mobile photography. And to encourage all those people who have a photographic eye, but not reflex, to continue creating photography.
creative vs. Professional
There are good photographers who have discovered photography thanks to their mobile camera and, in fact, their iPhone has taken them very far in this world.
Does photographing with a phone make you a worse photographer? Not at all. To be a photographer, what is truly important is to have the sensitivity and the photographic eye to reach the public and move people. Today there are phones on the market with very good optics. There are also those with very bad cameras, or that don’t work simply because you press the button and it takes two seconds to shoot, so goodbye photo!
Now, before continuing, I have to make a clarification. I’m not talking about professional photography. Obviously I speak of photography from a point creative, artistic. Of course you are not going to cover a wedding report with a mobile phone! Not a fashion catalog or a newborn shoot. The SLR camera offers a type of performance at a professional level but they do not have to be essential at a creative or artistic level.
emotion and sensitivity
I have been moved by photos taken with the mobile and yet I have remained impassive with others shot with one of the best cameras on the market. I have seen empty SLR photos, without soul, in which I have not stopped for a nanosecond. The art is not in the quality of the camera but in the sensitivity who holds it. It is so.
I myself have realized that some of my best photos are taken with my mobile phone (and that is not one of the smartphones with the best camera). Or at least the ones that I like the most and the ones that have praised me the most. Because sometimes it’s not about pixels or sharpness, but of the momentof know see and capture a emotion.
Advantages and disadvantages of mobile
Like everything in life, shooting with a mobile phone has advantages and disadvantages, and everyone must weigh which way the balance is tilted. Well, an advantage that I I weighed a lot, same for you not weight any.
Advantage:
- Is light.
- You always carry it with you.
- It’s fast.
- You don’t have to be adjusting values, the automatic ones work very well.
- You can edit on the same phone.
- There are a lot of applications to edit photos, filters and others, free and very easy to use.
- You don’t need technical training, just vision or composition knowledge.
- For the same price (one of the cheapest) you have a phone, a computer and a camera.
Disadvantages:
- You cannot play with the diaphragm opening, nor with the shutter speed to transmit the movement.
- Some have a too short focal length, a 50mm is fine, but with a SLR to blur the background, etc., but on a mobile phone it falls a bit short on many occasions. I noticed a lot of difference when I switched to the iPhone more than the pixels because the lens is wide angle.
- You can’t do big enlargements.
- You can’t change optics. Well yes, there are sets of lenses for Smartphone but they are more to play than anything else.
- You need a lot of light.
Advantages and disadvantages of SLRs and the like
Advantage:
- The infinite range of lenses that you have at your disposal, from fisheye, to telephoto lenses through macro.
- Its possibilities are much (infinitely) greater in terms of aperture, exposure speed, etc.
- It is for professional use.
- You can make extensions.
Disadvantages:
Did you think that everything was advantages? No way! Here you have a few drawbacks.
- Its price, no matter how much you can get a body for less than what an iPhone is worth, you will end up spending a lot of money to continue expanding the equipment.
- It’s heavy, you can’t carry it in your pocket.
- It is anything but discreet.
- It requires much more maintenance than a phone.
- It needs a long learning to handle it.
Conclusions
Mine, of course. If you are going to dedicate yourself to professional photography, then there is no doubt, but does it mean that if you do not live from it you cannot be a photographer? Can’t you be an artist like the top of a pine tree? Did Vivian Maier make a living from photography? Well no, she was a babysitter. However, she is considered one of the best photographers in history. Did Van Gogh live off his paintings? Does anyone doubt that he is “a painter”?
photography is artand anyone who gets thrill or provoke a feeling in the public can be considered a photographer, beyond the quality of the image, whether it is salable or not, or whether or not he lives from it.
In many articles I have included as an example photos of Emilio Chuliá (@ejota_seventyeight), which has an impressive gallery created with your iPhone. He doesn’t shoot with reflex but he has a gift and knows how to create art With his phone.
And just like him there are a lot of photographers hidden in social networks like Instagram. And honestly, for me, if they move me and make me look at their photos for more than two seconds, they deserve all my respect. Even if they don’t shoot with SLRs, even if they don’t understand shutter speeds, flash curtains, reversal rings or focal lengths. But they know about composition, light and sensitivity.
And to show a button, here are a few photos taken with a mobile phone:
To finish, I leave you some galleries that you should visit. Sometimes they shoot with another type of camera, but most are with a mobile phone:
I know that when I publish this more than one and one of you are going to scream in heaven. I await your comments, because they are enriching, because everyone has their reasons and this is an infinite debate, without a solution, but in which every contribution counts. There are many extremes, although we should not fall into them, because life is neither black nor white. It is full of gray and infinite colors.
My humble opinion is that both SLR and mobile can coexist in a world of people who love photography above all else. And you do you think?