Week 5 No Selfies, Please

I got an iPhone about two years ago and picture taking completely changed for me. I had always liked the idea of taking pictures of things--you know, that I thought looked interesting--but who wants to develop film or even carry around a digital camera everywhere they go? I guess carrying a small digital camera wouldn't be so horrible but GOD how inconvenient is it to upload pictures to a computer?

My iPhone was the first time I had a relatively high resolution digital camera at my disposal and I loved it. I was living in Charlotte, VT at the time, at the top of a big old hill with a gorgeous view looking over the lake. I would ride my bike home from work every day and by like halfway through my ride, the sky was just friggen blazing over the lake and BOOM I had a camera to take a picture of it. Maybe even more important than just having the camera on my phone was my ability to then share what I had captured with people.

On vacation for example, I was seeing the West Coast for the first time, and I knew my parents were going to want to hear all about it. Instead of having to call them after everyday, which I'm just awful at, even when I'm not on vacation, I was able to post the pictures I had taken to Instagram and Facebook--like, on the bus, going from one picturesque scene to the next. No stupid uploading to a computer involved-- and was able to include them in what I was doing, while it was happening.

While I think it's nifty that, now, I can take a picture of a sunset when I see it, there are others that aren't so tickled. Advances in technology always seem to spur resentment among those in the field. In my experience,  I've heard purists complain that the real art is drowning in the sea of amateur uploads, and soon enough, people won't know the difference. Or, the reaction is to get as far away from digital as possible. One of the hippest things a hipster photographer can do is find an old camera that takes old, distressed looking pictures that look like what people are churning out on Instagram and other photo apps, and say that they had been using it all along. Way before Instagram even came out.

Either way, it's gotten people more into photography. Whether its the former techie learning his roots with film, or the novice experiencing things for the first time because of the ease and accesibality of cameras on iPhones. It's not like photography is dying because quality digital cameras are now on millions of people's smartphones. Like, I'm sure there was that stubborn guy who wouldnt put down his abacus when calculators were really catching on. Sure, it's nice to do all of that work by yourself, but technology can make things a hell of a lot easier, too.