Live & Let Live
There’s this thing that goes on. Full-frame camera photographers (like me) and iPhone photographers have it in for each other. On one level I get that, but it’s actually counter-productive, to both groups. Here’s what I mean…
The 800lb. gorilla in the room: will iPhones, Androids, etc. ever displace the full frame (+ medium format) cameras in professional photography? Nope. Why? Well, we’d need two things we don’t have: 1) a new physics with different laws of light behavior, and/or 2) photographic hardware that is a leap or two ahead of today’s most advanced devices. I submit one of these is immutable such that no one alive today will see handheld devices that overcome physics laws in image-taking devices as they are currently known. While technical advancements may make for exciting new devices, the market for exotic devices and their price points may seriously hamper the economic accessibility of such devices.
Setting aside those scientific, technological, and economic notions, I want to talk about the conversations I have in virtually every city I visit with my camera gear. Specifically, I’m thinking of the “See, I can do this just like you…” conversations, or their pointy-talky equivalents.
At first, encounters with smart phone picture takers bugged me; almost to the point of “Yeah, yeah, now go away.” Fortunately, I learned something. I now perceive that some if not most of these good people (olders to youngers) were actually reveling with me, in their creative moment. Reveling in what? That’s what took me so long to decode. Follow me through this…
The image-taking device is—and ought to remain secondary to the human joy of creation. For clarity, I wrote “creation” as in creating—not shooting, composing, capturing, or any other anodyne synonym. It is the will to create that incites people to stop and raise (or lower) a circular glass connected to a device to create an image. Creation is another behavior that sets humans apart. As the acclaimed music industry producer Rick Rubin discussed at length in his 2023 book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, creating is a deep desire of many of us. Once I recognized this was the motivation behind much if not all of the affirmation-seeking behavior I encountered, there were no unwelcome interruptions when a stranger walked up to me to share a phone image.
Upon being accosted, I used to nod but I’m sure that the look on my face was akin to, “Get away from me, I’m workin’ here” (complete with the Manhattan accent). After reading Mr. Rubin’s book, I realized that a smart phone image snapper was most likely not making a comment on the perceived greatness of his phone contrasted to my $6,000 Canon camera and $2,200 lens combo. Frankly, my reaction was likely rooted in cynicism. After reading Rubin’s book, I understood something I missed before.
Specifically, phones give beginning to mid-range smart phone users a much lower bar of entry tool to follow a beckoning into the fascinating world of light management and artistic interpretation; a.k.a., photography. Thanks to Rubin’s book, instead of bristling at such a democratizing notion, I now embrace it. I no longer fixate on my creative workload, my tools, my challenges, my journey (notice the first person in all that). My sense is that creative affirmation can be a two-way street. I am shown a picture in a phone. In turn, I share my image in the back of my camera.
It's not some grand contest. There is so much beauty in the world, much of it actually inaccessible to smart phones or for that matter many DSLRs. While we have more picture-taking devices on the planet than ever, a picture-taking human race may make for more preserved memories, more remembered experiences, more shared moments, more documented encounters, more recollected stories, etc.
So, if you see me on the Champs-Elysees working hard at my craft and you address me in broken English clutching your phone with your image you adore, I will greet you with a smile. I will reciprocate in my poor French, and we will both share a moment where we mutually respect if not enjoy each’s work.
Only, understand that soon you, clutching your smart phone, will commute home on the Paris Metro. I will remain right here…waiting for the moment of optimal light and the best possible composition I can attain. Sure, we are both creators. We are not the same. That’s okay. No one is saying we are…the same.
