The Bottle by Knox Bronson
Here’s a little street photography, which is, as I now know, the real iphonography. I hope the real photographers and the true iphonographers will accept my apology and … perhaps … share their wisdom and experience here … that we might learn … how to do it …
On second thought, never mind!
In case you missed it, the Huffington Post had a nice little feature and slide show of Pixels’ artists yesterday. As always, the self-proclaimed “real” photographers piled the hate on in the comment section. I have addressed their issues in this podcast. I will follow with a detailed analysis in writing in the next week or two.
Arn’t a lot of us “real photographers” also? I am! I even shoot with my old mid-format Hasselblad and there are the same rules: No manipulation on the pc for my Hasselblad shots.
And as someone who works with all kind of cameras i know how important the tool is. It’s not only you and it’s neither only the result… It’s the way to the result which is important! Including the dialogues with my models. Including the camera. Including the post processing!
Butow, my remarks were aimed at a certain set of self-important jerks who come out of the woodwork every time the artists and the art of P1XELS get any attention.
I’m glad to hear you aren’t photoshopping your Hasselblad images!
Well, Gordon, I do not see “both sides.” There is only one side. If you take the picture off the phone, it is no longer iphonography. Period.
Someone wants to do that, they can take their pictures over to iphoneart or some other photoshop site.
I do not know why I have to say over and over again that I have witnessed many dozens of times over the past year the reaction people have when in a gallery full of iphonographic prints, when they find out the work is created solely on the iphone. They like it. They do not want the work to be photoshopped on a computer. This is the reality. Another reason why there are not two sides. The medium is defined by the device and people for some reason respond to that in a visceral way.
Furthermore, as far as the HuffPo comments went, it was just more of the mediocre talents raging in envy. All the truly talented “real” photographers I know love what we are doing here. It’s the no-talents who want to control and contain the medium and disrespect the beautiful work being presented on P1XELS. I will share more of my correspondence in an article I’ve been planning for a while. There are some real assholes out there. The HuffPo comments today are a small, but representative sampling.
I think that you have misunderstood what I am saying…or perhaps i have not said it clearly enough, or at all. I agree that iPhoneography should be solely created and manipulated on the iPhone.
What I meant was that I could understand folk who were unable to see the difference between an image created through use of a computer and that done solely on an iPhone. They seem to fall in to two camps. The, “iphoneography is pretentious crap” side, where nothing you or I say can make a difference….and the others who are the “surely the only thing that matters is the end result” where I suspect they may be more open to debate.
I’m glad you are fighting our corner anyway. Without your continuous promotion of this new art form far far fewer folk would even know it existed!
Ah … okay … yes you are correct! I didn’t quite get your drift, Gordon. Sorry. Still in battle mode and tired. :)
Well, it is late. I’m off. Have a good one!
Hi Knox,
Good to hear the podcast and it was also good to read the comments on Huff post. It struck me reading the comments over there that they were not so much criticising the use of an iPhone as means to take images or create art but rather the requirement to only manipulate the images in the phone, rather than on an external device. I can see both sides of the coin here. however, I choose to do it all in phone. Not just because I like the challenge but also, as I explained in my presentation at Apple last week, because I have no idea how to do what I do with lightroom or photoshop.
I have found the iPhone a bizzarely freeing device considering the constrictions I have put myself under by using it. I now take photographs I would have not done before and I can create images and put on the page ideas I would not have attempted before. I think the analogy between plate camera’s and box brownies or kodak’s is quite correct. For me the iPhone seems to be pioneering the democratisation (is that a word?) of art creation from photographs.
Anyway, I love my phone, I love the images I can create and viewing some of the amazing stuff being produced and shown on Pixels. Those folk who don’t get it, fair enough. OH…and I’m interested in the forthcoming interview…one of my forthcoming projects is re-creating 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s centrefolds with my phone….or perhaps I should use my medium format 6×6?
I am really looking forward to your recreations of the centerfolds! Please use your iphone so we can publish on P1XELS!
You know I am a huge fan of your work, Gordon.
it’s an iphone project alright…i’ve got some props collected already…just trying to find suitable models with the right look.