Its an app, app, app world

I've been thinking quite a lot recently about mobile 'phone cameras and the "app's" that are available for them. I have used a mobile 'phone camera and not been too disappointed with the outcome, but I've always (underneath) thought that they have been toys, despite all the marketing b/s about megapixels, lens' by Zeiss etc etc; after all the piece of glass is hardly bigger than a pin-head and the phones themselves are about the size of a decent 12 Mega pixel sensor for a full frame dslr, so how can can you derive anything of any quality from such a paltry object?

I took this image with a Nokia mobile 'phone a couple of years ago and it still gives me the impression I had when I took it

I meet regularly with some photographers and we discuss our (photographic) work, look at prints and generally have a good time talking and being photographers for the day and at the last meeting we talked about Hipstamatic. It's existence was not known to me and I suppose if someone had mentioned it in passing I would have thought they were referring to a "beat combo" and had left the "s" off. The Hipstamatics are appearing here tonight! Well, it was explained that this was an "app" (which I do understand about) and it is designed to produce "interesting" variations of shots taken on, for example an iPhone (which I have). So the question raised was; what place did a programme that interpreted (distorted) with a range of canned recipes for creating, what is probably called "funky" or some-such versions of the original image? Where is the craft in this, isn't this just "de-skilling" photography, is it just devaluing the whole process??
I didn't think much more about Hipstamatics until I saw this shot by Sharon Kaplan on the OCA site, admittedly it was in Sharon's Hipstamatic "set", but I was struck by the colour, the pose and the composition. Many thanks to Sharon for allowing me to use this image and for more of her work please go to her flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/chaoticbeaut/ you are unlikely to be disappointed.

When I looked at the thumb nail of the image I could really only see the portrait set on a strong diagonal with a window of some sort to the right. Upon enlarging, the image opened up to reveal what I suspect is a stair case leading from one side of the sitters head and another going the other way - rays!! - and positioning this young girl almost iconically inside a vignetted construction. I am quite happy to be told that this was serendipitous, that the iPhone (or whatever "smart phone") was turned to the young girl and a snap was taken in the moment and no more was thought about it or the consequence of the shutter - some jiggery pokery was then undertaken under the bonnet of the iPhone and hey presto this picture emerged. Or I could be just as happy to be told that this image was constructed thus, I've only recently become aware of Sharon's work and could quite believe it to be as intended.

I've been thinking of truth in photography for some time, truth in the respect of what and how the image is created. Whether I could ever create something that was truthful, whether I could understand where truth started and where it could predict it's demise. The difference I had always thought about analogue versus digital was that the digital shot had more levels of decoupling from the lighted image than the film camera had, what with the electronic conditioning, the software algorithms, the screen and/or printer calibrations all of which are to a greater or lesser extent out of the hands of the photographer. These are over and above what the analogue photographer had to compromise with - he just had things like chemical impurities, temperature, water acidity, emulsion variants to contend with. Arcadian days!
I've  come to the conclusion that it's a matter of trust in the artist. If the artist gives us an image we must trust the image to be what was wanted - after all the vast majority of photographs, taken as they are on impulse by holiday makers, pictures taken at parties, weddings and so forth and general happiness is the only sub-text accompanying the shot.

I was walking around Rousham House grounds yesterday trying to be creative with the initial AoP exercises and thinking about this conundrum called truth. I had film and digital cameras with me and both now capable of taking zone-plate imagery.

The pictures below are of some wrestlers, the statue, though very well worn, is about 15 inches tall, plaster based and the same now as when I first saw it about 20 years ago. It sits inside a "folly" in the grounds at Rousham House.

This is a zone plate image of the subject, D200 lens cap zone plate and given some PP in CS5

This is a mono version from a different perspective, not as intimate as it could be but shown here in whole to give a similar scale view. This was taken with a different dslr, some very slight cropping and some PP in CS5 - local contrast mainly.

And here taken on my iPhone (no hipsta action!). The colours aren't right, but it shows the scale better than the previous version above and is therefore more truthful?

At this point I think I should repeat (see earlier blog - truth) that I believe the camera is incapable of telling the truth. A Gandolfi 11 X 14 inch or even a Polaroid 20 X 24 inch have about as much claim to high fidelity reproductive verisimilitude as my iPhone. And if truth cannot be imparted from a camera, no matter the advances in technology then I repeat, the truth can only be delivered by the artist and the image is the thing.

Understanding the outcomes of process is the key to gaining control of the craft of image making; no-one should even attempt to know what goes on under the bonnet of a modern camera, there aren't any people left on the planet who understand how a modern computer works - it's just too big - so understanding how a camera works with it's hybrid collection of optics, electronic wizardry and black magic software is beyond the pale. If the photographer has a strong concept of what is likely to turn up on the LCD screen after releasing the shutter, if they know what it was they were trying to express, if what they retrieve from the camera's memory is a component part on the road to constructing the image they held in their head, or even as the raw material for a road yet to travel, then I think that is fine. It should not be an issue if the image finally presented - which in all likelihood will stay locked away either in long term storage, either on a disk or in a drawer - was taken by a smart-phone, digitally manipulated, tie-dyed and crumpled. If that is what was wanted by the artist AND when it came to life it delivered the intent the artist had that's all there is to know, surely? Or maybe Sharon had this thought that the subject was at the centre of her world at that time and that here was one way of expressing it - a mite precious perhaps but entirely possible.