Friday

Does it really matter


Does it really matter or should it, if a photograph taken with an iPhone is processed on the iPhone, iPad or a laptop?


Obviously it is a challenge to do any kind of serious processing on an iPhone or other smartphone when one considers not only the phones screen size but also the phones lack of any serious processing power, not to mention software limitations. There is also to consider the iPhone screen’s brightness settings and that of ones own laptop, which in my case do not match. The laptops settings are just a little past the half-way mark and on the iPhone it is all the way up, so that one can see in bright light situations, resulting in images processed on the iPhone to be under-exposed when viewed on a laptop.


I will admit software developers are slowly catching on, that the iPhone is a serious tool with which to create fine art and are now beginning to develop applications that go beyond just adding filters to ones photograph. But even if there was a version of PhotoShop available or other the like it for the iPhone, I would still like to raise the question, should it matter?




The position I take is that as long as the image is taken with an iPhone or other smartphone, it should not. What should matter is that one uses the best tools available for post production edits. If that means using not only the iPhone itself but also the iPad or laptop, so be it, besides, some applications are only available for one kind of platform and not another, or vise versa.


If you disagree, allow me to ask you, if we were still back in the days of film and paper, would you not want to use the finest papers and chemicals available to gain maximum depths in the quality of your prints; or would you be content in letting a drug store handle your printing needs and requirements?


The iPhone is still in a continues development stage as all other smartphones are too, when it comes to bringing us serious technical advantages. But the iPhone certainly surpassed the Kodak box camera with no adjustments stage, the kind I grew up with, and entered into the first and second stage of a 35 mm camera with rangefinder era.


In the meantime with the democratization of a new generation of mobil photographers exploring lo fi lomography, we find ourselves in the midst of a revolution, like the kind experienced less than forty years ago with desktop publishing. We continue to push the boundaries and reinvent the meaning of photography.


I do confess I admire an iPhoneographer user who tries to accomplish all the post production edits on an iPhone, but I wonder if their purist ideology of good intentions is misplaced by the self-imposed limitations by not making use of all the best tools available in order to achieve and fulfill their creative vision.




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