Allan Bell Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 There Are 10 Things I Won't Be Doing In My Future in Stock: 1. Using my Apple iPhone as an alternative photography equipment System 2. Ah, I forget the other nine things I have days like that too. Allan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 I've just had a look at Stockimo and was interested to find a "Computer generated fractal image". Have I somehow failed to understand the concept. Presumably using one of the many apps available for the iPhone or the iPad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paulstw Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 I went out and bought an iPhone 5S yesterday. I'll be selling my Android phone asap. Do I think iPhone-ography is a fad? Nope, cause there's 'extra' money out there to be made from it. The two realms can exist side by side Those who don't believe in it won't be effected, and those that do will still need to work hard on the pics, just twice as hard as normal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 "Ive been browsing through the Stockimo images on Alamy and have to say that I quite like a lot of them. Personally, I think that modern photography has become too slick, with too much emphasis on technical perfection. The funky look of many of the iPhone shots are a welcome antidote. However, I can't help wondering if shots like these aren't just a passing fad. As they continue to pile up by the thousands (millions?) on the Web, will people eventually get sick of them? Also, as cellphone cameras continue to improve, will images taken with them start to look just like ones taken with "real" cameras -- i.e. will the circle complete itself? Any thoughts on this?" -- John's OP To be serious for a moment . . . the move towards pro use of smart phones did not begin this month. And smaller is a direction most of us have already been heading recently, no? About two years ago, one of the top newspapers in the USA fired its entire photography staff and issued their text journalists iPhones. Many other newspapers have followed this path. And reporters doubling as photojournalists has been going on forever. Remember the image of the burning Buddhist monk in Saigon in the early '60s? An editor/reporter took that picture. For me, there's something insidious about encouraging photographers to always be working, always "on." Yes, many of you will love this idea, but I like either giving my full attention to shooting or not doing it at all for an hour or a day. A lifetime ago, when I was a jazz musician, there were three things I hated about that world: working for mob guys who owned the clubs, playing with drug addicts, and the fact that the players never talked about anything except jazz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Robinson Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 three things I hated about that world: working for mob guys who owned the clubs, playing with drug addicts, and the fact that the players never talked about anything except jazz. Just be glad they didn't have an online forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.Chapman Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Buying an iPhone represents a considerable investment as does a monthly contract to operate it on a mobile network. Not necessarily. I picked up an iPhone 4 running IOS 6 via eBay a little while back for just over £100. Works perfectly. I was pleased to find the Stockimo app runs on it. I have a basic PAYG SIM that cost £10. I would never upload from the phone but use WiFi link to my router at home. The thing with iPhones is so many folks must have latest model (street cred?) that there's lots of nearly new secondhand iPhone 4s about that can be picked up for a fraction of the price of the latest model. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Brook Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 "For me, there's something insidious about encouraging photographers to always be working, always "on." Yes, many of you will love this idea, but I like either giving my full attention to shooting or not doing it at all for an hour or a day. A lifetime ago, when I was a jazz musician, there were three things I hated about that world: working for mob guys who owned the clubs, playing with drug addicts, and the fact that the players never talked about anything except jazz." Ed R The Alamy system does that anyway, which is all about volume production, shooting in the morning, the afternoon, the evening, indoors and outdoors, rain and shine, any subject under the sun, the more the merrier. The only way to make a substantial income here. The rest of the high end stock photography business is moving away from this model at an accelerating speed. Briefs for phone use don’t have anything to do with 24/7 action, but using it as a creative tool. The Holy Grail of today’s commercial photography industry is ‘authenticity’, that elusive quality that nobody seems to know how to get, and nobody is quite sure what it is until seen. Enter the smartphone. Alamy doesn’t issue creative briefs, but from their selection process it appears that this is what they have in mind. Or not. You may be right. Maybe they are looking forward to the day that they can claim to be the biggest online collection in the Milky Way. Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted February 23, 2014 Author Share Posted February 23, 2014 Personally, when it comes to photography, I have at least as many "off" days as "on" days. Anything can become obsessive if you let it, especially these days where volume rules the roost. We could always start a knitting club forum (no iPhones allowed). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tarsierspectral Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 So I do have an iPhone and believe it or not I have never used the camera on it for anything serious, I take reference pics with it and only look at them on my phone. Anyway, I wanted to check out Stockimo and took a photo with iPhone 5s and viewed it 100% in Photoshop. OMG these images are horrible, is that normal or is there something wrong with my phone? I see heavy jpg compression artifacts!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Kilpatrick Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 Robert has it right. I used iPhone images for the first time as a featured article in Master Photography in 2010. Later on, I asked Gerry Coe if I could use a handful of his images in the magazine as a special feature (may have been 2011). They reproduced superbly, including full page. Gerry is a photographer I have referred to who offers premium priced iPhone portrait shoots in Ireland, the point of the deal is that he only uses the iPhone for this work - and the results are BIG wall canvasses and acrylics etc. Highest end clients will opt for a day spent doing this. Portraiture today is not just call into a studio. The photographer - at least my lot in the MPA - will accompany a couple or a family on a day out maybe a hundred miles away, chosen locations, changes of outfit, activities - the lot. These are four-figure commissions before they start. Gerry subsequently gained his FRPS and FBIPP with a portfolio including the images I grabbed from him to get into print. I do not shoot iPhone stuff because I'm not creative that way. I'm really a photojournalist-manque, that is, I used to shoot people and now I just shoot empty scenes because people are too much hassle :-) (not entirely true, when I look at my travel sets, it ain't landscape at all - 75% people shots still). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mihai Popa Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 I wait to see if there is any Stockimo sale so we can have a "Have you found any Stockimo photographs? February 2014" section. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 Robert has it right. I used iPhone images for the first time as a featured article in Master Photography in 2010. Later on, I asked Gerry Coe if I could use a handful of his images in the magazine as a special feature (may have been 2011). They reproduced superbly, including full page. Gerry is a photographer I have referred to who offers premium priced iPhone portrait shoots in Ireland, the point of the deal is that he only uses the iPhone for this work - and the results are BIG wall canvasses and acrylics etc. Highest end clients will opt for a day spent doing this. Portraiture today is not just call into a studio. The photographer - at least my lot in the MPA - will accompany a couple or a family on a day out maybe a hundred miles away, chosen locations, changes of outfit, activities - the lot. These are four-figure commissions before they start. Gerry subsequently gained his FRPS and FBIPP with a portfolio including the images I grabbed from him to get into print. I do not shoot iPhone stuff because I'm not creative that way. I'm really a photojournalist-manque, that is, I used to shoot people and now I just shoot empty scenes because people are too much hassle :-) (not entirely true, when I look at my travel sets, it ain't landscape at all - 75% people shots still). Gerry Coe is clearly exceptional - if you gave him an empty bottle, a black box and some film, he would probably produce a wonderful work of art. He has some amazing iPhone pictures on his website. His work demonstrates what can be done with an iPhone. Admirable indeed and very inspiring. But the iPhone has its limits. Normal images are very noisy due to sharpening (clearly evident in skies). Quality is acceptable for many purposes but many would fail normal QC because of noise. There is nothing you can do with an iPhone that you can't do with another camera (although the depth of field appears to be exceptional) and there are many things you can do with other cameras that you can't do with an iPhone. So on that basis I do think iPhoneography is a fad, even if it becomes a long-lasting one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
losdemas Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 ^^ +1 Exceptional - and an exception to the rule. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regis Posted May 1, 2014 Share Posted May 1, 2014 Hi there, No, I don't think that photos made from a phone is a fad. It is here to stay, it will evolve and become better and better quality wise. But more importantly, they are different images than what stock photographers usually do. And this is why they will not be a fad, they will just cater to a different market. I am really surprised by how so many people in here react very negatively about it. Insecurity? Resistance to change? Not interested? All understandable opinion, but I personally think that it is here to stay, and will continue to evolve. And this is what attracts me to it. In fact, it reminds me of not so long ago, when "proper" photographer were swearing to never use digital camera... ;-) Have a good day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Todd Posted May 1, 2014 Share Posted May 1, 2014 There Are 10 Things I Won't Be Doing In My Future in Stock: 1. Using my Apple iPhone as an alternative photography equipment System 2. Ah, I forget the other nine things I can't believe someone gave you a red arrow for that. It gave me a chuckle so have a greenie to even it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Jordan Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 I have been following this thread, and just had a first browse through the Stockimo collection. I am rather inspired by what I see there, and could see myself joining it in the future, especially as (if I remember rightly) iphone images are acceptable for the news feed. It would be a big learning curve if I do do it, as I have never had a smart phone. The way my life works I almost never use my GSM phone, except for unexpected emergencies. My mindset is that all the other things that one can do on a smartphone woud be crippled by the inconvenience of a tiny screen that you also have to use as an inut device. When traveling I have a small laptop with good wifi However I do accept that quite a few people seem to use smartphones, so maybe they might be OK.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D700 Doug Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 As much as I despise mobile phones and their intrusion into our lives I do love that they have restarted the tradition of unrestricted candid street photography.It is almost enough to make me wish I had an iphone thing instead of my steam powered flip phone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 I don't know that phone images themselves will be a fad but I am sure the "processed" look will quickly become tired, especially as it is so easy to apply it without thought, just because one can. I have been around photography long enough to see many such filters and processing fashions have their moment and then disappear except for occasional "retro" needs. Lets see, off the top of my head: star filters, grainy GAF500 slides, cross processing, infra-red, multi-image prism filters, ring-flash, spot colour in b&w, lith printing, solarisation, posterisation, bas-relief, extreme soft-focus - the list goes on, and on, and on! How many great and memorable pictures can anyone remember that used any of those fads? All the pictures I can think of in that category are straight, albeit posed or setup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted May 2, 2014 Author Share Posted May 2, 2014 The iPhone "processed" look is definitely cool, but I'm already bored with it. I guess that's what happens when you get inundated with something. Next fad, please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 The iPhone "processed" look is definitely cool, but I'm already bored with it. I guess that's what happens when you get inundated with something. Next fad, please. John, surely if you are bored with it it is no longer "cool"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted May 2, 2014 Author Share Posted May 2, 2014 The iPhone "processed" look is definitely cool, but I'm already bored with it. I guess that's what happens when you get inundated with something. Next fad, please. John, surely if you are bored with it it is no longer "cool"? I'm probably the one who isn't "cool" any longer. Think I need a break from the digital age. There's just too much information out there, man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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