Dear iPhoneographers,
You create compelling work. I know you may hear this all the time, and I know that you’ve got all the art buyers in the Upper East Side, Chelsea and Bushwick around your fingers. So I want to tell you something: congratulations. You’ve seriously done a terrific job of showing the world that art is what comes first. It absolutely does come before gear, and a creative vision will always win out over someone toting around a 5D without a creative vision. As a creative, I want to thank you for making the world realize that don’t need the best gear in the world to create compelling imagery.
But at the same time, I want you to be well aware of your placement in the art world. Your prints in the galleries are beautiful, and I don’t think that I can say that enough. I want you to know, however, about what I’m actually capable of doing with a dedicated camera. I’m a creative with a creative vision and I will express my creativity in nowhere near as fast a pace as yours. What you’ll get from me, however, is work that took time, in which I debated whether I should crop in just a bit more, flip the image, or edit it a completely different way.
Beyond that, I want you to know that if I ever get back into shooting weddings, engagements, events or into fully shooting fashion campaigns again that I will never show up to a shoot with my Nexus 5 or the latest victim of Bendgate. I will do everything I can to work with a client to create my own lighting, deliver the vision and product that they want, and in the end, I will push my art over the fact that I’m using the latest camera from Sony.
I think that as much as you’ve become entranced with not needing a dedicated camera to create excellent images, you’ve instead become so enthralled by the other type of technology: your phone. If we switch equipment for a month, can you deliver the same work that you did? Does that make you truly an artist or some person that shoots an image, applies a filter, and wins over the hearts of curators everywhere.
In closing, what I’m saying is that you’re a creative and that I’m a creative, but that creativity should be the main priority. In the same way you can wow art buyers with your efficient and affordable way to capture an image, I can give a bride and groom photos that they’ll cry over years from now.
Maybe we can talk about it one day over coffee–which we will both then attempt to photograph beautifully.
Sincerely,
A photographer
