iPhonography

In case you haven’t seen the latest Apple commercial—and Apple is pretty renown for commercials—the computer and phone giant claims, “everyday, more photos are taken with an iPhone than with any other camera.” That’s not hard to believe. Counting all six generations, there are somewhere near 200 million iPhones on the street worldwide. Unlike DSLRs and point-and-shoot cameras, we always seem to have our phones with us. That convenience has equated to billions of photos.

Search for “photography” in the iTunes app store and you will get over 8,500 results. “Cameras” will find 4,700 hits and there are over 1,200 “photo editing” apps. But amongst the Apple hype and the iPhones held aloft at every event and landmark, how many compelling artistic images are taken on phones?

Recently, I attended a conference at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel. Jekyll Island and the club and mansions now making up the hotel were once an enclave for the richest families in America—Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Morgans, and Pulitzers among them—once made this their private retreat. In fact, the members of the club accounted for one sixth of the U.S.’s total wealth by World War II.

But despite the beauty and history here, I was without a camera. Except for my iPhone 5. Sometimes, you just get tired lugging around a thirty pound camera bag. So for three days, I set out to determine if I could take great photos, images becoming of a professional photographer, with an 8 MP iPhone camera. I’ve included a few samples.

I’m convinced that iPhones, and phone cameras in general, have reached a point where snapshots can transcend to art. Obviously, many photogs agree. Adhering to the same rules of composition, exposure, and light are really no different. Controlling shutter speed seems impossible until you realize—well, there’s an app for that.

I must admit that a couple of my images were tweaked a bit using East Coast Pixel’s Photo Toaster.  I’m a big fan of this app. From subtle sharpening or exposure adjustments to radical photo manipulations, this app has a lot to offer.

Superbowl Ads

Superbowl XLVI (that’s forty-six, I think) is tomorrow. The Giants and Patriots will vie for NFL’s national championship. But the game within the game is the contest for the champions of the imagination. With an estimated 116 million viewers watching, the “one percent” of corporate America will fork out $3.5 million, about three cents per viewer, for a chance to dominate Monday morning conversations. Chances are good that a talking dog or what the GoDaddy actress was wearing will get more conversation than what happened between the commercials.

Superbowl commercials haven’t always been a big deal. Prior to the early 1980’s, the commercials airing during the game were just ordinary spots. The Mean Joe Green Coca-Cola spot, which continually appears on top ten lists, had been airing since the previous October. But one ad, and my all-time favorite Superbowl spot, changed the way Superbowl advertising was viewed forever.

In 1982, the ad agency of Chiat/Day began peddling a concept ad to numerous clients, including Apple. All turned them down. But in 1983, Steve Jobs saw the concept and was immediately sold. The visionary Jobs saw the ad as an opportunity to announce the coming of the Macintosh computer. Chiat/Day hired Ridley Scott, who had recently directed Alien and Blade Runner, to film the ad. It cost an unbelieveable $900,000 to film.



The ad features a room full of brainwashed skinheads watching a screen and listening to a Big Brotherish voice decrying “information purification directives.” Their savior is a lone female who runs into the theatre and throws a hammer into the screen just before she is captured by police. The narrator, who is first heard just eight seconds before the end of the spot, proclaims, “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ’1984.”

When Apple’s board of directors saw the ad, they threatened to fire Chiat/Day and demanded that the spot not be aired. Not a single board member liked the spot-- they just did not understand it. But Jobs and Wozniak believed in the ad and paid for its costs out of their own pockets. Strangely, for all of the brilliance and hype, the spot only aired once, never seen in that form on television again. But in the advertising work, it’s considered legend. And it’s still seen on the Internet today.

In strange irony, from the standpoint of PC sales, IBM is a shell of what it was in 1984. While Macintosh computers have never really captured a significant amount of market share outside of “creatives” and loyal followers, its iPhones and iPads are a phenomenal success. As for Chiat/Day, the company merged with TBWA in 1995 and continues to represent Apple.