Yes, sometimes my iPhone photos suck

Janey; Sydney, Australia; 2008 ©Gabriel Ponzanelli

Yesterday I posted a photo of a wet floor cone that I took with my iPhone and edited on the phone with an app I had just downloaded. I tweeted the blog post and a good friend saw the tweet and clicked to see the photo. She wasn't impressed. She actually complained and asked what the hell was I thinking to post such a dumb photograph. While I agree it's by no means a good shot, there is a reason behind it. I took it because I wanted to play with the new app exactly at that moment, and I wanted to do it with a new shot, not something already in my library. The cone was right in front of me when I was thinking about it, so it became the shot.

OK, I agree the reason is as dumb as the photograph, but I didn't take it because I wanted to make a piece of art. I took it because I wanted to play with my new app, so in a sense it was a successful shot. Maybe the dumb thing was sharing it openly on the web. On the other hand, it's not the worst photograph I've taken or shared, and I'm sure it won't be the last. It's not even the first cone I post. (Now I'm wondering if I should read something into that).

I enjoy taking photographs with my iPhone. As I've said before, it's simplicity gives me the freedom to take whatever is in front of me without the pressures of shutter speeds, apertures, focal lengths, strobes, etc. It's a freedom I rarely have when I'm out with my DSLR. Plus it's always with me. I take so many iPhone shots that in 10 years I'll be able to look back at them and reconstruct a period of my life that'll be documented in a very different way. Maybe the cones will have a deeper meaning then.

Or maybe it's just too late and I'm too tired and my brain isn't processing this.

Anyway, the image above is not an iPhone photograph, I didn't take it on a whim, and in fact I quite like it. And not just because Janey has an amazing body and is ridiculously beautiful. Although that certainly helps.