iPhone photography: Art or gimmick? – Sion Fullana:
For starters, I'm specialising in candid street photography. No poses, no permission asked. There are two ways of doing that: with a big telephoto lens from far away, or with the iPhone up close, where people think you're just texting or playing games, when in truth you are snapping away.
On the other hand, there's the more 'artistic', almost painterly feel of the images you can get with the iPhone. Something about its small lens (of really great quality, beyond the lower resolution) allows the device to capture colours and light, if you know how to position the phone, with spectacular results. And finally, there have been several situations where I took the same portrait or scene with both my iPhone and my Lumix, and what you got on the phone was more interesting than in the camera … crazy, but true.
The following screen capture shows the Apple iPhone to be the 2nd most popular camera on Flickr as at Jul 14, 2009.
