The Best Camera

Chase Jarvis recently launched a trifecta of cool.  On the same day, he released a new book, an iPhone app, and a new website.  He released a photography book “The Best Camera is the One That’s With You,” using photography entirely taken on and edited on his iPhone (using an app he developed). Adding to all this is the website devoted to iPhone photography.

I have not seen the book, but Scott Bourne at Photofocus posted a great (and short) review of The Best Camera is the One That’s With You.

The app, Best Camera, is great.  It allows you to take photography, edit it with a series of stackable filters, then simultaneously or individually send the photograph to The Best Camera website, Facebook, Twitter, an e-mail address, and save it to your camera roll.

Sending photography to the Best Camera website is a great deal of fun because when you go to the site, there is a live feed of all the photographs coming in, and there is some very nice work being submitted.  Additionally, there is some mysterious process that evaluates these shots, votes for them, and results in the best shot for the hour, day and month.  Chase promises to further democratize this by opening procedures for the voting process.

So all this is very cool from the perspective of making an iphone even more fun and useful, further democratizing photography, and adding some credibitlity to 800 by 800 pixel photography.  However, the real value of this bow wave of photographic activity is the creative challenge.

As you have likely seen in my recent posts, I like to challenge myself through imposing some form of constraint (use only a 50mm, shoot everything out of focus, shoot only on a specific theme, etc.).  Like the constraints I have written about, the iPhone is another creativity catalyst.  Limited size, limited resolution, limited light sensitivity, no manual control over exposure, and limited ability to process (although I am confident Chase will progressively add new filters and controls for post processing!) all become challenges to making compelling photography.

At the moment I am having at least as much fun with my iphone as I am with my Canon 5D.  By the way, all the photography in this entry was taken on my iPhone and processed in the Best Camera iPhone app.
To see more iPhone photography, visit the Best Camera website, and to see more of my iPhone photography, see Craig Corl on the Best Camera.
Go make some great photography.
Craig