I think camera phone pictures may soon become the equivalent of Holga and toy camera photos, that is, alternative or characteristic photos accidentally made into fine art by virtue of their unique or quirky characteristics.
The iPhone 3G, or at least the one I have, has a few interesting factors that make for identifiable photos. There is a weird purple colour fringing that happens on overexposed edges. Photos are always soft -- it's very difficult to get sharp results (though it does happen once in a while). Lens flare takes on a strange "showery" quality, that looks like jetting water. Camera blur is obviously a real problem, and in low-light conditions, unavoidable. And noise is pretty outrageous, even in the brightest light.
Taken together, these and other qualities can make for a very interesting photo if it's composed well. Combined with the usual post work in Lightroom or Photoshop, the results are pleasing, at least to me.
This collection of photos, called "Paths", are photos mostly taken between November and last week, and mostly along a 200km stretch of the Bruce Trail. I'm using Blurb to publish a book of this collection. I have about a thousand pictures taken with my iPhone over its two years, and I have another book of "Alex" photos from the phone. Any comments and criticism on these pictures is welcome and will be matched. There's supposed to be a kind of story in this collection, and you can start here to be subjected to it. Thanks to comment star Jutilda for her early comments!
If you have any camera phone photos you like, I'd really like to see them; post them here. Here's a sampling from my collection.
I have only had my iPhone for about 3 weeks, so have not yet built up a collection. However this is one of the first I took and I was very impressed with the quality, it was way better than I expected.
This was taken using the Hipstamatic app - which is a fun little app.
It's only 2MP. If you give up everything but 2MP & the shutter release you really have no choice but to pay close attention to framing & composition! "D
