Going Mobile

A boat undergoing renovation - Morston Quay, Norfolk, UK

Mobile phones have come on in leaps and bounds since they first came onto the market in the mid 1980's. Back then, a phone was the size of a brick and about as heavy but fortunately technology moved on to create what we now know as the modern smart phone. It's the introduction to the smart phone that's opened my eyes to phone cameras and the potential that mobile web services offer.

During my Norfolk trip, i was pleasantly surprised by the quality of my mobile's camera. I even started using it, via my twitter feed, to post images to the web. Up until recently, I'd regarded mobile phone cameras as mere gimmicks - great for photographing you and your mates down the pub, but not really much good for anything else. That is no longer the case it seems. A recent article online mentioned the huge uptake in use of mobile phone cameras by professional photographers. This is probably due to improvements in phone camera image quality, good software and better WiFi access that can place images online quickly. London's Metropolitan police found this to their cost during the G20 demonstrations as individuals shot and posted images of police actions as they happened.

I use a Nokia 5800 mobile phone that has a camera with a Carl Zeiss lens. The results have been outstanding. I can honestly say that this camera/ autofocus lens combination is superb and capable of capturing most types of images. I've used it to shoot street photography and still-life work like the shot featured above. All i had to do then was use an application called Gravity, via a WiFi internet link, to post images direct to twitter. These images became a separate visual project away from the regular photography with cameras. The interaction and comments by other twitter users made it even more exciting. I'll be doing more in future.