Naive Questions - Mobile Phone Cameras and Video
Some personal and initial observations on mobile phone photography: The now common ability to take photographs with mobile phones brings photography into daily life in a way which once characterized only professionals and amateurs who carried a camera with them everywhere. The weight, investment and obviousness of camera meant that even if one did not identify oneself as a ‘photographer’ or photography buff one quickly became thought of as such. The twentieth century history of photography has been characterized by the search for unobtrusive portable cameras with lenses which maintained an acceptable visual detail and offered high enough shutter speeds to capture fleeting events. An historical trajectory thus links 35mm cameras, the SLR and convenient zoom lenses to small digital cameras and the development of mobile phones with improving picture taking features.
The distinction between the cameras built into mobile phones and dedicated camera lies in the quality of the lenses and imaging abilities. Most mobile phones remain under 2 mega pixels in image resolution. This is sufficient for a ‘thumbnail’ or even a 2″ x 3″ image but incomparable with the expectations of either digital photographs viewed on computer screens or camera users who expect snapshots of resolution sufficient to produce a quality image at a minimum size of 4″ x 5″. They cannot be used for professional imaging. Nor do they capture sufficient detail in a wide enough range of lighting conditions to be used as an adjunct to professional activities, for example to document situations where liability or capital is at stake (for example, architects noting the progress of construction or real estate agents documenting properties for sale) Mobile phone cameras are notable in being the province of manufacturers whose primary focus is electronics - they do not appeal to consumers by attempting to borrow the brand identities of major camera manufacturers. Nor do their advertise the quality of their optics.
How did resolution become immaterial to mobile phone cameras?
By contrast to cameras, with mobile phones the emphasis is heavily on taking pictures of people and of sites on impulse. The process of taking a picture is constructed as an joint activity linking mobile phone photographers and their subject. The device itself comes to be seen as a medium which links and binds the interactants, rather than as a technology which primarily links ‘real life’ to an archival image. Pictures can be immediately viewed on the phones’ screens as a further joint activity of all involved and sent to others’ mobile phones to be collected for later viewing on their phones. This is a digital form of the practice of carrying wallet-sized photos of loved ones. Like all photographs, images recalled on mobile phone screens prolong and supplement memories of occasions and places. Reflexively, images of oneself that a person identifies with can become digital versions of cartes de visite produced by nineteenth century photographic studies (see Nottman collection). This processual emphasis is both the construction of mobile phone manufacturers who market the ‘fun’ of mobile phone photography rather than its intrusiveness or awkwardness. In addition, cameras are presented in promotional materials as devices which seem to be at the centre of groups of people, rather than as the sort of objects which rarely leave their owners hands or pockets. They are used as reflexive technologies whose owners can contribute images to group interactions creating a type of social reflexivity.
Mobile phones could be the basis of a nascent archive of intimate and informal occassions, passing moments and personal visual souvenirs. One could thus hope that mobile phone photography offers a new vision of the city. As an art form, mobile phone imaging may also yield exhibition material. In newsworthy events, their availability offers an way of visually recording eyewitness experiences. However, the majority of mobile phone photography is an interactive medium between photographers and subjects. Their aesthetics are not those of formal graphic composition but of the presence of a detail which crystallizes a moment which is more extensive in time, or a scene which affirms the activity or experiences of the photographer. They do not follow professionalized norms of lighting, resolution and focus.
Mobile phone photography can be understood as a form of ‘witnessing’ which links actual events in one space and time with:
-the flow of an event with a longer duration than the instant a shutter opens and closes (the virtual elements of an event). It is a momento
-represents a relation between photographer and subject. It is a process
(taking pictures of the city on a rare walk home, coming into a new relation with it)
-it adds a representation on an ongoing social interaction as a type of prop.
-reconnects a viewer with a past event as an aide memoire.
This is very different from the abstract sense of the mobile phone as an interface into and platform for a personalized and branded information space.
It complements the notion that mobile devices speed up information flows to make suburban sprawl and urban gridlock manageable and liveable for individuals dealing with the increasing scale of cities. Having to move around major cities and connect with others - for meetings or to locate them - is unimaginable if one is continually delayed due to congestion or confused in unfamiliar neighbourhoods.
How do the imaging and video capabilities affect how users relate to cities or find their ways through them or coordinate their interactions with others? How does video in particular fit into the process of ‘tuning’ and updating one’s information with continual short calls and interruptions from others reporting their progress in everyday life. Are these different from the ways which have become doxa in developers’, politicians’ and urban planners’ understandings of cities?
October 29th, 2006 at 9:40 am
Rob I wrote a paper for a conference in Sao Paulo about cell photo and video, subjectivty and the city and we’are very close to our “open conclusion”…we’ll talk about this later in our groupe, ok?
André Lemos
November 11th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
i remember when camera phones first came out and the first person i knew to have one got one. it had a lens cap. it was riduculous. we were all photo students so the whole thing felt ironic. this article touched on so many things about digital photography that often think about, thanks for getting it all together for me!
March 18th, 2008 at 3:37 am
The first generation camera phones were quite bulky, and I truly agree with you vanessa, they are quite ridiculous since at that time mobile phones were getting smaller and smaller. As for me, mobile phone photography has really come a long way, although they are quite behind compared to some dedicated photographic device. This is a very nicely done article. Hope that you would do more of stuff like this one. Thanks!