The future of photography may be the iPhone? The second most used camera for photos uploaded to Flickr is the iPhone, so something is happening here. It's more than just the fact that there are a lot of iPhones out there.
One of the useful sites here is iPhoneography, where the author says 'the future is point and shoot', with links to iPhone photographers and some iPhone photography apps. Part of the interest here is the range of apps that allow you to shoot in black and white, add wacky colours and effects, make panoramas and upload to social networking sites.
Ease of use and playful effects are just part of it. Another aspect is the positive use of what is, to be honest, the rubbish built in camera of the iPhone - in the same way people like blurred Holga and Lomo photos. But the main driver is perhaps the ease of use; you always have your phone, see something, shoot, move on. Instant and disposable pictures as part of an instant disposable lifestyle. 'Real' photography takes too long.
Bridge too far, by Greg Schmigel
The guru of all this though is Chase Jarvis who is developing a new industry here with his 'Best camera: iPhone App + Book + Community' The book is a collection of his shoot on sight work, the App offers a range of easy to apply in phone filters and the community includes an on line feed of new photos by users of the App. These images (see below for examples) include details of the filter effects applied by the App. You can spend a lot of time just watching the new images come on line; sooner or later something you really like is going to come up
(Then again if you want to step out form the crowd and try something different there is always the Funky Cam or the Harinezumi)
