Photography

Just a few short years ago photography largely consisted of film and camera.  Change began slowly as digital photography became cheaper.  The first digital camera's were fairly expensive.  Expensive enough to make the switch not worthwhile for the amateur photographer.  Prices continued to fall so that soon it began to make sense for the 10 roll per year amateur to by a new camera and never need to pay for professional development again.  As digital cameras became more capable, even professional photographers made the switch.  Now it is rare to see any photographer with a film camera.

Today we are also on the verge of moving mainstream photography away from the digital camera and toward the camera phone.  Early camera phones took grainy pictures, and phone networks were so slow that uploading or sharing pictures took time and sometimes incurred extra cost.  All of those costraints are disappearing.  New camera phones are usually 3 mega pixels (larger than my first digital camera), some now are 5 or 8 mega pixel..  Wireless phone and in-home broadband networks are much higher speed, so sharing a photo takes seconds instead of minutes.

While on vacation this year, I brought my Sony 8 mega-pixel camera, but did not snap a single photo using it.  Instead, I used my camera phone to capture the vacation photos.  Why?  Because I had my camera phone with me all the time, and when a good photo opportunity presented itself I used it.  The photos I shot were not the quality I would expect from the Sony digital camera, but good enough that I was able to enlarge and frame several.  I think this is the direction of amateur photography.

I now find myself snapping pictures that I would not get if my digital camera was the only photographic device I owned.  A few favorites follow.

Then there is my favorite camera phone picture of all time, SILC and BILL at the game.