CLIFF DRIVE, APRIL 2011

CLIFF DRIVE, APRIL 2011

The saying goes that, “A picture says a thousand words”; but until fairly recently it was usually easier to say a thousand words than to make a photograph.

Cell phone cameras have changed all of that. As cell phones with built in cameras have become ubiquitous, the use of photography for quick, utilitarian image capture has become commonplace, and it’s often easier, more succinct, and more fun, to send a picture message than it is to spell something out. My photograph, “CLIFF DRIVE, APRIL 2011”, was shot using a cell phone camera and sent as a picture message to say, “I’ll be home in a few minutes”.

As tools for making serious photographs, cell phone cameras have a lot working against them. When magnified beyond a few inches in width, the low resolution of the photos they produce rapidly reveals itself in the form of pixelization that doesn’t have a whole lot of charm. They tend to have a lot of shutter lag, so you have to try to substantially anticipate the moment you want to capture, which creates real problems when you’re trying to shoot a moving subject. And because they’re optically slow, they demand long exposure times, which often results in smeared images.

But if you’re willing to embrace their faults, rewarding results can be achieved with the images that they create. The blur that you’re stuck with when you shoot a moving subject in moderate light with a cell camera readily lends itself to an impressionistic treatment in the digital darkroom; and the portability of a cell camera lets it go places where other cameras might be too bulky to be taken.

The same sorts of things go for bicycles. Just as cell cameras can be discounted as not being tools for “serious art”, in our culture bicycles are not seen as a means of “serious transportation”. They have limitations that most people aren’t willing to put up with; but if you embrace their limitations you’ll find that they take you down a road less traveled to places where you wouldn’t otherwise go, and from them you will see the world from a point of view that is unique and rewarding.