FROM Tokyo to London, people are snapping digital photos and sending them off to get shopping advice, share memories, and find love – all in real time.
So says the mobile phone industry. They claim the ability to take digital snaps and send them instantly using camera phones is revolutionising the way we live. And if the impact of digital cameras is anything to go by, they could be right.
For example, digital cameras have transformed online dating from an embarrassing fringe activity into an everyday, time-efficient option for those seeking love. “Online dating became really big in part because digital cameras became ubiquitous,” says Craig Newmark of the networking site Craigslist.org.
Advertisement
Yet despite the mobile phone industry’s optimism, early indications are that people aren’t using picture messaging to cement their social or romantic relationships, says Mizuko Ito from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, who has surveyed picture messaging habits in Japan. She says most people still find it “narcissistic”, and the high cost puts many off. But in a new twist, camera phones are making an impact elsewhere.
For Tat Heroman of Heroman Plant Services in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for example, the ability to receive instant pictures of his company’s displays in malls, offices and hospitals, allows him to offer better, faster service. Many of his staff use camera phones to relay pictures that enable Heroman to take immediate decisions on whether to ship replacements for diseased or damaged plants. “When it comes to plants, a picture really does speak a thousand words,” he says. Similarly construction company Skanska Tekra of Helsinki has issued camera phones to its workers across Finland so that they can ask for advice on problems and get completed jobs approved promptly by supervisors elsewhere.
The authorities are also finding uses for camera phones. In Osaka, Japan, the police force is asking members of the public to submit photos that might be relevant to solving crimes. “They are an absolute asset to law enforcement,” agrees Kevin Kraus of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police in Pennsylvania. He recently ruled out a group of men as suspects in a gang rape using photos taken with a camera phone at the time.
But there’s a down side: you can also take photos down women’s blouses and up their skirts and send those to the world. Camera phones have been banned in locker rooms and toilets in many US cities, and in Korea they are now required by law to make a loud noise when a picture is taken. In Japan, people have been caught “digital shoplifting”, using phones to copy pages from books and magazines without buying them. Samsung, who manufactures camera phones, even banned the devices in their own factories for fear they would be used to steal trade secrets.
And digital devices have triggered a revolution in the art of photography itself – one that may bring artistic losses as well as gains. These days the resolution of the best digital cameras is as good as film. But there are subtle differences. The pixels that make up a digital image can make round edges sharp and straight edges fuzzy. The ink and paper used to print digital photos also creates less subtle colours than the chemicals of photographic film. As a result professional photographers may be pushed towards different subjects and different styles, while viewers gradually come to expect “screaming colours,” suggests science photographer Felice Frankel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It might be influencing our aesthetic, which is a little disturbing,” she says. Just as the rise of digital recording altered the music we hear, the images we see around us are being affected by the fact that some subjects are more suitable than others for digital capture and manipulation, she warns.
If digital cameras are revolutionary for art, camera phones are downright subversive. “It’s almost like the ability to take a mental snapshot,” says Steve Diet Goedde, an American photographer who exhibited work at SENT, an exhibition of camera-phone art held in Los Angeles this summer. “The poorer the quality, the more I like it,” he says. “If I wanted good digital images, I’d just use a regular digital camera.” A new aesthetic indeed, but perhaps not one that Motorola, who sponsored the exhibition, will want to advertise.