Ct'd: Why Some DPreview Posters Turn Up Their Nose at Cellphone Picture-Taking

With respect to this previous thread I wanted to continue my thoughts, from my angle, about why some DPreview posters turn up their nose at cellphone picture-taking.

I am one of those people, and I am proud of it.

The reason? I like what the one person said: "I think anyone who's serious about photography would choose a camera over a phone and it's hard for me to understand why anyone who's an enthusiast or who considers photography a hobby would pick a cell phone as their camera."

And the one post on page 3 which read in part (so much of it is good but it's long):

"There is also the aspect of people using the cell phone and pushing the magic instagram filter button and thinking that they just made art when any monkey with fingers can press the magic photo filter button. This is where the other level of snob comes from. A photo made by someone who used effort, knowledge, and technique has more value and weight than someone who points, clicks, and hits the magic photo filter button. This easy button did all the work for them and the image wasn't created using any in-depth skill."

Yes, yes, yes. It's also comments I read, ones I disagree with and make my point, that say "what if someone doesn't want to take another camera with them?"

In other words, we turn our nose up at such things because, to us, it encompasses lazy people who barely even are trying in any real sense yet they want to "rate" with people who DO try, and they deserve no such place whatsoever. That's like me buying a "Guitar Hero" setup and then wanting to be put on the same stage of excellence as Keith Richards or Jimi Hendrix. Have you noticed most such great guitarists take pride in the guitars they own? You won't see someone like that playing guitar with something they got from a garage sale, they want the GOOD stuff for what they do. It's not that they think the guitar is what makes them good, but if you're trying to be good, why in the world would you use what is, relatively speaking, JUNK for doing so when much better is readily available?

And if I want to "rate" with such a person, I GET OFF MY LAZY BUTT and I LEARN some things, and I show RESPECT for such persons and how they do their thing. I don't go out and buy "Guitar Hero" and then call people like that (another good one: Mike Campbell from "Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers") "guitar snobs." I also don't pretend that me banging around on "Guitar Hero" makes me a guitar player the same as them, even if it fulfills the technical definition of Webster's Dictionary.

So yes, some soccer mom SUV-driving type who wouldn't know an f-stop from an "aux cord" using her iPhone to snap photos of her baby in direct harsh sunlight is not a "photographer" the same as someone using a REAL camera and having the sense to look for open shade and knowing the techniques of, say, using a 50mm 1.8 prime lens shot around f/2.5 or so for blurring the background. She's a "snapshooter," and that's fine, there's nothing wrong with being that by the way, really, that's fine, but it's not "photography." If you say otherwise, YOU ARE WRONG. Your opinion is WRONG. It's not "well that's your opinion." NO. My opinion is RIGHT, your opinion is WRONG, and not only that, IT'S STUPID.

Yes, people who think a soccer mom type doing her harsh sunlight thing with her fruit phone is the exact same thing as someone actually putting in real effort, that's downright blasphemous.

It's thinking you deserve the same level of acceptance for being lazy as someone else who actually tries. It is an affront to people who actually TRY when one equates iPhones as legitimate cameras that belong on the same stage as even a Sony RX100, let alone a Nikon full-frame DSLR or a Sony E-mount. It's also LAZY. For crying out loud, if "lugging" a Sony RX100 is too much for you and you consider yourself a "photographer," that's pathetic. That is lazy. Yes, I said it and I meant it--if you call yourself a "photographer" but think carrying around a Sony RX100 is "too much to bother with," you are lazy.

It's also part of our society that doesn't want to be told they're wrong about something. Notice all the posts and write-ups I see, for instance, where someone can't even spell "its correctly," they use "it's" in situations where the proper word is "its" without the apostrophe. They do the same thing with "your" when it's supposed to be "you're."

If you dare point this out, even in the nicest way possible, you're called a "grammar Nazi" and you're told "oh shut up, what does it matter?" They can't accept that they were WRONG in their spelling, and they don't want to be told so, not even nicely.

THAT is why some of us respond with a dismissive eye-roll at this silly notion that cellphone "photography" belongs on the same stage as those of us who actually TRY. Even if our results aren't as good as they should be, at least we're TRYING. We're not slapping on an Instamatic "filter" that jacks up the colors to cartoonish levels and thinking that's the same thing as someone who actually knows what they're doing. We don't go around taking photos with that stupid "Dutch Angle" (translation: I'm drunk and I can't hold a camera straight) of our children under harsh sunlight with trees growing out of their heads and gushing with all the arrogance of a true  nobody "who are you to say this isn't 'photography?' Who made you the judge of what is and isn't?"

Real guitar players don't use "Guitar Hero," they LEARN the HARD way and move up. The rest are pretenders. It's that simple.