It’s complicated. But taking pictures shouldn’t be.

Chase Jarvis kicked things off with the “Best Camera is the One That’s With You.” Complete with an app for the iPhone and it’s own built in eco-system. The sentiment is true—without a doubt. A camera is better than no camera. Even when the Best Camera app was announced I think the iPhone 4 was still an undisclosed, rumor of a myth. And—to fall back into the well of gear geekery—the iPhone 4 really does have an extraordinary camera in it.

An entirely random image. The only reason it applies is that it was, indeed, taken with an iPhone.

David Duchemin consistently has some good rants about the gear thing, like this one on spending the money on tickets instead.

One of my all time favorite photographers Norman Mausfopf has been shooting with the same Leica kit for years. With the same film. Processed in the same developer. It hasn’t slowed Mauskopf from making absolutely magical photographs.

Other options followed for iOS—Hipstamic, Camera+ and finally Instagram—which really took off and started spawning it’s own set of services for sharing. But still, for people not keeping up it’s easy to write the whole thing off as “it’s just a phone camera.”

This is a good thing.

People change when you reach into a camera bag, pull out a some giant, begripped digital SLR with a gaping, hooded lens on the front of it. They get worried. They start second guessing what your motives are. You’ve become part of the situation instead of documenting it. Plus, you have to get it off that card, into a computer or iPad. Some people get obsessed with editing, culling, doing hours of post-processing.

Your iPhone on the other hand isn’t hanging off your shoulder along with another twenty pounds of additional lenses, a flash and extra stuff. You see an image or a situation and quietly retrieve your phone. Capture your image and move along. Plus, you can share it almost instantly—right from the “camera.”

The longer the majority of the population views the iPhone as a “not serious” piece of camera equipment the better. You can catch people a bit closer to being themselves. And it can be used to create compelling, challenging, work. Want more proof? Look no further than the results of the Basetrack project featured at Foreign Policy.

This isn’t to say I’ll be selling my dSLR any time soon. I do enjoy shooting with it—but it’s just way past time to stop thinking of the iPhone as a toy.

It was refreshing to go back to a manual wind film camera. The pace is so different. I’ve never thought I was much for spray and pray, but shooting when you have to crank the next frame into place by hand? That’ll make you feel like a kid with a Super Soaker.

Not trusting my self to catch any of the actual derby with the Leica, I’d grabbed the LX-5 and had that in my pocket. Okay, and also to feed the instant gratification monkey on my back. I figured this was as good a chance as any to check out the burst mode. It’s okay, but it really does force you back into that previously mentioned spray and pray.

The LCD screen doesn’t stay live, but rather attempts to process the shots as you take them. When you’re panning, that makes things sort of an odd exercise.

*Anybody have any ideas on where to get Ilford processed locally. I’m going to try my old lab from when I was in school, but some back up plans would be great.

Looking forward to next year—and even getting the pictures posted up before the end of February.

I’ve taken pictures of lots of stuff. But the ones that I keep coming back to are the ones of people. I’m not looking to go down the path of Olan Mills. No carpeted ramps for babies to pose on against “that” background. And you know the one I’m talking about. For me, I’m looking to take shots of people out in the world. Either theirs or mine. It doesn’t matter. The average human body will regenerate most of its cells every 7–10 years. You’re a fundamentally different person every decade—I want to remember who these people were, because in one way or another they’ll be gone.

Of course, I also came to the conclusion that I should, go ahead and get it started with the dreaded self-portrait. The horribly contrived, over thought exercise of purposefully crawling out in front of the decidedly wrong side of the lens. Being something I dreaded doing it was easy for Things to come up. There were delays.

First the easy decision to wait until the move. A new house (with tall ceilings so you can get the lights as high as you want). A new focus should start in a new place. But once you’re in the house, there’s all that unpacking to do. And all that work that needs to be done. But then, the last day of the March is approaching. Something you meant to do in January. And then, certainly, no later than February. And it’s the final bit of March circling the drain. It’s sounding more and more like a resolution.

You’ve got to get right.

Yesterday was going to be a work at home day and be there for contractor questions. I hadn’t shaved. It’d been a long week. And still the obstacles came. I couldn’t find my light stands and umbrellas. That’s fine. I can improvise. Yet to replace my main speedlite, I used one that is likely eligible for Smithsonian adoption. It didn’t want to play well with the radio remotes. I’ll improvise. Again. I navigated all the ready excuses and ended up with this.

It’s me. In a way that’s not trying to be clever by hiding behind a camera in the reflection of an old Buick’s hubcap. It’s just me, a bit tired and unshaven. On a Wednesday.

I need to find some other victims. Subjects rather. Perhaps doing another one of these exercises at the end of the year after focusing on portraits and see how things change. We’ll see.

They’ve got some great food lined up and it should be a fun night showcasing some local art and fashion talent. They’ve got regular and VIP tickets so there’s something for everyone’s budget.

Oh, the prints? They’re from the 120 Hours: Memphis show. Beautifully crafted fiber-based prints that Jennifer produced for that Chicago show. They’re even numbered. Scratch that, they’re both one of only seventy-five that will ever be printed.

Get into my office and discover that the links they’re providing are, to put it kindly, a bit awkward for getting something that you might actually want put in your camera bag. A buddy of mine forwarded a link that led to Scribd source. And that’s great, but I’m not interested in trading more of my information for something that should be much more easily available.

About ten minutes later and I’ve cut up a PDF from printing the Times document and reassembled it in the three-page PDF it should be. Download it as needed.

But like I said, mostly good. I’d like to see it get a bigger market share to encourage more plug-in and script developers getting in on the Aperture scene.

Happy New Year!