iPhoneography - The Little Camera At Work & The TEDxCLE Intro

For the most part this blog has skewed towards analog photography and my love of old cameras, film and the resurgence of instant photography through The Impossible Project. But to be honest, I have a love and appreciation for all types of photography - including digital and film/video work - which is much more in line with what I do on a daily basis for work here in Cleveland.

While I have posted digital work before, and even some iPhone photographs, one of the things that I haven't shared a lot of here is video work. So, I figured perhaps one of the best ways to transition into that would be to share some recent work that we completed here in the studio I work for (Uppercut Motion and Sound) that is a combination of both video and photography.

The project, completed for TEDxCLE, was shot entirely with iPhone cameras. The final video, honoring this years theme "The Maker Class," was compiled from a series of photographs sourced through the very popular Instagram. Users around the area were asked to generate the content of the video themselves through photos of their city. We then sourced the content by following the user's hash-tag #TEDXCLEMaker. The piece was used as an announcement for the 2012 TEDxCLE speakers, an independently organized TED event here in Cleveland. The photos on this page are some of my contributions to the video as I'm a big proponent of Cleveland myself. 


Here's what it looked like:





Ironically enough, the timing of this video also just so happened to time up with the arrival of my first large format camera - a 4x5 Crown Graphic. Throughout the two weeks this project was going on I was out taking photos with both my iPhone and my Crown. The difference couldn't be any greater - from the size, to the speed of shooting, to the number of frames taken of each subject. The only constant was that the final product was a photograph... my photograph. While I was out, I noticed that I enjoyed something different about each form of photography, but, what I enjoyed the most was the realization of just how embedded photographic expression has become in my life the past couple of years.


Also - If you keep an eye out, you might find more people using Instagram integration in the future. Rufus Wainwright for one is already asking his fans to create a lyrical mosaic of his most recent single Out of the Game. You can read more about that here - but keep in mind Rufus... we beat you to it.