GIANNI GALASSI PhotoGraphia

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I PHONE. AND YOU?

My wife Daniela presented me with an iPhone 4 last winter. No need to say I avoided even trying its built-in camera. I was too snobbish for that. Well, to tell the truth a friend of mine convinced me to install the Hipstamatic and LoMob apps, and in order to see what those apps can do I shot a couple of pictures that I immediately erased, as they had zero interest to me. Until July, when I found myself waiting for somebody to come out of a building one morning, while the sun was drawing an interesting black pattern on the facade in front of me. As usual, I had a camera in my bag, but it was one of those situation that don't allow a man to stop and take a photograph: people simply wouldn't have appreciated that. On the other hand I have a rule of never give up a potentially good shot if I see it, no matter the situation. What was I supposed to do?

I was really embarrassed, when I suddenly realized that I had a second camera in my pocket. One that was disguised as a cell phone, and nobody would pay attention to. So I took out my iPhone and started shooting photographs while pretending that I was reading email messages. Luckily I forgot to launch the Hipstamatic app, and when I got back home I could see what a straight out-of-iPhone jpg file can look like: I got astouned. The above photograph is one out of a dozen shots I took that morning, square-cropped and slightly tweaked in levels and contrast.

Does this mean something special? I don't think so. The good news is that I actually own one camera more than I thought: an ultra compact five megapixel unit, very silent and unobtrusive, equipped with a 30mm equivalent lens and delivering -under ideal lighting conditions- an "usable" image quality. Am I therefore going to ditch my Leica M9 and become a cameraphone geek? Definitely not. To put it simply, I am aware that I have more creative opportunities, and what has already changed is that I sometimes deliberately take a photograph with my iPhone, even in situations where I'm allowed to use a "real" camera. In my computer there is a new folder now, called "iPhone keepers". Day after day, it's filling up.

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BLACK NOTES

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