Award-winning photographers using smartphones to capture the world

At the upcoming Delhi Photo Festival DPF scheduled for the end this month a Kolkatabased awardwinning photographerrsquos works will be projected as part of evening screenings The series grimly titled The End is a culmination of three wintery months that Ronny Sen spent in Jharia famous for its collieries and infamous for its political landminesTravellers on the Rajdhani Express by Chirodeep Chaudhuri shot on a Nokia Lumia 1020 Chaudhuri hopped onboard the cellphone camera bandwagon a little more than a year agoThere is a fire both literal and metaphorical blazing away in the coalmines and on its streets and homes overhead Sen describes The End shot entirely on an iPhone 5 as ldquoa postapocalyptic vision where everything has been extractedrdquoRonny Sen shot this photograph of coalminersrsquo children waiting for their parents to return at Jharia on an iPhone 5Twenty grainy images from the ashridden town in Dhanbad district of Jharkhand will be shown at DPF 300 were exhibited at The Gujral Foundation earlier this yearOld Delhi India by Chirodeep Chaudhuri shot on a Nokia Lumia 1020 Chaudhuri hopped onboard the cellphone camera bandwagon a little more than a year agoBut Sen 28 doesnrsquot wish to be slotted as an ldquoiphoneographerrdquoA shot of the sea link at Worli by Natasha Hemrajani taken on an iPhone 5 Ten prints from this series were sold to a gallery at Rs 20000 each ldquoThere is nothing called cellphone photography All a photographer needs is an imagecapturing devicerdquo Itrsquos a term he thinks used mostly by amateurs who share their lsquoMobile Photography Albumrsquo on social media and by cellphone firmsWhile the cellphone camera is the most democratic tool and part of one of the most democratic of the arts the term cellphone photography is a cause for restlessness Itrsquos liberating for anyone can shoot and tweak photos on a mobile And that is ironically also the problem Cellphone photography is often seen as less lsquoseriousrsquo more lsquocommonrsquoRonny Sen PicTwisha Can it be good enough to be considered lsquoartrsquoChirodeep Chaudhuri had stayed away from smartphones and ldquothe whole cellphone photo bandwagonrdquo until students he mentors at various colleges convinced him that it was time he hopped on For the last yearandahalf he has been actively shooting the streets of India and his pet cat on his Nokia Lumia 1020 Practising photography for the last 21 years and calling himself a ldquocompulsive printerrdquo he also routinely carries out testprints of his mobile shots ldquoCellphone photography has gone from being a tool of rebellion to gaining legitimacyrdquo he says But this championing of the gadget mdash handy and accessible mdash is new adds Chaudhuri ldquoFive years back the same community of photographers was putting down the cellphone This complete turnaround is interesting especially for us photographers who are a notoriously unhappy lotrdquo he smilesVeteran photographer Raghu Rai has been experimenting with his Gionee Elife E7 but thinks cellphones cannot be the future of photography unless they come with improvised lensesOne of the worldrsquos most expensive photo is Rhein II a manipulated digital photograph made by German visual artist Andreas Gursky in 1999 It sold at a Christiersquos auction for 43 million dollars But in the hardly subtle hierarchy of the arts the cellphone photograph could be suspected of occupying the lowliest rung Photographers like Sen will argue that cellphone cameras can contribute to a new visual language just as every other highend professional camera might ldquoThe anxiety with cellphone photography is similar to the one experienced when digital photography threatened to phase out analogrdquo says Shilpa Vijaykrishnan research associate at Bengalurursquos Tasveer Gallery ldquoThe image itself rather than how it gets made is more important The reservations in the art market lie with replication since you can make nnumber of prints collecting or selling them becomes a problem You start feeling Why should I pay for something that I can make on my ownrdquo she arguesShilpa VijaykrishnanUK auction house Christiersquos online sale of photographs called First Exposure wrapped up on October 1 with the highest bid for a work by Candida Houmlfer The sale saw analogue digital and mixed media photographic works Christiersquos doesnrsquot sell mobile phone photographs at its auctions A spokesperson stated ldquoPhotographs coming up for sale at Christiersquos have a traced history and provenance which is part of their value Further to establish an estimate the condition of the photograph its edition number and therewith rarity and how the work of art in question has been preserved over the years count enormouslyrdquoChirodeep ChaudhuriDoes the virile replicating phonephotograph stand any chance thenMumbaibased photographer Natasha Hemrajani offers a solution In 2013 she showcased 12 prints at the DPF as part of her series Hello Goodbye The series was a nostalgic look at the city where Hemrajani grew up gradually transforming from being Bombay to Mumbai Shooting fleeting glimpses of the changing landscape from a taxi window and experimenting with multiple exposures she found her iPhone 5s as a trusted tool Ten prints were sold to a gallery at Rs 20000 each Too much for a phone photograph ldquoWell a genrelised tool shouldnrsquot matter Cellphone photography doesnrsquot need help it is very much in the art space And itrsquos not endlessly repeatable as is often thoughtrdquoThe works she sold at DPF 2013 were a limited edition of five prints each She further hypothesizes that a fifth run of limited edition prints may well sell for Rs 75000Times have changed The amateurs want the ldquobigrdquo cameras the masters are experimenting with miniature ones Veteran photographer Raghu Rai whose chilling photographs of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy are now historic shot on a Gionee Elife E7 for 21 days in August this year Previously slugging a professional camera everywhere he went he found smartphones to have as accurate a pixel quality as a DSLR ldquoBut cellphones cannot be the future of photography unless they have improvised lenses They are at best teasers People shoot on a cellphone and then think lsquoWow thatrsquos a good shot I must try my hands on a professional camerarsquordquoThe greatest misconception surrounding this new wave of digital photography says Prashant Panjiar cofounder of DPF is the misconception that highend professional cameras are meant for earthshattering photographs and cellphones for social media ldquoWhen photographers want to document how Nepal is rising from its rubble post the earthquake they use DSLRs But when they need to meet friends for a drink they think a mobile will dordquoHemrajani optimistically says ldquoThe Mumbai art scene is fresh young and welcoming of digital photographyrdquo But Mumbai is yet to see a cellphone photography show be it journalistic or fine art Consider Cellphones in Summer a 2012 exhibition at Artspace at Untitled in Oklahoma City USA It blurred the lines between professional and nonprofessional imagemakers by showing 38 phonephotos with summer as the theme Last year fine art photographer Gerry Coe exhibited Phone Art in Northern Ireland He left behind Photoshop to use a range of phone apps to create highend fine art visualsWith disappearing dark rooms Chaudhuri considers a whole generation of photographers who do not know how to shoot on film A camera does not make a photographer Rather the reverse is true he saysChristiersquos signs off with ldquoWe do not have a crystal ball to know the future but it is a phenomena to watch as is street art The established photographers and icons of photography will always lead the marketrdquo