The Tube

Last week I visited London to get some photos for the new HDR book and see some exhibitions. I prefer to take the bus or walk around London as its nice to see the world go by, but there are times when its easier to get the tube. Most of the times we took the tube I simply couldn’t use my D700 or GF1. That was partly due to carrying luggage, lots of exhibition catalogs or simple insecurity from trying to photograph people on the tube.

So instead I shot the entire lot on my iPhone with Hipstamatic.

There’s nothing new about mobile phone photography and I never intended to be unique or groundbreaking. It is after all photographs of people on public transport, nothing new there. When I was last in London I photographed a girl on the tube, and when I was in France I photographed a guy on the train there. I simply wanted to produce a simple series of photos using a stress free camera. By that I mean without the issues normally associated with pointing a camera at a stranger.

Its an interesting time with iPhone based photography. A series of war photos shot in Afganistan by Damon Winter recently came third in the POYI competition. He also used Hipstamatic. He said he thought it was no different to selecting film and a camera to shoot with. Hipstmatic allows you to chose the film and lens to produce the final image. You take the shot and its processed accordingly. This differs to apps like Instagram where you chose the processing style after taking the photo. It does make you wonder about the validity of an iPhone photograph. Is it really any different to choosing film and a camera just because its an app? It’s an interesting debate and you can read more on the NYT site
and also on the excellent Duckrabbitblog.

Anyway, to my photos from the tube.