Stories Summary

Headlines

Candid camera:
Renee Creer

Mobile phone photography has attracted its fair share of negative media. Student Renee Creer believes that the positive aspects also deserve attention.

Mobile phones are an indispensable accessory of modern life. Last year alone over six million mobile handsets were sold in Australia. The Gartner Research organisation predicts that by 2008, 80 per cent of mobile phones will have a camera included.

The growing popularity of camera phones did not go unnoticed by myself or by fellow UTS student David Grant. To us, the convergence of camera and phone technology produced a new form of photography that was accessible, portable and spontaneous. A growing number of people had in fact become 'mobile photographers', capturing, storing and sending pictures. Spurred on by the potential of this concept we launched Capture, Australia's first camera phone photography exhibition.

Initial research into the idea uncovered something that, as a Public Communication student, I found disheartening. Media reports pertaining to camera phone usage focussed solely on the negative aspects. Incidents of inappropriate usage, the abuse of privacy, and impending legislation were widely reported, with nothing in the way of a counter argument for the positive use of camera phones.

We believed that the positives should be explored and celebrated, so we set out to do just that. With professional skills that complimented each other (design and communication) we created a public photography exhibition generated by camera phone owners. Over a 10 week period, people from Australia and overseas were invited to submit images via the Capture website. Overall, we received more than 250 images from people across Australia and the UK, United States, Canada, Japan and Europe. Seventeen finalists were selected to compete for a peoples' choice award and an additional 45 images were selected for display in a Surry Hills gallery.

The images received were surprising and unique - a little girl with her face pressed up against a record store window in the UK; a spider on the outside of a building's glass window, 94 floors up with Chicago glimmering in the distance; or the yellow grass plains of Tasmania contrasted against a vibrant blue and white sky. Each had an undeniable charm and a certain feeling about them that was hard to describe in words.

Capture was well received and generated a great deal of interest and publicity. The result was that the exhibition drew attention to this new and exciting photographic medium.

Furthermore it changed peoples' perceptions of camera phone usage and what constitutes photography...even art. With this years success Capture has the potential to become an annual event which will further the professional skills we have learned through our studies at UTS.



Renee Creer

Student, B Communication (Public Communication)