Aesthetics AND Composition are Essential for Photography

I playing with the new iPad Pro today, and looking at some of the stock photos on the Photos app, and this was my thought:

Wow, compositions are great— yet the photos don’t feel beautiful to me, because the aesthetic of the default iPhone camera doesn’t look that great.

Which made me realize:

No matter how good the composition is, if the aesthetics of the image isn’t equally great, the photo won’t be a great photo.

Which means:

If our goal is to make great and timeless images, we shouldn’t shoot with solely a smartphone camera. We should still use a “standalone” camera (whether film, digital, etc).

Why do photos from the Great Depression (FSA) still look so great?

I was on Photogrammar (NEH funded)— and looking at all these old school monochrome black and white photos (lot of them shot large format or medium format) and I thought to myself:

Wow, the image quality and the aesthetics of these photos from 50+ years ago still look so much more beautiful (aesthetics) than modern photos shot today on even the most high end digital cameras (maybe besides digital medium format).

Thus if your goal is to make great photos which will truly be timeless, and withstand the teeth of time, perhaps it is important to shoot with a camera with image quality/aesthetics which you consider beautiful.

What is the iPhone and smartphone camera for?

Perhaps we should treat our iPhone and smartphone cameras as a supplement to our “standalone” cameras. The iPhone camera can be like a sketch book, made quickly with pencil (like the Renaissance masters). I know personally that shooting with phone cameras are great for practicing your composition, and keeping your eye sharp. 

However truth be told, a very tiny percentage of my smartphone photos (maybe 2-3 phone photos in the last 6 years) have actually stood the test of time. It seems that my best work from the past still were shot with my Canon 5D (original), Leica M9, film Leica M6/MP on Kodak Portra 400 or Trix 400 pushed to 1600, or my RICOH GR 1 and II.

In short,

The camera you decide to shoot with is very important.

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So what camera should I shoot with?

It seems that currently the RICOH GR III is the best camera. Aesthetics and design-form wise, it looks good. Image quality is fantastic, and it actually is pocketable! (fits in your front pocket).

At the moment, I’m not really interested in any other cameras in the market, maybe besides the Hasselblad X1D (compact digital medium format seems like an interesting new territory in photography).

I’d also say— don’t upgrade your phones for better cameras (yet). I’d recommend practice shooting with HUJI CAM — very beautiful aesthetics.

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My friend Jun, Anthony, and many others got the RICOH GR III and really like it. And as my friend Jun told me,

There is a reason why there aren’t any other mafias, besides the RICOH MAFIA.

#ricohmafia for life!

ERIC