Extra Free

I wrote last year about the concept of the best camera being the one that is with you, and at the time posted a photograph I captured on my mobile phone at U2’s concert in Croke Park.   Ironically, though the camera I used for that shot was quite lo-tech, that photo is one of the most viewed on my photoblog thanks to Google, which brings a lot of search traffic for “U2 360″ to it.  Today I post my second mobile phone camera shot, in anticipation of more to come later this year, but also to illustrate another concept – that the best shot is the one that is around you.

You may or may not be aware that Ireland is going through a prolonged “cold snap” which is intermittently paralysing transport modes as we see more snow and lower temperatures than have been experienced in many many years.  That makes going places to take photographs a little more difficult.  Over Christmas for instance I had hoped to get to Kerry to take some photos of a friend’s son but couldn’t make it.  Even today, with a fresh snowfall this morning I would love to get up the mountains to take some cool winter shots, but it’s not advisable to try to make that journey without a suitable vehicle, which I don’t have.  So if I want to photograph snow, I’m going to have to find shots close to home – yesterday’s photo being a good example.

Last night I was in Dunnes Stores at Beacon South Quarter for a much needed stocking up of the kitchen cupboards.  My camera was at home, and as I pushed the trolley around something inspired me to see how it would photograph using my mobile phone, this time a Nokia 6300 classic.   I will most likely join the iPhone brigade shortly, and have hopes of using its camera and some of the many photo-related applications available for it to capture pictures around me on a more regular basis once I do so. I guess I had this in the back of my head when I decided as I pushed the trolley to see what kind of a shot I could produce using the camera phone in my pocket and the shopping trolley in front of me.

The shot is nothing particularly exciting, but to some extent I think the banality of the contents of the trolley makes it an interesting example of there being photos waiting to be taken all around.  Combine this with having a camera on you at all times, and it should be possible to take all sorts of photographs as part of your daily routine.  I imagine that is exactly what drives the concept that the best camera is the one that’s with you, but of course what to photograph is just as important as how to photograph it.