New photography exhibition uses mobile phone technology to sample the travelling life
Press Release, followed by exhibition review
Cameras built into mobile phones reached a new level of
legitimacy today with the opening of Impressions, a photographic
exhibition by Melbourne-based artist, Laurie Davis. The
exhibition – at Collingwood Gallery – tracks the artists journey
through Europe, with images captured on Sony Ericsson’s new 2-megapixel
camera phone, the K750i.
The use of mobile technology allows images to be sent to the Gallery
and produced for hanging in mere hours, potentially enabling exhibition
visitors to share Laurie’s experiences almost in real time.
Professional camera phone photography is a relatively new phenomena,
but one that is steadily growing in popularity as camera phones become
more and more sophisticated. Sony Ericsson’s new K750i takes
images up to 2-megapixels and includes auto focus, 4x digital zoom and
PhoneFlash with red eye reduction for photography in low light
conditions.
“I first started using a mobile phone camera about a year ago,
initially just as a novelty”, said photographic artist Laurie Davis. “I
soon realised however that they are actually quite sophisticated, and
with the Sony Ericsson phones there are a number of special effects you
can apply. My personal favourite is ‘Solarise’, which results in
spectacularly colourful images, as if everything has been amplified.
“The great thing about a camera phone is that it means you have a
camera with you all the time since most people carry their phones with
them everywhere they go. For me, this means I can capture truly
spontaneous or unexpected events or images that would otherwise be
missed and go unrecorded.”
Impressions is on at Collingwood Gallery, 292 Smith Street Collingwood,
opening Friday 8th July, 6 – 8pm, and then Tuesday to Sunday midday to
6pm until July 22.
Exhibition Review
Well having been to the opening I must say I was more impressed with
the technology than the photography. Given that the pictures were taken
with a mobile phone, the image quality was very, very good. Impressive
even. However, I am either missing something completely, or in reality
this is an exhibition justified only by the novelty of the capture
technology. I found the photography unimaginative and at about the
level you would expect of a photo blog of someone’s holiday to Europe.