Make no mistake. The iPhone is no Canon 1D-X. Heck, it’s no 1D Mark IV. But the iPhone is a legitimate photojournalistic tool that offers several advantages over the conventional digital cameras used in news photography.
I shot this photo with my iPhone 4S last month.
Law enforcement and fire officers inspect the scene where a Yakima School District bus lost traction on an icy road when the bus slowed down to avoid a car that had already slid into a ditch. (GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic)
The situation was this: on a day off I was dressed and headed out the door to go skiing when I got a call from the early-morning reporter at the newspaper alerting me to the school bus incident. The roads were very icy and I knew the weather and road conditions would be a story that day for our website and for the next day’s newspaper.
The bus incident would illustrate the story well and I knew it would be a good photo to have. The bus would be long gone by the time the regularly-scheduled photographer came to work later in the morning so I figured I was the one to shoot the photo, especially since it was on my way out of town to the ski area.
I got to the accident scene and was able to shoot the accident with my iPhone and email the photo back to the newspaper as I was driving to go skiing. I entered a short cutline in the body of the email, enough for the photo to be posted immediately to the website (thanks TJ!). The photo was the main image on the website’s front page and was there early enough in the day to serve as a cautionary note about road conditions.
The image was also of sufficient quality to run four columns in the next morning’s newspaper.
Because I was able to shoot the photo and send the photo so easily and quickly I lost less than an hour’s ski time that day.
The toughest part of using the iPhone to capture the scene was the ribbing I took from the police and fire officers for using a telephone instead of my usual digital SLRs.
I was able to use the phone because the scene wasn’t moving and the lighting wasn’t terribly difficult (it’s hard to follow action with an iPhone. Not impossible, but challenging).
Black Friday, the annual orgy of shopping in America, provided another opportunity for the iPhone to prove itself as a worthy newsgathering tool.
Using the iMovie ap I was able to shoot and edit a short video of people waiting in line at several stores in Yakima. You can edit and upload a simple video (complete with extras such as titles and transitions) to YouTube in only a matter of minutes.
Obviously the production value of this video is, umm…., simple. But it is easy and most of all, quick. And often, quick is best.
In both instances, the bus accident and shopping video were relatively straightforward news events. The events benefitted from immediate coverage and as such, played well to the strengths of the iPhone and its ability to get images (moving and still) to our website promptly.
The iPhone isn’t going to replace our conventional digital cameras but it is another tool in the tool box. And as my daddy taught me, you’ve got to have the right tool for the job. And sometimes, the iPhone is exactly the right tool.
–Gordon King
Picture This | seattletimes.com blog
Nice job, Gordon. It’s certainly a great tool. After the tornadoes in your hometown this past spring, I used a cool $6 app on my iPhone that allowe me to ftp directly from the phone. I could send pictures without having to leave my laptop connected somewhere. Glad you made it to mountains for some skiing.
I didn’t know you took that with your iPhone Gordon. Nice. I also like the reference to the “annual orgy of shopping.” I thought Black Friday was disturbing enough. Now I have that image stuck in my mind.