So, I’ve made it 15 days straight so far with posting (to my Posterous photo blog) a photograph a day, using only my iPhone4 and its built-in camera. As I’ve gone forward with this little side project, I’ve made some decisions about self-imposed “rules” for my daily photos:

• I will only post photos taken with my phone; no “real” cameras. (This presumes that I don’t lose my phone during the year, and that it doesn’t stop working and require an overnight visit to Apple for repairs! In that case, I’ll switch to my point-and-shoot camera temporarily.)
• I can use any number of iPhone photography and image-manipulation apps.
• Photos will be posted to Posterous from the iPhone and never will their pixels land on my Macbook laptop or any other device before landing on my Posterous blog.

Why am I doing this? Well, I remember giving a talk quite a few years ago to a group of journalism educators and touting the idea that the fledgling, low-quality cameras showing up on mobile phones at the time would, soon enough, become ubiquitous and that the phone-cameras’ quality would improve to be useful as journalistic tools. In those days, I was met with some incredulous looks.

But in 2011, we’re there. The iPhone4 that I carry does not have the best-quality camera among the smartphones on the market, but it’s decent. So I hope to prove that you can produce pretty-good photos with a phone-camera, aided by a number of photography apps that make manipulation and enhancement of photos possible and downright easy on the phone itself. So far, I’ve used these apps:

• Camera+
• ColorSplash
• ToonCamera
• PS Express

And I just purchased SlowShutter and am looking forward to experimenting with blurred-motion effects.

It’s been a worthwhile experiment. At the least, it’s reignited a long-ago interest in and passion for photography. And when I go about my daily activities, I now observe what’s around me looking for photo opportunities — dispensing with my too-often former obliviousness to my surroundings.

Example 1: The naked upside-down skier
Surely you saw the story about the unfortunate man skiing with his son at the Vail resort in Colorado. There was a problem with the chairlift seat, and he fell through; but instead of falling to the ground, one of his skis got stuck in the chair and he ended up hanging upside-down — sans his pants and underwear which had been pulled off. So the poor guy was hanging under the chair, with his son watching from above, for 7 or more embarrassing and frightening minutes while Vail staff rescued him.

Of course there were photos. This was at the bottom of the lift, and other skiers waiting in line snapped photos of the embarrassing and odd scene with cell phones and digital cameras. Some ended up on the web, and they spread like wildfire — worldwide. The photos that most people saw online were from a professional photographer — skiing on his day off — who could get fired for taking the shot.

I noticed that the websites of the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News did not run the photos (which just showed the skier’s butt, not his genitals), but both did link to sites that carried the pictures. A Vail newspaper did publish the photos. But despite the majority restraint of the traditional press, the poor guy became a joke on websites and in e-mail boxes around the world.

Vail executives no doubt didn’t want those photos published anywhere, and according to one news story I read, they rescinded the photographer’s season ski pass. But that’s absurd. Any number of skiers with cell phone cameras could have gotten the same shots — and even posted to Twitter or Flickr directly from the slopes. The resort’s best efforts at saving the naked skier’s dignity could not have prevented the images of the scene from going viral online.

Example 2: Judge tries to squelch pics of released murderer
Along similar lines, a story out of Ireland is about a judge ordering local newspapers not to publish photos of a convicted murderer who had served his term and was getting day releases to be in the community. The judge’s reasoning was that publication of what he called unbalanced articles plus the photo could result in violence against the ex-convict.

That’s not unreasonable thinking, just as is Vail wishing to protect the dignity of the skier (and make it less likely that he’ll sue their pants off). But again, the judge’s ruling only goes so far in protecting the man from reprisals. Someone else will take a photo of the man and post it on a blog, or photo-sharing site, or Twitter, and his identity will be revealed.

That’s today’s reality. Neither of the guys in those stories should have their photos posted around the web, it can be argued. But nothing will keep the photos hidden away. Human nature and the Internet won’t allow that.

Cell phones represent great promise for grassroots media. Most of us carry around with us phones that have a camera feature, so we’re always ready to snap an image when something good comes up. Cell phone users represent an army of “citizen” content creators.

Alas, cell phone photo quality has been poor, albeit improving. But something happened on YourMTB.com (an Enthusiast Group website) that makes me think there’s hope for phone photo quality.

The YourMTB “Post of the Week” is the photo below. I learned from the photographer that he snapped it with his cell phone!

OK, it’s not crystal clear; you can tell it wasn’t taken with a Nikon D80. But until he told me the truth about the picture, I assumed it came from a digital camera. Especially given that the flying biker is moving pretty fast, that’s not bad for a phone!

There are a few reasons for this:

1. This is big news, obviously, and it should be covered fully — and that includes offering images that may offend some.
2. The photos and videos of the hanging no doubt will be readily available somewhere on the Web. To not make them available (with appropriate warnings) just marks you as an anachronistic editor who’s still trying to enforce his/her own sensibilities on a public that no longer needs editors dictating what they do or do not see. The new-media ethic lets news consumers make up their own minds.
3. This will reflect my political bias, but I think that US citizens, especially, should see the results of their tax dollars at work. Electoral outcomes in the US have created the mess in Iraq, and I think that American citizens should see everything that their votes have wrought — from Saddam’s hanging to the gruesome violence and despair that is today’s Iraq.

The news media should not sugar-coat the reality of today’s world.

Get out your magnifying class

Alas, ABCNews.com (and several other news sites) seriously blows it by presenting the photo postage-stamp size! 188 x 132 pixels. There’s no click-to-enlarge option. Sheesh! It’s such a great shot; how sad that we can’t see it.

Most other news sites that carried the photo also ran it small (though some not as tiny as ABCNews.com, where I first saw it). The original photo obviously was not great quality, hence the small presentation size. But I’d say the sites would’ve done better to enlarge the original and offer a larger view, even if the sharpness degraded. There’s seldom a good excuse for running postage stamp pictures on websites. Most online users are accustomed to less-than-perfect images from camera phones, online video sites (Youtube.com, et al), etc.