Pixiq

I don't know about you, but sometimes my camera phone can be a downright lifesaver, if you will pardon the expression, say at a funeral. After all, it is rather 'haute uncouth' to carry a conventional camera at a funeral. And while some view funerals as a celebration of the dead, snapping pictures of upset relatives is hardly what I would consider sensitive.

But when attending a funeral of my secretary's beloved father, the most extraordinary, sky-opening image occurred. While the casket was ushered out of the church and rolled out under a veteran's gun salute, the sky suddenly opened overhead, and everyone, and I do mean everyone, pulled out their camera phones to snap this celestial wonder:

I mean, how often do you see that, and moreover, at a three-volley gun salute? Anyway, Maurice must have really been something because the sky definitely opened up that day and so did my concept of the ubiiquitous cellphone camera.

So I decided, since programs like Studio Artist worked best off of images that are resized from 72 dpi, to begin playing with camera phone images.

Take this beauty of an image shot off of a television screen. I used to show off this image to Marti Saltzman and brag that he was my imaginary boyfriend:

Now, isn't he adorable? So, I decided to immortalize him in my book by taking his gorgeous punim into Studio Artist.

And then this breathtaking image caught by my cellphone, captured a lovely autumn day from my kayak. And just for kicks and giggles, l transformed it with Studio Artist:

The image, which took less than five minutes to manipulate, was superinterpolated for print:

The possibilities are endless.

Below is another image taken with my cellphone, again manipulated in Studio Artist for the final output.

Even a 15 year-old can do this; take the image created by my next door neighbor, Colby (Colbster) O'Brien, who took this image and transformed it with the same software:

So while Kara Arndt talked about photographing paparazzi with cellphones in her hysterical post, believe me it's great for that, too, but the cellphone can be used for oh so much more. And we have only begun to scratch its multilayered surface.

So give it your best shot and as always, light on.