Jon Cone-IMG02566

Posted by Jon Cone on Dec 17th, 2009 | 0 comments

Photographer: Jon Cone
Title: IMG02566, 09/13/07, 4:26PM, Manhattan
Year: 2008

Part of his Blackberry Series, Cone has been shooting with a cell phone camera to make photographs that are part of what he calls “our present culture of image making.”

“I call this photo My The Steerage after Stieglitz’s The Steerage. His photo of course taken of the gentleman who tipped his head at just the right moment so that the sun could reflect off his hat. It created the entire visual organization of that busy scene of passengers on a crowded steamer. My moment came in passing by the cyclist and catching the reflection of light off his seat – at a similar point within the Stieglitz photo’s architecture.”

“The cell phone photograph has become part of our culture, much like the way Kodak brownie did in the 1950s. These cameras produce photos which our visual intelligence is rapidly beginning to recognize. They have a peculiar format and lens. What I have been trying to do is make photographs in a manner that I would call “serious photography”. I choose to shoot with a Blackberry phone. I have gone through more than one to find a CCD I like, and a lens that has the peculiar distortions I like. The jpeg artifacts of my particular camera look nearly like film grain so as to mask the original intention behind the camera choice.”