Why One Professional Photographer Ditched Her Camera To Shoot Full-Time With An iPhone
18 months ago, Kat Sloma made a decision: She would start only be using her iPhone to take photographs and make art.
Sloma, an artist based in Oregon, has been using a 35mm camera for over ten years, including the two years her family lived in Milan, Italy. But she never wanted to learn Photoshop, and after awhile felt her art was hitting a roadblock.
That's when a friend gifted her with a used iPod touch in 2011, reports The Statesmen Journal, and introduced her to photo apps like Instagram and Snapseed.
Sloma said she was hooked, and decided to purchase an iPhone - just for the camera.
It was then that she realized she could be much more creative with her work, thanks to the dozens and dozens of photo apps she could download. Now she only shoots with an iPhone, and edits the photos she takes with her collection of apps on an iPad.
Here's one of Sloma's pieces:
"There's a very different experience for me processing photos while sitting at a computer with a mouse than sitting with a phone or a tablet in a comfortable space," she told The Statesmen Journal. "Using my finger or a stylus has that tactile interaction like drawing or painting more so than sitting at a computer."
Her photography business, Kat Eye Studios, now teaches courses and workshops on iPhone photography and editing, like a "Smartphone Art" class. All attendees need is an iPad or iPhone.
The jurors at the annual Salem Arts Festival named her one of two emerging artists this year and Sloma says she's not surprised that fellow photographers are more accepting of art created with new technology. She receives the most resistance from painters.
"They think it's easy. They don't understand that I've gone through hours and hours of work to learn how to compose an image."