Plugged in: Why use words when you can say it in photos?

NEW YORK – When mobile phones meld with instant photography, new ways of viewing everyday life emerge.

As cameras become standard features on mobile phones, millions of users are rediscovering photography in unexpected places: in the kitchen, down the block and on the bus – from the backyards of Middle America to Korea or Cuba. While the Instamatic Age was once obsessed with capturing images of smiling faces, vast landscapes, and the 3×5-inch photo print as a family artifact, mobile phone photography is looking in a new direction.Picture what you ate for breakfast or capture the startled look in your cat’s eyes.Catch the reflection in a puddle on the sidewalk as you walk to work or the texture of a cloud against a flat blue sky.”This is no longer about disposable cameras.We call it ‘disposable photography’,” said Ben Wood, a wireless analyst with market research firm Gartner Inc. in London.There’s no such thing as a bad photo.The delete key takes care of the headless body or any other misfire.There’s no cost for making mistakes.Market research firm InfoTrends of Norwell, Massachusetts, predicts that US and Canadian sales of camera phones will nearly triple this year to 21 million devices, up from 7-1/2 million in 2003.”Camera phone pictures are the ones you took today to share with friends,” said Chris Hoar, founder of TextAmerica, an online photo diary site popular with camera phone aficionados.”Now everything gets documented.”TextAmerica.com has some 100 000 active monthly users, said Hoar, a London transplant who lives near San Diego.Turning the camera on yourself and snapping a picture is also common.”Everyone stages their own reality,” Hoar says.To be sure, the technical constraints of early camera phones play a role in determining subject matter.Resolution is low compared with digital cameras.Devices also lack zoom or flash attachments, making pictures fuzzy and indecipherable in poor light, and hardly printable.Sharing pictures from camera phones typically means e-mailing each image to a computer e-mail account in order to save to a hard disk or post on a Web site.This involves several steps and can be awkward for less tech-minded souls.For an even richer set of functions, Landmat International of Reykjavik, Iceland, recently introduced mBlog, which helps consumers create full-fledged Web sites using Movable Type publishing software and offers mobile photo-related services.Consumer electronics company Sony Corp., a maker of stylish mobile phones through its Sony Ericsson joint venture, is just one service that offers free online photo storage to anyone who visits the site.Kodak’s Ofoto, with 12 million members as of the end of 2003, is the biggest such site.THE NORMWorldwide sales of camera phones are expected to total 150 million in 2004 – just over a quarter of all mobile phone sales, up from 70 million last year.InfoTrends analyst Jill Aldort expects sales to reach 656 million units by 2008.Mobile phone companies have invested billions of dollars in new networks capable of handling not just phone calls but photos, e-mails, even video.US carriers are just getting underway with phone-to-phone picture-swapping services.Currently, most picture messages are sent by consumers from phones via e-mail to computers or straight to Web sites.That will be necessary until more users have picture-ready phones.”Eventually (the camera phone) will become commonplace.People will have a camera with them at most times,” predicted Matt Kaiser, director of multimedia messaging for Atlanta-based Cingular.As more people buy camera-ready devices, phone-to-phone picture messaging promises far greater convenience, as no special effort to send and receive pictures will be needed, Kaiser said.Cingular’s service now costs 25 cents per photo, or US$2,99 for 20 picture messages.In coming weeks, the company is set to introduce plans that allow more photo messages to be sent for the same price, Kaiser said.US mobile carriers must first agree to allow subscribers to send pictures to other networks, something Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson predicts Verizon and several other national carriers will be ready to offer later this year.But camera phones are seen only as a transitional product to wireless video phones.Already, Korean manufacturers are offering tiny phones with full camcorders, products that will become widespread as high-speed networks are built to handle the higher data-rate transmissions of video.- Nampa-ReutersWhile the Instamatic Age was once obsessed with capturing images of smiling faces, vast landscapes, and the 3×5-inch photo print as a family artifact, mobile phone photography is looking in a new direction.Picture what you ate for breakfast or capture the startled look in your cat’s eyes.Catch the reflection in a puddle on the sidewalk as you walk to work or the texture of a cloud against a flat blue sky.”This is no longer about disposable cameras.We call it ‘disposable photography’,” said Ben Wood, a wireless analyst with market research firm Gartner Inc. in London.There’s no such thing as a bad photo.The delete key takes care of the headless body or any other misfire.There’s no cost for making mistakes.Market research firm InfoTrends of Norwell, Massachusetts, predicts that US and Canadian sales of camera phones will nearly triple this year to 21 million devices, up from 7-1/2 million in 2003.”Camera phone pictures are the ones you took today to share with friends,” said Chris Hoar, founder of TextAmerica, an online photo diary site popular with camera phone aficionados.”Now everything gets documented.”TextAmerica.com has some 100 000 active monthly users, said Hoar, a London transplant who lives near San Diego.Turning the camera on yourself and snapping a picture is also common.”Everyone stages their own reality,” Hoar says.To be sure, the technical constraints of early camera phones play a role in determining subject matter.Resolution is low compared with digital cameras.Devices also lack zoom or flash attachments, making pictures fuzzy and indecipherable in poor light, and hardly printable.Sharing pictures from camera phones typically means e-mailing each image to a computer e-mail account in order to save to a hard disk or post on a Web site.This involves several steps and can be awkward for less tech-minded souls.For an even richer set of functions, Landmat International of Reykjavik, Iceland, recently introduced mBlog, which helps consumers create full-fledged Web sites using Movable Type publishing software and offers mobile photo-related services.Consumer electronics company Sony Corp., a maker of stylish mobile phones through its Sony Ericsson joint venture, is just one service that offers free online photo storage to anyone who visits the site.Kodak’s Ofoto, with 12 million members as of the end of 2003, is the biggest such site.THE NORMWorldwide sales of camera phones are expected to total 150 million in 2004 – just over a quarter of all mobile phone sales, up from 70 million last year.InfoTrends analyst Jill Aldort expects sales to reach 656 million units by 2008.Mobile phone companies have invested billions of dollars in new networks capable of handling not just phone calls but photos, e-mails, even video.US carriers are just getting underway with phone-to-phone picture-swapping services.Currently, most picture messages are sent by consumers from phones via e-mail to computers or straight to Web sites.That will be necessary until more users have picture-ready phones.”Eventually (the camera phone) will become commonplace.People will have a camera with them at most times,” predicted Matt Kaiser, director of multimedia messaging for Atlanta-based Cingular.As more people buy camera-ready devices, phone-to-phone picture messaging promises far greater convenience, as no special effort to send and receive pictures will be needed, Kaiser said.Cingular’s service now costs 25 cents per photo, or US$2,99 for 20 picture messages.In coming weeks, the company is set to introduce plans that allow more photo messages to be sent for the same price, Kaiser said.US mobile carriers must first a
gree to allow subscribers to send pictures to other networks, something Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson predicts Verizon and several other national carriers will be ready to offer later this year.But camera phones are seen only as a transitional product to wireless video phones.Already, Korean manufacturers are offering tiny phones with full camcorders, products that will become widespread as high-speed networks are built to handle the higher data-rate transmissions of video.- Nampa-Reuters