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Having the privilege to experience the transition from the analog photography days to the advance digital photography days, I have to say that majority of cameras out there today are great, including the ones found in your iPhones and smartphones. They are so great to a point I do even agree that everyone is a photographer nowadays. The device that we have in our pocket is so capable of photographing and processing way better images within seconds which would have taken weeks decades ago making photography widely accessible to people.
iPhone is good and its harsh reality.
iPhones are now perfectly capable of producing good image to a point it is changing the landscape of how we consume media. As a professional photographer, I couldn't be more happy embracing technology that makes photographing easier. Any photographing device (especially iPhones) these days works perfectly fine under perfect lighting condition making them a great tool for instant imaging. However, this is also where I beg to differ.
The harsh reality is that a good images isn't just all about being perfectly expose, technically correct or "in trend". A good image should stand the challenge of time in capturing the stillness to remain timeless for years to come. To obtain that, we need the right tools to allow the proper process of photographing to happen. Note that I do not disagree on the tools we use, but rather the process of photographing when using an iPhone.
Process of Photographing
In the beginning of photography, the tools we use for photography often require some amount of patience. Patience is what I believe as an important key into making good images. As from the perspective of using an iPhone, we have an instant gratification which is good. But sometimes we are not seeing things specific enough when given such luxury to take hundreds of shot at one go. Yes, the iPhone now produces spectacular image and coupled with insane power of editing softwares, sky is definitely the limit towards what you can achieve. However, slowing down the process of photography is still the way into seeing what other people don't see which is not going to happen with that instantaneous click. The key into capturing that will only happen when the feeling is in your gut knowing that the shot is going to create some sort of emotion for another human being. That can only be obtained through having patience to observe in doing photography.
In our case of commercial photography an iPhone is still not sufficient. The amount of work put into photographing commercial project is insane. Talk about running around to open and close lights, blinds, windows etc for the entire area and not to mention the insane amount of planning and time spend going through the details into photographing one project is too much to risk it by using an iPhone to photograph. We need very specialised set of tools that we can use to fine tune every aspect of photography to capture the timeless stills in showcasing the atmosphere and mood.
How iPhones and accessibility to photography is affecting the commercial world.
As much as photography is now accessible for everyone. I do believe there is still a place for the professionals in the industry. As there is a lot of subtlety involved when photographing those beautiful images in our portfolio. Know that they are not just achieved but it involves an extensive amount teamwork, detailed oriented photographer and client trust to pull it off. The brutal truth is even with the world best photographer, the client still has to be there to help us understand who they really are, and what their project is really about to produce decent images that speaks for them. If they do not understand their project no one else would.
With a low barrier of entry towards photographing technology, we are now constantly being bombarded with the thousands of images a day and being "brainwash" into following the "trending" look or image style as photography is often done without much thoughts. If you ever wonder why your project always ended up looking like a copy of others without much unique distinction. Chances are, you might already starting to lose your unique identity while being caught up in the rat race instead of being "in the trend" as you might believe yourself to be.
Understand that taking images for the sake of taking images will take you no where regardless of the amount of project you showcase. It is crucial for you to put in the hours to work with the photographer for the desired outcome that is allign with your identity. Take photography as the last closure for that one project that has already been going on for months and even years after all, photos are the only prove of project existence for years to come.
How iPhones can be use in practical world.
Lastly, iPhones are still good enough if you were to use it the right way. If you are a brand owner, I would still encourage you to create contents with your iPhone. Not for the purpose of advertising or archiving. But for social media such as insta stories to improve engagements for your branding as you will always be the one behind the scene and probably the only one who understands the brand more than anyone else.