Cell Your Soul – book project

All images created with a two-megapixel cellphone camera – A work in progress

Over the last five years I’ve been capturing images with a 2 mega-pixel cellphone camera. The goal was to force myself to be creative with a camera that I had very little control over, capturing what inspired me. By accident I suppose, the project has turned out to be a partial document of my life over these five years.  It started out as an obsession. I bought a cell phone with a built in camera, and didn’t put it down for months. Everywhere I went I made images with it. I fell in love with the raw nature of  2 mega-pixels, and vowed to myself that I would constantly challenge the way I thought about photography by regularly shooting pictures with a cell phone. I found that a traditional camera will often draw attention to you, making a candid photograph a bit more challenging to capture. The cell phone camera, I quickly realized, was something that most people would completely ignore, thereby buying me more time to find the right moment or composition.

• I’m in the process of editing these images for a book, which I must tell you is anything but easy.  The rewards however, have been many. There’s a wonderful sense of peace that I feel when I’m out shooting, and having all the images in front of me now , all at once, takes me back into the many different places and emotions associated with each shot. My ultimate hope for this project/book is that it will inspire others to look beyond the normal rules set for photography and go out in search of the extraordinary image with the less than average camera. Perhaps one of the most important lessons this project has taught me is that photography isn’t about the camera you use, but rather, how you use it. No amount of mega-pixels in the world will produce a solid composition for you, or allow you to see in just the right light.

• Thanks for stopping by to check them out and feel free to leave me a comment below.

• My book titled, “Cell Your Soul”, will be available at BLURB.com

all images © brandon paul watts 2010