Why I like My Phone for Photography

Over the past year or so I've found myself taking more and more "real" photos with my iPhone (iPhone 15 if you care). My iPhone photos are now incorporated into my LightRoom catalog. What and when do I use the phone's camera? I primarily use it in four situations:

1. To get a "blur" effect but I don't have a tripod handy

2. In difficult lighting situations just to make sure I have a different "view" than I get with my DSLR, and frequently with less time spent in processing

3. When I don't have my DSLR with me for some reason

4. To create an easy panoramic photo, good enough for social media

And of course I still take and send via text messages, timely photos to family during events, when I'm traveling etc. That's something I've done for years and didn't do with my DSLR.
Below are examples of each of those four situations (and you may notice there's frequently a couple of those situations in play for a particular photograph).

Dunloup Fall - New River Gorge National Park

Cleveland Metroparks Zoo - Asian Lantern Festival

A Walk in My Neighborhood

Cherry Grove, North Myrtle Beach, SC

A School Production

Everything is Political - Pioneer Cemetery Version

Recently, after posting some pioneer cemetery photos on another "site" I ended up in a discussion with a friend about old cemeteries. They said old cemeteries prompted them to reflect upon what it was like to live there back then. I replied; "these days old cemeteries (and especially the gravestones of infants and youth) are a reminder to me of how far we've come... "

...and how far people are willing to go backwards to make things "great again".

I used to think of what it was like to live back in the 1800's, but now all I can think of is the various childhood diseases, simple infections, etc. that killed large numbers of young people. There are plenty of 70+ and 80+ year olds in those cemeteries. The average life expectancy has jumped in the last ~125 years due in most part, not to people living older but instead to babies and children not dying because of two things.
1. Antibiotics.
2. Vaccines.
In general, if you made it through childhood diseases such as chickenpox, polio, mumps, measles, the random staph infection, etc. as a kid, you were on your way to a long life.

Just a VERY SMALL sample of the infants and children in a couple of the pioneer cemeteries I visited a couple weeks ago

One Year Old, Died 1904

Born and Died, October 31, 1924

Unknown Little One

Son of... Age 3 Months

Iconic, Cliché, or Original?

I've taken a lot of short, 2-4 day trips lately. With my cameras of course, and I do at least a little bit of research as to where and what I may have a chance to photograph. For certain places there's going to be the iconic photos that come up, think Ansel Adams and Half Dome. For many other locations, there's the clichés such as a million photographs of Half Dome that say "I was there too" and a feeble attempt at duplicating Adams' work. Then of course, there are the photos of a location that seem original, a way of seeing it that no one else has put out there.

I'm all for taking that "iconic" yet cliché photography. It gives yourself and others a frame of reference as to where you were. After that, I try to see things MY way, a bit original. Sometimes I have success, sometimes I think I have success yet find out otherwise later, and since I'm a details type photographer, I sometimes do have success. For instance, one of my "I have a good one here" photos that I took, only to find out later, that many, many others also took similar photos was in Prague. I noticed that the sewer lids in the streets were frequently works of art, so I photographed some. When I returned home and searched, I found that I was only the millionth person to notice the sewer lids.

I recently returned from a few days in New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia, you tell me which are the iconic or cliché photos and which veer toward original.

New River Flows Through the Gorge

Weathered Pine Above New River Gorge

Turkey Vulture Soars Above New River Gorge

New River Gorge Bridge

Fungi Along Stone Cliff Trail, New River Gorge National Park

Caterpillar Along the Trail

One Rock is Different From the Rest