Student exhibit elevates cellphone photography to art

A flattened cigarette pack lying in the dirt. Stone crab claws lined up on a bed of ice. Patients biding time in a waiting room. Fine art? You be the judge. Students in “Art Special Topics: From Analog to Digital” have created an exhibition comprised entirely of cellphone images and edited in cellphone software applications.

The exhibit is on display through June 30 in the Graham Center Art Gallery at Modesto A. Maidique Campus.

“The course allows students with traditional darkroom skills to explore other options available to them,” says Gloria O’Connell, adjunct professor in the Department of Art & Art History. “Their passion for technology and making images is realized most readily in the use of cellphones and cellphone software applications.”

A university staff photographer for 18 years, O’Connell says today’s cellphones have made fine art photography accessible to everyone. The core principles of a good photograph haven’t changed, she explains. Composition. Lighting. It’s the technology that’s evolved, allowing anyone equipped with a creative eye, skill and a cellphone to create works of art. Indeed, the image and video hosting website Flickr has a cellphone photography group pool with more than 5,600 members and 100,000 images.

“Cellphone photography is a great equalizer. There was a time when fine art photography meant spending thousands of dollars on camera equipment and software,” says O’Connell, who has graduate degrees in art history and fine arts from Harvard University and FIU, respectively. “You can still do that today, but I think this exhibition does a great job of illustrating there are other options available, too.”