AikBeng Chia: Mobile Photography

Photo ©AikBeng Chia-All Rights Reserved

Having used my iPhone as a mobile camera quite a lot in Hanoi during the past few weeks, I'd like to feature the work of AikBeng Chia, who describes himself as a mobile photographer.

His photography was exhibited internationally in New York, Berlin, Italy and in the Apple Store in Sydney and San Francisco, along with other venues. He has also been featured as a mobile photographer in many online publications from the United States, Europe and across Asia, and became a member of the Mobile Photo Group with 11 of some of the world's most creative mobile photographers.

Along with many, I used to pooh-pooh the notion that an iPhone (or whatever other mobile phone) could make images that would fulfill my own aesthetic values, but I slowly evolved into joining the other camp...the camp that considers the iPhone as another image-making tool.  I downloaded a bunch of apps, including Instagram and Hipstamatic et al, and enjoyed myself tremendously in the Hanoi streets doing just that...clicking, snapping, and filtering.

I agree with John Stanmeyer who tells us that mobile photography and its accompanying image-modifying apps us are all about communication. He also says this: "Mark these words deep into your conscious — within the next five to tens years (likely less), most professional photographers will be primarily using a camera which is indeed located within something as portable and ubiquitous in our purses/pockets as an iPhone.