Anything that captures is a “real” camera, and might be the “right” camera for certain situations. Like when sitting in the window seat, and my big humongo cameras and their even bigger lenses are packed between layers of thick foam in my ThinkTank case… which is safely stowed in the overhead compartment I secured by getting an early boarding number. I haven’t yet purchased a good purse camera. I used to take one of my big cameras out of its protection and stuff it inside my purse so I could keep it with me, but then the big heavy bag has to come back down out of the overhead, and with the camera unprotected, that’s a recipe for disaster. One I’ve experienced.

So what I meant to say was …my iPhone photos could be really cool if the images were somehow optimized to be the best they could be. Ah, but the iPhone can do almost anything as long as there’s an app for it. And there’s always an app for it (unless you want to view flash websites.) But the photo manipulation apps are incredible, and turn the iPhone camera into something that rivals other alternative cameras out there, like the Holga and the Lomo. This opens it up to a world of possibilities without being limited by perfection expectations:snowy over clayton-missouri river from above