Sent: a phonecam art show

Saturday, July 10, 2004, at 12:48PM

By Eric Richardson

The phonecam art exhibition Sent opens today. You might think, "Phonecams suck, why would you have an exhibition with them?" Caryn Coleman answers that question and explains more of the idea in this art.blogging.la post. The public exhibition is at the downtown Standard Hotel, which is only a couple blocks from my apartment. I'm planning to walk over and check things out in a few hours (after laundry's done and I actually have clothes to wear).

In honor of the exhibition, I've gone through my buzznet photos and selected out a few of my favorites.

This image is one of a few I took sitting on the Gold Line one day returning from JPL. I was playing with fooling the white balance into taking really cold pictures (cold is blue, right? it's been a while). Which really meant I was putting my finger in front of the lens, pulling it away, and then taking a picture before the camera could adjust.

Aside from the one black spot where it was too bright, I think this is a great shot. I love how the bright interacts with the foreground of the picture. I took this standing on the sidewalk by the Jewelry Center on the corner of 6th and Hill. Kathy and I were walking back to my apartment. I think I had just walked over to meet her at the Red Line station at 5th and Hill.

I love the sky in this picture because it feels so fake. I still think everything about this picture looks like it could be a screenshot of a Commodore 64 game. It's even got the blocky people. I used to play a game called Championship Baseball all the time. It had people exactly like this. Well, actually I think the quality's higher here, but it's the thought that counts.

This is one of the first pictures I took with the phone, and it's still one of my favorites. I took it riding down the street in Michigan, just sticking the phone out the window and pointing it vaguely in front of the car. Everything came out with a nice smooth blue instead of being blocky, and for once the phone made it all nice colors instead of throwing some extra pinks in there somewhere.