That's Not A Real Camera: Essay Published by the Scottish Society of Artists (SSA)
16 April 2026 · Published Writing · Scottish Society of Artists (SSA)
My essay That's Not A Real Camera has been published by the Scottish Society of Artists as part of the SSA Essay Project, a programme providing artists with a platform to share critical writing and ideas around art, practice and contemporary culture. The SSA published the feature on 16 April 2026; the essay itself is dated 1 April.
The essay considers the continuing hierarchy between mobile photography and supposedly more legitimate forms of photographic image making. Although the phone is now one of the most pervasive cameras in contemporary life, its accessibility is still frequently associated with casualness or a lack of artistic intention.
Drawing on the history of technological change within photography, the essay argues that artistic value cannot meaningfully be attached to the complexity or status of the apparatus. It considers how photographers including William Eggleston and Stephen Shore helped challenge earlier assumptions around colour photography, before turning towards contemporary mobile and networked image culture and the writing of Lev Manovich.
The argument is also grounded directly in my own practice. Double Takes is considered as a project shaped by the responsiveness and visual culture of the mobile phone, while Colour Divides provides a more visible example: a photograph made on an older Google Pixel 6 that went on to win the Object category of the 2026 Sony World Photography Awards.
The essay ultimately argues that the question is no longer whether a photograph made on a phone can possess artistic value. That has already been demonstrated. What remains is for the wider photographic discourse to fully acknowledge how profoundly the conditions of image making have already changed.
