José María Mellado, author of various photography books

The task that José María Mellado had at that time was a significant one: selecting over 400 images for his subsequent exhibition, which was titled Closer. He proceeded to go through his own work, which is one of the most laborious and hard duties for practically every artist. He opened a massive folder that included all of the photographs mixed together, looked at them, and then began to sort through them. Once he had made his selections, he forwarded the photographs to Pablo Juliá, the curator of the exhibition. Juliá is a photographer and a former director of the Andalusian Centre of Photography (CAF). Juliá then selected the photographs that he found to be the most intriguing. There were two of them that were captured with a cell phone.

Mellado explains that the event was fortunate because he had taken those photographs with his phone in order to have references of the location and the framing of the snapshots that he would later capture with his reflex camera. They ended up in the folder along with all of the other photographs, and he did not know how they got there. The photographs on his phone were of a high enough quality to have passed the examination of two professional photographers who had a great deal of experience. This was a happenstance that quickly turned into an epiphany. He was willing to investigate the change that was taking place in the situation.

In my opinion, that was a difficult task. In the event that I gave it a shot and found out that it was ineffective, I would dispose of it; however, what if it turned out to be effective? At that moment I realised that the mobile phone could be used as a tool and I began to investigate how I could get the most out of it, until now ,” explains the photographer from Almería, who since then has made the most of the use of the phone for his work like few other professionals in the discipline, to such an extent that he has become one of the greatest exponents of the use of this device to capture the world in snapshots.

As a result of the fact that there are photographers who believe that a quality snapshot can only be achieved with a camera, the use of mobile phones for professional photography came as a surprise to some. This is especially true when it comes from someone like Mellado, who has written several books on techniques and methods for achieving high-quality photographs.

In the same manner, the same thing happened with digital; at first, everyone thought that there was no way they would ever be near to analogue, that it was pointless, but it turned out that they are. My mobile device is already being used for some really important activities on my end. He says, “I was in Namibia not too long ago, and I have quite a few good photos that I took with my phone. These are images that I would never have been able to get without it, either because I didn’t have the camera with me at the time, or because the phone simply gives you the freshness of a quick impression.”

And in order to demonstrate all of the photographic benefits that can be obtained from a mobile phone, Mellado, who considers smartphones to be a gift for photographers, has not limited himself to using his phone for work. He has also dedicated two books from his high-quality photography series to this device, which he published in March 2021. These books are titled “High-quality mobile photography for Android” and “High-quality photography for iPhone respectively.” Specifically, he emphasizes that “it’s just a very serious tool.”

Serious, sure, but not extraordinary, and he defends the phone as an additional instrument for the photographer, one that does not replace any other tool but rather complements them: “The mobile phone does not come to compete with the camera, but rather to give photographers greater freedom.”

For Mellado, the smartphone is occupying its own space in photography. This space is that of the moment or scene that appears just a few seconds before the eyes of the photographer, or when he is very far away from his camera, such as when he is leaving the theater, returning from the gym, or possibly even in the middle of a party with friends. Who knows? Because there are photographs that are the result of pure chance, and if you don’t have a camera close by, you’re in for a world of trouble! When we were younger, many of those one-of-a-kind photographs were lost forever, but now, because of the fact that we always have them in our pockets, we are able to keep them with us for the rest of our lives.

Due to the fact that we now carry our cellphones with us everywhere we go, you are able to snap photographs that you would never have been able to shoot if you did not have a camera at your disposal. However, it is true that they are not suitable for everything; in other words, they do not serve as a replacement for the camera. This is due to the fact that there are certain things that is only possible with a camera. When you take a picture with your mobile phone, you have a set aperture, and the software does a good job of it. However, for instance, capturing a portrait with your mobile phone will never be the same as taking a picture with a camera that has an 85 mm lens with a 1.2 aperture. Simply put, they are complementary to one another,” he argues.

José María Mellado, author of various photography books

By nr39r

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