July 1, 2010
By Donovan Jackson

Certain images are forever branded into people’s memories. The photo of the marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima in 1945. The earthrise captured by Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders in 1968 . And locally, the picture of Mbuyisa Makhubo carrying a mortally wounded Hector Pieterson during the Soweto Uprising in 1976.

These images are a part of history, a moment captured in time thanks to a photographer being in the right place at the right time. Not an easy feat.

Of course, that’s changing. These days anyone with a decent phone can (theoretically…they may lack the eye and the reflexes) be that photographer.

Two of my greatest loves are history and photography, and the immediacy of a cell phone camera means I can now indulge both passions. Yes, we know that professionals, with their high-end SLR cameras, will inevitably take better photos. But having a camera in your pocket all the time means always being able to capture the historical moments pique interest.

What is especially exciting is the constantly and dramatically improving quality of camera in the smart phones du jour. If we stick with Nokia’s offerings, if only for the sake of the fact that this in a Ringaz-blog, we happily see that the N-series offers cameras with resolutions of up to 8MP (soon 12MP), along quality Carl Zeiss optics. More pertinently, the gap between the smart phone camera and the SLR is narrowing all the time: from what we know of the technology environment, it won’t be too long before the average phone has the ability to take the kind of quality photos we see in the history books.

From the phone in my pocket, already I have a personal gallery that includes shots of historical buildings, classic motor vehicles (a 1967 Ford Mustang, anyone?) and timeless works of art. I’ve taken photos of military parades and vehicles, workers toyi-toying while on strike and policemen reacting to dangerous situations.

I only wish that I’d had a camera phone back in 1994, to have been able to capture the mood, spirit and visual imagery that came with our country’s first democratic elections. Or the wild celebrations of a nation when we lifted the Rugby World Cup in 1995.

That’s what I really want to achieve with my phone. I want to capture the little slices of history that occur all the time, all around us. What better time to do it than right now, with the world arriving on our doorstep for the globe’s single greatest sporting event?

This World Cup is going to be remembered as one of the most unique ones ever. The vast majority of the foreign fans coming out here have no idea just how wild and crazy this continent can be. Nor how much fun we can actually have, but we’re going to show them.

And I’m going to capture it all on the little camera that travels everywhere with me – my cellphone!