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I Got a Camera Phone -- Now What?by Barbara Moore I used to think I lived an exciting life. That's not the case. I now realize after buying a cell phone with a built-in camera that nothing out of the ordinary happens to me. Granted, I had high expectations. I had read about citizen journalists - people who realized something newsworthy was occurring, took a picture with their camera phone, and sent it to the media. While I wanted to take one of those pictures, I have not been anywhere when news was happening. Then I had a brainstorm. Natural disasters, like the east coast hurricanes and the California fires, were prime examples of the media using pictures and stories from citizen journalists. During this past winter I took a picture of the ice dams on my roof. No local media used them. However, I did send the pictures to my southern relatives who found them to be a strange and unusual sight. Let's face it, one of the reasons I got a camera cell phone was for its cool factor. And what could be cooler than getting a picture of a celebrity? For the past two months I have been on the lookout for local celebrities. I did get one picture. It is the back of Danny Wegman. Unfortunately the picture is blurry. Someone jostled me on their way to the egg rolls at the Chinese food buffet just as I clicked the shutter. The media have run stories of inappropriate uses of camera phones, such as taking pictures of people without their knowledge. I decided if I was to do something scummy with my camera phone I was going to aim high. I was going to take pictures of sensitive business data presented on a screen during a high-level corporate meeting. I would then sell these pictures for big bucks to the company's competition. As you might guess, the main drawback to my plan was getting invited to these meetings. The best I did was to take a picture of a low-fat chocolate cake recipe written on an easel at one of my Weight Watchers meetings. I'm still waiting for an offer. When high quality pictures are not needed, the convenience of a camera cell phone cannot be beat. I snap a picture and send it via a phone call to either another phone or to an e-mail address. As the commercials show, this makes camera phones ideal for sharing unusual, weird, and funny things with family and friends. But where are these things? As much as I am on the lookout for cute dogs, typos on signs outside businesses, and funny bumper stickers, I never seem to run into them. Well, there was the one time the doctor who was doing my colonoscopy came into the room wearing a clown nose. (She thought it would put me at ease.) However, I was in no position to get up and grab my camera phone. Too bad, that would have been a great picture. There are very practical uses for camera cell phones. One of which is as a memory aid. For instance, taking a picture of the sign labeling the section of the lot you parked in is faster than writing down the information. Unfortunately, I don't remember to take the picture until after I have done my shopping and have been wandering around the parking lot for fifteen minutes trying to find my car. I recently heard a futurist predict that camera cell phones will revolutionize the way we do business as much as the Internet did. When that revolution comes, I'll be ready, camera phone in hand. Until then I will continue taking pictures of the April snow and the gauge showing the below freezing temperatures to send to my warm-climate relatives. If nothing else, I will get a lot of sympathetic messages in return. I may not lead an exciting life but I do know how to milk it for all it is worth. Net Results, LLC |
