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iPhone War Coverage

Damon Winter/The New York Times

I read over the front page of the New York Times as I ate my breakfast this morning wondering if Damon Winter had taken a medium format camera to the front lines in Afghanistan. His photos illustrate the article, Between Firefights, Jokes, Sweat, Tales and Tedium. Then I thought maybe it was digital, that would make more sense, and the square format coloration were applied later. Which left me wondering if the NYT would do that. It’s not altering what happened in front of the lens and is it all that different then running a raw file through a raw convertor or applying some tonal and color changes to a jpeg?

Turns out the entire essay was shot with an iPhone using the Hipstamatic app. The NYT has published a companion piece, Finding the Right Tool to Tell a War Story. In a world where cell phones are ubiquitous, even on the front lines, what better way to document the soldiers’ story and remain inconspicuous than by using what they use…