One evening, as sunset approached, I was on my normal walk around nearby streets. I cover pretty much the entire neighborhood on a daily basis, so everyone knows my schedule, and some even come out to say hello. I mainly walk to exercise and enjoy the outdoors, so I’m not always at the ready with a camera. Sometimes I’ll even forget to bring my phone, to my partner’s annoyance.

After several minutes of wandering around, I turned the street corner to head toward the lake. Shining back at me was the most beautiful of sunsets gracing the sky. It was gorgeous with swirling deep yellows, oranges and intense tomato reds that seemed to glow and bounce from cloud to cloud. As I approached the lake, the sunset’s reflection on the water was just as intense. We get a lot of great sunsets around here, sometimes nearly every day, but never before like this one.

And all I had was my iPhone 12 Pro.

Mathew Anderson

“All I had”… I felt ashamed as I held the phone in my hand to take a few opportunistic photos. “I work at DPReview with a community of photographers that have proper equipment they carry with them wherever they go, and here I am whipping out my phone as if I were too lazy to bother bringing along anything else, convenience be damned”, I thought to myself.

The main struggle is that I sometimes struggle to find a moment when my standalone camera is with me, unless I’ve planned the trip in advance. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about when it makes sense to grab a standalone camera. Should I always have a camera with multiple lenses ready, or is sometimes “just my phone” ok, and why do I feel like the phone is somehow deficient (even if it’s all I have at that moment)?

Camera technology in phones these days is truly impressive. Sure, they have the limitations one would expect of such a compact device, but some of the photos I’ve taken are, in my opinion, as pleasant to my eyes as if I were seeing them directly (more or less). At some point, we have to ask ourselves when the technology is important enough to keep it at the ready, or when the moment, combined with our skills as photographers, outweighs the equipment.

These thoughts have been preoccupying me during my outdoor walking sessions, so I want to talk with you about them.

Mathew Anderson

Should phones be revered as much as a full-on standalone camera with multiple lenses, but in their own useful way? Or should they be relegated to those convenient moments when one doesn’t have their normal gear setup on hand? And aside from their obvious convenience, in what situations does having a phone on hand match or even outperform a more complex setup?

I also asked these questions to my team, and here are a few interesting quotes from what they had to say.

What others at DPReview have to say

“I love dedicated photography gear, but one lesson I’ve learned over the years is that, in many cases, being discreet is more important than using the best camera or lens. In some places, carrying a camera gets you noticed. Lifting it to take a photo gets you noticed even more. People react to it, and it changes their behavior. At that point, you’re no longer capturing a candid moment because, in effect, you’ve become part of the scene. You’ve changed it.

On the other hand, smartphones are so common that you can lift one up and take a photo, and almost nobody will notice. You’re just part of the landscape. That makes phones a great tool for activities like travel photography.” – Dale Baskin

“As one of our reviewers, I’m always fighting for enough time to shoot all the cameras, lenses and, yes, smartphones I have to test, so it’s rare for me to leave the house without some work-related gear. And yet there are still times when I’ll pull out my personal phone to document moments that may not make for a great picture, but that I want to remember.

With a camera, I know I’ll spend more time making sure the composition and lighting are as good as they can be, or that things or people are posed in a way that makes the moment worthy of a capital-P Photograph. And sure, I’ll sometimes take a second or two to make sure whatever picture I’m taking with my phone looks nice – I’m still a photographer, no matter how small or plastic a lens I’m behind – but I don’t feel the same sense of obligation. I know that photo will just be for me, my friends and my family.

This was essentially the same way I treated the divide between my phone and my X-T3 before I worked here; if I thought I’d run into something interesting worth photographing, I’d take my camera. Otherwise, my phone was good enough, the way a compact would’ve been back in the day.” Mitchell Clark

“A part of the decision for me is the fact that photography is what I do for work. While I love the medium, sometimes I want to give myself a little separation and not think about photography for a bit, so I purposefully leave the camera behind (though it inevitably seeps into my brain anyway).” – Abby Ferguson

We here at DPReview aren’t immune from falling into time-worn debates. When discussing the upcoming iPhone Fold, which, if the rumors are to be believed, will only feature two cameras, I made a comment about how I was annoyed that, when phone manufacturers choose to drop a camera from the ultrawide-wide-telephoto trio included on most flagships, it’s the long option that always gets the axe. If I can only have one (a choice I don’t think I should even have to consider for a phone rumored to be over $2000, but whatever), I’d prefer it to be the telephoto.

My colleague Dale Baskin, however, disagreed, saying he’d prefer to keep the ultrawide. And, surveying the the market, it seems like a lot of people, or at least phone manufacturers, agree with him. So I figured I’d put forward my argument for why the telephoto should be raised above the ultrawide… and then begrudgingly give the latter its due as well.

Go long

Mitchell Clark

Before we start, I want to note that I’m coming to this with data: I’ve owned two phones that have all three focal lengths on them – an iPhone 11 Pro and an iPhone 15 Pro – and in-between I owned an iPhone 12 Mini, which just has a wide and ultrawide. Barely a day went by that I didn’t miss the that telephoto option and, now that I have it again, I use it more than the 0.5x option. Of the 7000 pictures I’ve taken with my phone, around 830 of them were taken with the telephoto, versus around 750 with the ultrawide. (It’s admittedly a much smaller gap than I expected, though if I narrow it down to my favorites, it’s no competition; the tele wins 5:1). 

To me, that’s for a very simple reason: I run into more scenarios where I can’t get closer than ones where I can’t get further away. Almost certainly, this will come down to my shooting style. Looking at the ultrawide photos I’ve taken, it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect: interior shots, landscapes, photos of large objects that I didn’t feel like stepping back from and pictures of my cat where I’ve made him look goofy by getting the camera really close to him. Except for the latter, they’re all shots I probably could’ve replicated relatively closely using my phone’s main camera and a bit more effort. 

Mitchell Clark

That’s not the case for the 4x telephoto shots. Those are comprised of pictures at concerts where the artist was far away, wildlife shots, portraits or product shots where I wanted background compression, odd things I saw off in the distance and, again, pictures of my cat being goofy, but in a way where I suspect he’d stop if I got up to get a closer picture. Sure, there are a few where I could’ve just zoomed with my feet, but they’re honestly in the minority.

This has become even more true as Apple has continued to increase the reach of its telephoto cameras. What was once something like a 50mm equiv. has become a 100mm equiv., which genuinely gives you the option to take pictures of things that are too far away for your standard camera.

Go wide

Mitchell Clark

There are, of course, reasons to prefer an ultrawide to a telephoto. Wider focal lengths are almost required for many forms of photography, like architecture, wide-field astrophotography (not that the iPhone has a great astro mode, but some Android models do) and more. And just like there will be times when you can’t get closer to something, there will be times when you actually can’t get far enough back to take the photo you want with a normal lens.

But while I can understand why you’d want an ultrawide, I’m also clearly biased (see the previous section). So I’ll hand it over to Dale to talk about why he would pick them over a telephoto.

Dale’s thoughts

My own preference for ultrawides likely comes down to my shooting style. I like to get close to things. To me, a subject photographed close-up offers a perspective that’s more intimate and personal than one shot from farther away. It puts you closer to the story and can immerse you in it, rather than placing distance between you and the subject. That doesn’t mean I don’t like or use telephoto lenses, and I’d be lying if I said I never used the one on my smartphone, but if I had to choose between the two, I’d go with my storytelling tool: the ultrawide.

Maybe I’m the outlier here. After all, I’m the guy who picked an altrawide lens as my DPReview gear of the year not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times, so I clearly have a bias. But I also know that when I show a friend or family member how to use their ultrawide lens to get a more dramatic landscape shot, they discover a new way of seeing that expands their photographic repertoire. And they love to use it.

And I can certainly appreciate why some people would prefer a telephoto option; there really are times when you just want to zoom in on something, whether it’s one of your kids playing sports or to shoot a portrait.

Mitchell Clark

Beyond the general photographic reasons, the iPhone utilizes the ultrawide in extra features in a way that it doesn’t for the telephoto. For the past few years, Apple has been using the camera to provide a “macro mode” that lets you take pictures of very close-up objects. It also uses it for “desk view” if you’re using your phone as a webcam. Finally, it has some computational purposes too; if you’re taking a “Spatial” photo that will render using depth data in VR, the phone uses the wide and the ultrawide camera to get its dual perspectives on the scene (though it’s possible that’s mainly because it’s the camera that most iPhones will have). 

You can’t always get what you want

As I alluded to before, I realize that my preference for telephoto lenses probably isn’t widely held. When Samsung was deciding which cameras to put on the Galaxy Z Flip and passport-shaped Galaxy Z Fold8, it went with the wide and ultrawide, same as it had done with the ultra-thin S25 Edge. Apple does the same for the baseline iPhone series, and that was true for Google as well, before it decided it was better to have three mediocre cameras than two that were pretty good. And while I haven’t seen the market research that says the people at large prefer ultrawides, I’m certain it exists; otherwise, dual-camera phones that pair a wide and a telephoto wouldn’t be as rare as they are.

Samsung

Part of that likely comes down to marketing. With most phones, you can at least somewhat approximate having a telephoto lens by zooming in. Phone manufacturers even make it easy to do, and say that even phones with a single camera actually have a zoom option with “optical quality.” I think they’re wrong, but when has that ever stopped marketers? And yet its true that you can’t even really approximate the effects of an ultrawide lens, nor can you use software to emulate the close-up shooting you can do with them like you can to telephotos with portrait mode.

Dale also pointed out that it may simply be easier and/or cheaper for manufacturers to build ultrawide lenses than telephoto ones, reducing costs while still allowing them to market their phones as having two cameras. And, indeed, I have to wonder if that’s part of the reason why folding phones, which have to fit their cameras into a much slimmer profile than normal, often compromise on the telephoto. It’s possible there’s just not enough room for the more ambitious lenses.

Is it a dealbreaker?

Whatever arguments there are for including an ultrawide to the exclusion of the telephoto, the strongest one is this: I, and I suspect many others like me who prefer the latter, will still buy a phone that doesn’t have the camera layout we want. That could be for many reasons; maybe you want to save money by not going with a higher-end model, or maybe (like I’ve done in the past and likely will do again in the future) you simply prefer the form factor of the phone that doesn’t have the complete suite. But even if I buy the iPhone Fold and love it, I know that, in the back of my mind, I’ll always miss that extra reach when I open the camera app.

Last week, Canon was kind enough to give me the opportunity to attended a Formula Drift event, featuring a high-horsepower competition and a car show with a lot of really interesting vehicles. The shooting experience was highly informative for some upcoming reviews – stay tuned – and I came away with several pictures that I’m really proud of. But I also got something I didn’t expect: a renewed hope for the future of photography.

As a lifelong photographer and someone whose job is writing about cameras, it’s been a bit easy to fret over the future of the artform. Sales of dedicated cameras are recovering, sure, but they’re still far from what they once were. And while phone photography is just as legitimate, the culture at large treats it as cheap and disposable. Even the most meaningful, carefully considered and composed image becomes another piece of content to look at for half a second while scrolling Instagram.

But walking through the car show in the evening, I found myself surrounded by people with cameras, ranging from DSLR kits that could’ve been purchased at Costco to serious pro photography and video rigs. And while the latter were typically used by professionals and content creators (or people hopeful to join those ranks), plenty of others were people who just really liked cars, and who wanted to take cool photos of them to share with their fellow enthusiasts.

I asked one person walking around with a camera what they were taking photos for, and they said it was basically for their personal enjoyment adding with a laugh that they also post to their 200 followers on Instagram. That’s righteous; as someone who’s successfully turned their hobby into a job, I wish I could occasionally just shoot photos for the love of the game like they were.

Mitchell Clark

Even photographing the Formula Drift event itself, the trend held. Several of the people I talked to in the official media pit had started with a love of drift racing, which eventually turned into using photography or video to tell the story of it. Folks there were just as excited about who was winning as they were about the amazing shots they got. That kind of passion is infectious, and they had a lot to teach me. When you start doing photography within a niche, you have a much deeper understanding of what that subculture values, and can push at the edges in a way that a generalist photographer won’t know to.

I suspect there’s actually a pretty strong tie between camera and car culture, and I know that many hobbies have this effect. People will get into something entirely unrelated, want to share it, and discover that the mediums of photo and video are great ways to do it. There’s a storied history of actors, athletes and musicians (yes, including Taylor Swift) picking up photography, and my coworker Abby Ferguson has talked to several photographers with a similar journey in her Behind the Photo series. In it, she showcases people creating amazing work, some of whom started out as VFX artists, cellists or divers. Not everyone who gets into photography tangentially will think of themselves as a photographer, but if they’re out there taking pictures, what else should we call them?

Mitchell Clark

I’ll admit that sometimes it’s easy to get a bit high-and-mighty about photography as an artform, as someone who started doing it for its own sake. This person bought an EOS R5C to take photos? Don’t they know there are so many better options? Those Gen Alpha kids are getting into compacts? Don’t they know about all the downsides, and are they even learning the fundamentals?

Whenever I catch myself thinking things like that, I try to take a step back because that attitude is deeply unhelpful. I should be glad whenever anyone picks up a camera and tries to learn it, and realize that shaming people for not knowing everything – even if they’ve been doing it for decades – is going to hurt the medium, not help it.

So snap on. Whether you’re the most dyed-in-the-wool, capital P Photographer, or whether you just picked up a camera to try and show your friends your latest skateboard trick, finished knitting project, favorite car, or anything else. We’re all doing the same thing here: trying to capture the world as we see it, and share that vision with others.

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The rumor mill around Apple’s upcoming iPhones, set to be announced September 9, has been in full swing for months, and the word on the street is that there’s supposedly one big change coming to the new phone’s cameras: the iPhone 18 Pro Max will get a variable aperture on its main camera. While people have been making this prediction for years, Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, who has a pretty decent track record, recently threw his weight behind it.

As an iPhone nerd, there are a lot of things that interest me about this. The first is that it marks a return of Apple differentiating the camera on its biggest, most expensive* model. The Pro Max phones have historically received new camera updates first – the 15 Pro Max got the 5x telephoto camera a year before it came to the standard Pro – but we’ve been in a stretch where the cameras on the Pro models have been exactly the same. If this rumor is true, that’s about to change.

But as a photographer and camera reviewer, I’m skeptical whether this change will matter much. Before we get to the reasons why, let’s talk about the theoretical benefits. At a high level, changing your lens’s aperture lets you control how much light is hitting the sensor and your depth of field (i.e., how blurry the background of your photo is). The smaller the aperture (or, counter-intuitively, the higher your F-number), the less light it lets in, and the more of your image will be in focus. Phones, historically, have quite fast lenses; the iPhone 17 Pro’s main camera shoots at a fixed F1.78. 

In bright, sunny conditions, this means the phone has to cope with a lot of light hitting the sensor, resorting to tricks like using extremely low ISOs and very fast shutter speeds. And as phone companies push to make their lenses faster to improve image quality and flexibility in low light, this becomes even harder. Adding an aperture that can stop down to, say, F4, would help take some of that pressure off.

Mitchell Clark

It’s worth noting that this would almost certainly be the direction Apple goes in, rather than making one that could open up from F1.78 to, say, F1.2. If it was able to make the lens faster, it already would’ve done so. And for phone photographers, that reduces the potential practical benefits; I’ve personally never run into a situation where it was physically too bright for my phone to cope, so an aperture that can stop down isn’t fixing a problem I currently have (with the one exception of video, where the closer you can get to a shutter speed that’s double your frame rate, the more natural motion will look).

The same is true for the other half of the equation, depth of field. To understand why, we have to introduce the concept of equivalent apertures. A F number is absolute; an F1.8 lens on a phone will transmit the same amount of light per square millimeter of sensor as a full-frame F1.8 will. However, because iPhones use much smaller sensors than traditional cameras, the amount of light gathered over the whole image area and the depth of field won’t be equivalent to what you’d get on a full-frame camera with an F1.8 lens. 

Mitchell Clark

The current iPhone 17 Pro main camera has a Type 1/1.28 (71.5mm²) sensor. That means that its F1.78 lens will produce the same depth of field as an F6.1 lens on a full-frame camera. If Apple makes it stop down to, say F4, that would give you a lens with two settings: F6.1 and F13.7 equiv. That’ll definitely make a difference in your available depth of field, but it’ll be a change from “enough” to “more than enough,” rather than making a huge difference to the types of shots you can get in most cases. It also, importantly, won’t make any difference if you want to get the coveted shallow depth of field look that the iPhone currently has to emulate with portrait mode.

Finally, let’s consider some historical context. Back when compact cameras were dominant, many of them used sensors that were similar sizes to the iPhone, and had the ability to change apertures. But while some had actual aperture blades like a traditional lens, others used a Waterhouse stop, moving a plate with a fixed aperture in between the lens and the sensor to stop down when needed.

This is less flexible – you don’t get the stops in between wide open and the plate’s diaphragm – but is mechanically simpler. That’s likely a huge consideration for Apple when it comes to building a device that will be subjected to pretty much every condition and abuse you can think of. This is, after all, a company that replaced a physical home button with a solid state one (and is rumored to have at least considered doing the same for the rest of the phone’s buttons, too).

DPReview

Some compacts also simply slotted in an ND filter, and reported it as a stopped down aperture, since it had the same effect on the incoming light. (It didn’t affect the depth of field, but, again, they already had plenty). Apple could go either of those routes rather than building a standard aperture, and it would have good reason to; going the traditional way may have reliability concerns, and could cost more at a time when Apple’s also being squeezed when it comes to chip pricing and availability.

With that said, we’ve seen phones with physical aperture mechanisms before. Samsung included the feature on the Galaxy S9 and S10, to extremely middling results. You essentially couldn’t tell the difference, and the company ended up dropping the feature. Huawei has several phones in its lineup today with variable apertures, but it essentially never gets a mention on the feature pages, despite how much of them are dedicated to talking about the cameras.

However Apple decides to implement it, if it does at all, the point is the same: it’s unlikely to be something you actually notice when it comes to the experience of using your phone as a camera or the photos you get out of it. But that’s not to say that Apple has just decided to make one of the most mechanically complex parts of its phones even more complicated for giggles, or that it’ll purely be a marketing gimmick.

To the latter point, I’m honestly 50/50 on whether I think it’ll bring it up in the keynote presentation at all (again, assuming the rumors are even accurate). There’s probably some technical reason why it’ll be nice to have as part of its computational image processing pipeline, and there may even be a slight noticeable benefit to it. And if, by some miracle, Apple has decided to massively increase the size of the camera sensor, then it could genuinely be an important inclusion, though, to be clear, that change hasn’t been rumored at all.

But don’t get your hopes up. At the end of the day, the odds are that iPhone photos will still look like iPhone photos (which is to say: pretty good, for a phone), and that there won’t be an appreciable difference between the camera on the iPhone 18 Pro and the one on the 18 Pro Max… or, for that matter, between the new phone and the one it’s replacing. Sometimes, a change is just a change, no matter how much buzz there is about it leading up to it.

* – Currently most expensive, anyways. Apple is also expected to introduce a folding phone that will almost certainly be priced above the Pro models and that will have worse cameras, if other major foldables are any indication.

I spend a lot of time thinking about my own photographic practice, but not nearly as much time doing anything about it. I have ideas for individual photos, for series I want to start or expand and concepts I would like to explore deeper. I’ve thought of different ways of printing and hanging my work, in case I ever get to show any of it. But when it comes to actually making the work, my follow-through is often lacking.

That tension was on my mind this week while attending Sony’s Kando event in Vermont, where Sony invited me, along with fellow press and other image-makers. One session in particular, Works in Progress, brought some of those thoughts into focus.

Works in Progress is modeled after National Geographic sessions, where photographers briefly present a single project they are currently working on in order to get feedback and find inspiration from each other. At Kando, individuals get seven minutes to share images or videos and a little bit about the body of work.

The session isn’t about gear at all; in fact, it was rare for someone to mention their setup and no technical details were mentioned. Instead, each presentation focused entirely on the ideas and images from a particular project they are passionate about and currently developing.

Abby Ferguson

That passion is my favorite part of the session: seeing people’s commitment to the work. Ira Block, a Sony Artisan of Imagery who co-chaired the session, summed it up well after the presentations: “Nothing is more inspiring than watching the inspiration of others.” There were remarkable photographs and videos throughout, but what stayed with me was watching people stand in front of a room and talk openly about the projects that matter to them. It made me look at my own work with a bit of renewed lens.

I could give a long list of reasons for pushing my own photography to the side. I have a full-time job and teach a college photography course. My husband and I just bought a house that needs a fair amount of work. My studio space is not really a studio at the moment, and it may not be for some time. It is expensive. I struggle to find the right venues, calls for art, and people to connect with. The list goes on.

Thankfully, I have been slightly more active with my art over the past month, and that feels like progress. I recently made time for a self-portrait that had been on my mind for months, and the process was deeply fulfilling. I also joined two friends to install a small exhibition at the campus gallery where we teach. Even better, the work I hung was from a series I have barely shown or discussed. 

Katie Tasch

Those were small steps toward finding my artistic voice again. They were a small flex of the creative muscles. And they also reminded me that I need to make something regularly, even if it is small.

I also need to remember the value of being around other creative people from time to time. I have written before about how joining local photography groups helped me find community in what can be a very solitary practice. This was a different kind of gathering, but it offered a similar reminder: making work can become isolating, especially when it keeps getting pushed behind work, responsibilities and everyday life. Being in a room with people who are actively wrestling with ideas, taking creative risks and sharing unfinished work can be an important kind of fuel.

That is what the Works in Progress session offered. Seeing what others were making and the care they were bringing to it gave me a burst of energy to return to my own work. It was a reminder to keep making photographs, even if I don’t yet know where a project is going, whether anyone will like it or whether it will ever see the light of day.

I know this session won’t be a magical kick in the pants that suddenly makes me create on a regular basis. But hearing that voice in my head more often can only help. And maybe my writing this can be that voice for someone else who also needs a gentle push to get out that camera or make some art. I hope it is.

Editor’s note: the text of this article was written by Mitchell, which is who is referred to using first-person pronouns. Abby is credited in the article as she makes up half the conversation it’s based on, and gave input on its content. The lede image was taken in real life, not from a television.

It was a title and thumbnail that was bound to get my attention. YouTuber Hunter Creates Things’ video “The Internet’s Most HATED Photography Trend” shows a blurry picture and with the word “tv.” in red. Clicking on it, I thought it was going to be about shutter drag (“TV” being how some brands refer to their cameras’ shutter priority modes), a photographic technique that’s almost inescapable amongst photographers right now. “I can see why people don’t like this,” I thought, “but I’m interested what this person has to say.”

Treat this video as required viewing; the rest of the article probably won’t make much sense if you haven’t seen it.

That’s not at all what it was about. Instead, it’s about a trend I’d totally missed: one where photographers will use their cameras to capture what’s playing on their televisions, often producing an image that looks very different to the one originally broadcast. I reacted… strongly to both the concept and the video about it, immediately sending it to my coworker Abby Ferguson with the message: “not gonna lie, I don’t think I can get behind this.”

This kicked off a conversation that was interesting enough that we thought it’d be worth sharing with you. But first, a bit of background info for context: Abby has an MFA in fine arts, thus is more well-versed in art history and theory than I am. Meanwhile, I have a background in video, and have even filmed sports for television before.

This image by Matthew Johnson is one of the examples Hunter discusses in his video.

When I first shared the video Abby had, unsurprisingly, already heard of the controversy.

Abby: I remember when those photos of the figure skater came out. I also didn't realize at the time that he was just taking photos of his TV and was pretty disappointed. I have very, very mixed feelings about them.

I replied that two of Hunter’s comments got under my skin in particular: the first was his assertion that “neither you or I are qualified to say whether this is good art,” which both of us disagreed with. The second was when he said “The goal of sports broadcast television is not to be art, but these photos don’t have to be information-first, aesthetics second. If you think about it, I don’t think I would ever take a screenshot of ESPN, and put that on my wall.”

Mitchell: Spoken like someone who honestly hasn't watched a sports broadcast in the last… I dunno, decade. They're so well-produced now, and there's clearly artistic shots and compositions on display?

Related: Abby’s interview with a videographer for the Super Bowl Halftime show

Abby: I do kind of get what he's saying with that line actually. Yes, broadcasts do now have artistic shots and compositions, but they are still more in the realm of documentary/photojournalism. These photos (though I kind of have a hard time calling them photos), take a more abstract approach.

Mitchell: Sure. But if I took a screenshot from that and edited it to produce the same effect that the photographers have, I feel like people would rightly call that plagiarism.

I’m not entirely sure, in retrospect, that this statement holds water. It’s probably more defensiveness based on having been on the opposite side of the TV. Abby pointed out that things are rarely that clear cut.

Abby: Maybe…but in the art world there's a rough understanding that you can take someone's original art and modify it to become your own. There's never been a clear black and white line about HOW modified, so I think these would very much fall into the gray area. They don't look like the original broadcast, so they become something new.

I still have issues with it, but from a legal perspective, I'm not sure they would be considered plagiarism.

We both agreed that things get extra dubious when creators taking pictures of their TV try to obscure what they’re doing, or don’t credit the source. And neither of us thought that taking what is essentially a crop of an existing composition is the same as actually being there and deciding how to capture the scene.

Abby: It feels….lazy? Like he's just doing this from the comfort of his living room while the actual footage is from people working their butts off.

Mitchell: But yeah, to your point, there is an art to the remix

Abby: I like the images, I just wish his process was different. Do that on actual subjects in real life.

In his video, Hunter brings up the 1974 series “TV Shots” from famed photographer Harry Gruyaert, where he also took photographs of his television playing the Olympics, sparking a similar debate. But both Abby and I agreed that Gruyaert’s work just… feels different. There are a lot of potential reasons why. Maybe subconsciously we’re appealing to authority; surely it must be more meaningful when a Magnum photographer does it? Perhaps it’s framing. Gruyaert posed his images as an interrogation of the medium of television itself. Or maybe it’s simply technological. A film photo of a CRT television showing a standard definition broadcast with deliberately wonky colors looks nothing like a photo taken by someone who was actually there. With 4K livestreams, the lines between shots for TV and shots of it blur.

We more or less left the conversation there, as we remembered that we probably had more productive things to do. But it’s also easy to see why we wound up talking about a video that I had mostly sent as a throw-away: it, and the pieces it discuss, relate to a lot of hot-button topics in 2026. Ever since YouTuber HBomberGuy released his four-hour magnum opus on plagiarism, there’s been renewed scrutiny around crediting people’s work (further fueled by how many generative AI systems are trained on existing material), and there are still people who, during debates on what counts as art, bring up Marcel Duchamp submitting a signed urinal* for an exhibition in 1917.

That’s part of what made us decide to share this conversation; obviously, we have our own perspectives, but they’re not going to be the only ones. Consider this the start of a discussion, as we’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on the trend and Hunter’s video. Be sure to join us in the comments below.

* Whether he was the one that signed it is up for debate.

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