I was at a party last night. A 70th birthday celebration for somebody I’ve known since before I can remember. The birthday girl’s four grandchildren were there and she wanted a photograph of them all together. Of course, I’d not taken my camera - the same way the guy who worked in IT hadn’t taken his network server and the girl who made ceramics hadn’t taken her kiln. Naturally, I was asked where my camera was and I pointed out that every person there had a camera in their pocket the same way that I did and any one of them was capable of taking a family photograph. Looking back through our own family album there’s no more sentimental attachment to photos taken on my Grandad’s Voigtlander than there is to those taken on my Mum’s Kodak. In fact, I find family photos taken at an informal gathering by a ‘photographer’ less authentic - people are aware you’re a photographer and react differently. Nobody stands around at family get togethers where there isn’t a photographer in attendance wondering how the fuck they’re going to get any images of Uncle Bob. In the end the lady’s husband took the shot on his iPhone. Nobody will look back on that shot in another 70 years and lament that it wasn’t taken by a professional photographer on a professional camera.