LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers are playing the Boston Celtics in the second round of the NBA Playoffs as I write this.  LeBron accepted his second straight MVP award before the game.  Every since I spent an amazing few days in Akron last summer, I can’t watch LeBron James play basketball without having my mind wander back to some of the spots we visited, and the stories we were told.  I’m from Boston and a Celtics fan through and through, but LeBron’s story is impressive, and sticks with you. I’ve relinked what I wrote last August below.

The Hills Of Akron — August 2009

I’m not sure what the current art world/political feelings are about Banksy, and I don’t really care. I always like his work. It’s funny, creative, and clever—and it usually makes a point. I was in L.A. earlier this week when I saw that some new pieces had popped up in advance of his film premiere. I had the afternoon free, so I grabbed my camera, did a bit of location research, and hit the road.

I was excited to coincidentally be in town to see this. I happened to be in New York in the fall of ’08 when the Village Pet Store, and other large pieces, were on display as well, so I’ve been lucky in the timing department.

So much of Banksy’s stuff gets defaced, stolen, or damaged, that I wanted to snap some shots as soon as I could. There’s something fun about going on a little hunt for street art like this. You have an address and a general description (La Brea and 4th, behind a fence), but that’s all. It’s a bit of a thrill to be walking down a block, looking around every corner, and suddenly spot what you’re looking for. My ever-patient wife—who has become a fan in her own right after seeing the NY stuff a few years ago—came along with me, snapping her own action shots along the way.

The Guard piece on La Brea was on a wall in a nondescript, under construction building surrounded by used car dealerships. It was behind a fence, and there was a security guard walking around the empty space, and sitting in his car. (You know, it would be pretty funny if that was actually Banksy in there in disguise—I always wonder about stuff like that.) Other than that carload of Japanese hipsters that pulled up and snapped some photos with their phones, no one else seemed to pay any attention.

The “Park” piece was on a brick wall behind a parking lot in downtown L.A. (near the theater where the premiere was held, I believe). Again, I knew the general area, but still had a jolt of excitement at spotting it. It’s odd/fun feeling to stand and get excited about something on a wall that thousands of people an hour walk by, most not noticing, almost all not caring.

Forty-eight hours later I’m back on the other side of the country and I see that the La Brea Guard piece is gone (look at the before and after) and surrounded in controversy. I’m glad I was in the right place at the right time, because it was a fun way to spend an afternoon.

I was taking a train from New York to back to Boston recently, and—as I usually do when I am coming home from a trip—I started flicking through the photos that I had taken on my iPhone.  I’ve never stopped to give it a lot of thought, but this had become common procedure for me.  Suddenly I realized that with all of the SLRs and Point & Shoots and Flips that I tend to carry around, the images on my iPhone actually tell the truest story of what I’ve been doing.  Thumbing through my iPhone cameraroll is an accurate re-telling of what’s been happening in my life on a day-to-day basis.

I’ve always liked the camera in the iPhone, and have been relatively happy with the results that you can get from it, but I hadn’t stopped to think much about the role it was playing.  I enjoy taking photos, and I have a lot of fun doing so.  Still, with an SLR, and even a Point & Shoot, I spend more time thinking about the shot—how it’s framed, are the settings correct, etc.  With the iPhone camera you take the shot.  Maybe it comes out, maybe it doesn’t.  There’s a charm to that.

It also leads to a lot of shots that you may not stop to take with another camera: a sign at the airport, the cup of coffee you just ordered, a funny bumper sticker.  I used to keep boxes of old ticket stubs from concerts and movies, but now I take a photo of the movie poster as I’m walking into the theater, or the marquee outside of a show.  It makes a nice timeline.  I also takes tons of photos of food.  I probably have a photo of every meal I’ve eaten in a decent restaurant in the past year (much to my wife’s delight).

And it’s not just photos, it’s screenshots too.  A funny text or Twitter.  Something cool I see online.  A map of a trip.  It all gets dumped into the photoroll without much thought, but afterwards they become pieces of a puzzle that are easy to put back together.

You don’t have to read a lot about photography to see the oft-repeated phrase “The best camera is the one that’s with you.” While this has always been true, when I stop to think about it with regards to the iPhone, it’s incredible.  In the roughly two years that I’ve had this phone, I don’t think it’s ever been more than 30 seconds away from me. Seriously.  It’s usually in my pocket.  Sometimes it may be upstairs when I’m downstairs, but that’s about it.  I don’t go out of the house without it.  I don’t leave it home when I go somewhere.  It’s literally with me everywhere, and as result, I have photos of things that I may have never captured with a regular camera.

I’ve never kept a journal.  I have a website/blog/Tumblr dealy.  I have a Flickr photostream.  I have this column.  These are all outlets for sharing specific information that I choose.  I put at least a small amount of thought into everything I post on these sites.  I take a certain amount of pride in it all.

And yet I can sit, as I often do, and look at all the photos on my phone and feel like I’m watching the story of my own life.  As mundane as it sometimes is, I never get tired of it.