There are huge benefits of everybody having mobile phones with cameras, but ……. these are training the human eye to expect every picture to be ‘like a photo’.
So - this is a rant on behalf of creativity!                            
A painting should offer viewers so much more than a mere click n point snapshot. It is a fruit of imagination, every pixel has been placed after thought about the composition, colours. It tells a story from the artist’s perspective, designed to trigger a reaction in the mind of the viewer.
BUT - back to the viewers’ expectations …… we all see hundreds of camera-images all the time. Our brains therefore expect pictures to look like those.

The opportunity this opens up is to deliberately and carefully create art that is NOT ‘like a photo’, for the difference to present the viewer with their first challenge - to pause and take a second look - ‘What is going on here?’
[footnote - I have nothing but admiration for photographers, and I cheerfully use a camera a lot. I am not trying to stop the inevitable rise of this tide, only saying that because of it, painted art needs to address a new challenge - the eye of the viewer.]

Many more people have viewed my art on their mobiles than have seen the real thing.

Much more art is sold online than from high street galleries.

Another challenge then - my paintings need to have ‘small screen appeal’ - I ask myself - how would this have changed the pattern of art in the past??

View across the Usk Valley at sunrise