California dreaming: Igor Simkin and the art of iPhone photography

Swapping his camera for an iPhone, St Petersburg photographer Igor Simkin captures his recent California road trip in all of its lo-fi glory. Travelling from San Francisco to Los Angeles via Monterrey and Santa Barbara, he took shots filled with symbols of Americana — baseball bats, hot dog stands, the Golden Gate bridge — in a deliberate nod to the work of US photographers William Egglestone and Stephen Shore, two of his idols. “In these typical motels, wide streets and landscapes I was looking for something that they might capture. For me it was important to touch this mundane world of the photographers I admire,” Simkin told The Calvert Journal. Fascinated by the interplay of shadow and light, Simkin found California to be the perfect subject and the iPhone — the perfect tool. “The sun rises early,” he says, “the light changes throughout the day and the shadows allow you to find different ways of discovering ordinary objects.”

Text: Anastasiia Fedorova

Image: Igor Simkin