Beautiful pics with an iPhone?

A friend of mine on Flickr takes some really nice pics all with her iphone. I recommended she invest in a dslr but she says she's content with her phone.

Just wondering, are there examples of photographers taking award winning pics with a camera phone?

What about anyone making a living from photography using only a camera phone?

Lastly, could you produce pics of the SAME quality using only a smartphone?

You can get some great photos with a phone, but the overall quality will never match that of a DSLR. The reason is that you don't have as much flexibility with a phone as you would with a DSLR. You can't control settings like ISO, aperture and shutter speed on your phone. Plus, when you start wanting to make prints of your photos, you'll realize the phone images may be too small to blow up big enough without losing quality. Blown up, your phone images will look grainer than they would had they been taken with a DSLR.

I've seen one person take very nice pictures with their cell phone camera. Since she is a trained photographer, she knows about lighting and composition. If the images were blown up beyond a small cell phone screen, the quality limitations of the phone camera would show.

Usually, cell phone pics are viewed on the cell phone. On a small screen, the images can look very nice. On a 24" computer screen, you'll see technical issues related to the limitations of a tiny sensor and the lens.

I will skip to your last question. NO, it is NOT in any way shape or form possible to produce the same quality with a phone as with a DSLR. Problem is, so many people have become so accustomed to accepting mediocre, or worse, photography, that now the phone photos have become "good enough". Quality, art, and skill are all words that are becoming more and more of a distant memory as concerns photography.

No phone can match a real camera unless you are attaching a 5 inch lens on your phone. You can't take good pics but matching a real camera is not possible. Most don't care about that though.

It is the consensus of most experienced fotogs that cell 'phone cameras can't match the quality of a DSLR, and with good reason, based on the limitations of cell 'phone cameras and small resolution capacity. But, any experienced fotog can take better images, because they would use the "camera" and work within the confines of its limitations… But, bear in mind that one limitation would be, "how large" the photo can be enlarged. Of course, given the tiny screen of the cell 'phone and the image is back-lighted on the tiny screen, it will look great, since the pixels are packed closely together IN the tiny screen but won't be as sharp and crisp once enlarged and printed. Cell 'phone photos are meant for viewing in a relatively small format, that's a "given," and there's very little that can be done. But in terms of comparing a well-taken cell 'phone photo compared with an equally well-taken photo with a bridge camera, or a point-and-shoot or DSLR (all things being equal, like the fotog's command of photography experience and know-how), the photo taken with even a bridge camera, or a relatively good point-and-shoot camera) will be far superior to the photo taken with the best cell 'phone camera. But cell 'phone cameras do have their place for the general public taking snaps and photographing emergency situations where a DSLR, a bridge camera and a point-and-shoot are not available or feasible to take out to use.