Can I practice photography on my iPhone?

I have been thinking about photography lately. I'm 16 and I'm going to be a junior this year in high school and I really am interested in going to school for photography. I'd like to do senior pictures, kids pictures, weddings maybe, maybe some landscapings to sell. I'd like to do a variety of things

I don't have a camera right now and I don't have enough money to get one yet. (Plan on saving up). I have an iPhone and editor app. Could that work? Like for now

As good as the iphone camera is (and it is really good, video is 1080), I don't see how they could ever match a real camera as you need the big lens for zooming and filters (not digital zooming which is worthless).

Of course you can! Get a light meter app and research ISO, shutter speed and aperture! Keep going photography is awesome! I'm 17 and already won my first contest.

If you want to control the technical elements of the image -- things like shutter speed, aperture, depth of field, focus, etc. -- then iphone is not adequate. But Andy Warhol defined a good photograph as "a picture of a famous person that's in focus," so he used auto-everything point-and-shoot film cameras -- the equivalent of your iphone. Fashion photographer, Terry Richardson used POS cameras, too.

You could certainly start with the iPhone, and in a way it's one of the best things you could do. The limits imposed by the iPhone will really, really force you to think about the important things, especially composition. You won't be fiddling around with lots of functions such as they have on DSLRs (these functions do all serve an important purpose, but until you get to a certain level of skill they are not much use to you). Using the iPhone you won't necessarily get the most amazing shots from a technical point of view, but you will start learning to SEE, and that's where the best photos come from.

If you can learn to live with the occasional frustration that the iPhone will almost certainly throw at you, it could be a very good way to learn about the fundamentals of seeing in a photographic way.