Organizer Karen Jones said she wanted to get away from the chestnuts, like selfies and pictures of pets, kids and sunsets, when curating a local photography exhibition exclusively composed of smartphone images. She wanted iPhoneographers to experiment with what they could do differently with emerging image-capturing technologies, apps and filters.

The roughly 60 photos she collected in this process — by 32 local artists, ranging in credentials from accomplished pros to first-time exhibitors — instead mostly focus on unusual angles and unconventional perspectives of landscapes and nature, close-ups and still lifes. This “Phone Camera Photos 2016” exhibit, on display through Jan. 30 at The ARTS at Marks Garage, shows the smartphone image as a potential piece of artwork, rather than simply a social-media throwaway.

“Some people like to say, ‘If I only had this lens or this camera, I’d be a good photographer,’ but with a smartphone you have the camera, and you are carrying it around with you all of the time,” Jones said. “The phone camera forces you to see a photo, not so much rely on the gadget. And to take the photo is a very simple thing to do; tap one button and you’ve got it.”

Digital photography and smartphones have dramatically changed the camera industry and photo-taking activities since 2000, when Kodak released its annual report boasting of a record number of photographs being taken in that year (80 billion). Five years later digital cameras almost completely had replaced film cameras. Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012, in the middle of a five-year run during which digital cameras suffered a similarly precipitous decline as smartphones increased exponentially.

People around the world are not taking fewer pictures, though, according to statistics compiled by market researchers at InfoTrends. Photo-taking actually has increased more than 900 percent since that film-apex Kodak report, with an estimated 1 trillion images captured in 2015. What people are doing is using traditional cameras less and instead relying on the convenience and ever-increasing quality of smartphone cameras.

Can these images, though, be considered artistic, made from a fine-arts perspective? That is the challenge Jones and the other participants in this show hope to address, by printing their work, framing it and hanging it on gallery walls.

One artist chose to use pushpins as the frame to maintain an informal aesthetic. Another printed an image on aluminum to give durability to the work. Others found funky frames at secondhand stores to add additional layers of mediated complexity to the displays.

Contributors — including Franco Salmoiraghi, Ryan Kawamoto, James Charisma, Jeanne Viggiano and Rae Huo — range widely in experience and background. Some are professional photographers and designers; some just love to make smartphone photos.

Huo, a commercial photography graduate from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., who has a studio in Kakaako, said anyone now can become an artist, photographer and designer.

“Art is everywhere, and people get to explore things they never thought they could,” she said. “The technology has made it possible for the average person to explore creativity.”

Along that same vein, Huo said, many people now think of themselves as participants in the arts, leading to a flood of ideas and imagery in circulation. This phenomenon makes it harder and harder for those trying to make a living in the field to distinguish themselves. She has noticed, for example, clients in recent years becoming emboldened on the set, taking their own smartphone images, interjecting their ideas about the composition of the shots and even suggesting alternative camera angles.

“Because of the tech, it has become so easy to get involved,” she said. “This puts all of us under more pressure to deliver something that is super unreachable for the average human with a phone. But it’s not the camera that creates that image. It’s not the lens that you use. The artist is in us. That cannot be overridden by tech. It’s the person that matters.”

Huo said she uses her smartphone for checking technical issues on a set, like lighting and for shadows, as she once used Polaroid images. She also can share the photos instantaneously with off-site clients during a shoot, so they can give feedback during the process.

She enjoys using the smartphone for personal photos, some of which she shares in the camera-phone show show this month.

“Overall, I think smartphone cameras have enriched my life as an artist,” she said. “It’s so much more fun to create an image now. It’s in the moment. It’s so convenient.”