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If you’re looking for a little inspiration as a photographer, Robert Clark’s cameraphone pictures are both motivating and humbling. Under the sponsorship of Sony Ericsson and American Photo, Clark is travelling around the country in a van, armed with a Sony Ericsson S710a, a 1.3-megapixel camera phone.

The Image America site is home to the project, displaying the latest pictures along with a Gallery chronicling his journey. Clark is a photographer with cred, published in National Geographic, Time, Sports Illustrated, and Vanity Fair, among other premiere publications, as well as recepient of a World Press Club award for his photographs of the 9/11 disaster. It’s no surprise that his images are graphic and evocative. What is surprising is his keen eye for capturing such impressive images of ordinary life—a lone figure crossing a street, a dog howling on a dock, a chair leaning against a wall on a sagging porch next to a sign reading ANOTHER HISTORIC HOME SAVED—with such a modest camera.

I recently bought a Motorola RAZR V3 phone, which has a camera, but my camera of choice is my Nikon D70. Yesterday I went to a dog show and snapped 43 pictures, most of them variations on an instant I was trying to capture, and I wasn’t very successful at that. It sounds like a lot of pictures, but I was there for a couple of hours, surrounded by hundreds of people and, at least according to the newspaper, some 1500 dogs. And I saw only a handful of opportunities to press the shutter. The hardest thing about photography is seeing. I’m sure that I could have easily filled my 1GB memory card, which holds about 175 RAW images, if I’d only opened my eyes. I took 171 pictures at the Butter and Eggs Days Parade. Some days are better than others.

Robert Clark’s simple, humble photographs are helping me to see.