Take Photo: iPhoneographer

Showing posts with label iPhoneographer. Show all posts

Monday, November 30, 2015

Featured at Susan Tuttle Photography Tap-In Series

Susan Tuttle has long been an artist, photographer and author I admire so you can imagine my delight when she asked if I would like to be featured as part of her Tap-In series at Susan Tuttle Photography! Today the post went live and I am thoroughly delighted to see it online. Susan's questions made me examine why I create and what part creativity plays in my life. Please click on the image below to read the article. A special thank you to Susan - what a fabulous way to end my year!

Painterly Mobile Artist - Aylin Argun

Monday's Painterly Mobile Artist feature normally includes just one image that the artist has selected. This week I was sent two images by artist Aylin Argun for me to choose from. It was so hard to choose only one, so I decided to include both of them. You may know Aylin by her Instagram name @xxfromneptune.

Please visit the Painterly Mobile Art Flickr group to see more from Aylin and all of the artists! Do you like to edit in a painterly style? Please join the group, we'd love to have you!

The Works

This Witch is About to Fly © Aylin Argun

Kirke © Aylin Argun

The Artist

Aylin Argun - I live in İstanbul, Turkey I attended basic photography education and dark room seminars in 2005 at AFSAD (Ankara association of photographic artists). AFSAD is one of Turkey’s most prominent photographic training centers. I’ve been working on iPhone photography, editing and photographing via my iPhone for over two years. Along with black and white photographic works, I have been creating painterly photography with an emphasis on autobiography.

Aylin's Commentary

This Witch is About to Fly: A witch who can fly thanks to her red shoes. I took this photo with camera and self-timer. I turned it into a pictorial photograph on ArtRage. With paint tube, I added some red paint; I spread the paint as I wished with the help of the palette knife which I use frequently; sometimes using the Smearing Edge and sometimes Basic Palette Knife. After that, I added texture on the photo via ScratchCam.

Kirke: Kirke is a magician goddess in Greek Mythology (She was renowned for her vast knowledge of drugs and herbs. Through the use of magical potions and a wand, she transformed her enemies, or those who offender her, into animals. She was a minor goddess of magic or sometimes a nymph, witch, enchantress or sorceress.) I used only ArtRage and Snapseed for this photo; I created the brush effect via Palette Knife on ArtRage and I exercised contrast and brightness control on Snapseed.

Find Aylin: Website / Facebook / Flickr / Instagram / iphoneart / EyeEm / AMPt

Links to apps mentioned:

ArtRage
ScratchCam FX
Snapseed

Robin Robertis - Featured iPhone Photographer

Little did I realize when I attended the L.A. Mobile Arts Festival in 2012 that I would end up interviewing some of the featured artists one day for Art of Mob. It was that event and the work of the many talented photographers that pointed me in the direction of mobile photography. I am pleased and honored that Robin Robertis took the time to answer some questions about her life and her work.

What is your name and where do you live?

RR: My name is Robin Robertis and I live in a wonderful beach town called Encinitas in California.

How did you get started in mobile photography?

RR: I was working with Photoshop, my friend and Photoshop guru, Jack Davis brought over the first generation iPhone and said I had to get it...and so I did.

Do you have a traditional photography or art background?

RR: Nothing traditional about me. I never went to college and just signed up for art classes of all types here and there. My works have included so many different types of media including: encaustic, bronze, oil, and collage. I learned Photoshop before I ever really picked up a camera, because I could collage images and art that I created in a 2 or 3D form. I was never a photographer, but just hung out with them. I wanted to be a painter, but it’s not my strong suit. So I am really enjoying combining what I have learned and using the iPhone and apps to create my finished work.

Who or what inspires you?

RR:
What : People the most, flora, water, and my travels

Who : My my portrait painting teacher Vanessa Lemen. She has had a great deal of influence on my work, inspirationally and I carry over the techniques that she taught me in painting in my photographic work.

My friend Karen Daspit who shoots fine art flora. The most amazing work to me, which I connected with instantly.

I also grew up on the ocean, and was a swimmer and diver in my early years. My father still surfs, so I have a big love of underwater photography and have been experimenting with my iPhone underwater case by Optrix. I'm honored to have a featured shot on their Instagram site a couple of times. My Pinterest page has links to some of my favorites artists.

Do you plan your shoots with an end in mind or do you shoot and decide later as you edit?

RR: Sometimes if I’m shooting in the pool, but most of the time not. I’m a heavy editor, basically because I shoot fast and I try and cover up a lot for lack of my photographic skills. I'm very ADD, so I’m all over the place. I shoot with two iPhones. I will shoot the same thing in lots of different apps, and filters and then see what turns outs.

I love your new series of floral images on black backgrounds. Can you share a bit about the shooting and editing process?

RR: I live in a tree house type flat that is floor to ceiling windows. It's my fire place in the afternoon light, serves as sort of a natural black light box.

What are your favorite apps for editing?

RR:
1. Snapseed. I do all my basic editing here. I love that they have a paste feature. My workflow is usually Crop, Automatic, Tune, Detail, and Selective Adjust tool (which is my all-time fave!). I also like the HDR feature, and my long-time favorite is Grunge. The Frames are tasteful, though I like PhotoToaster's frames the best.

2. TouchRetouch. I touch up all the spots and obvious flaws.

3. I have also been liking AntiCrop, along with Handy Photo's Magic Crop. I often extend the canvas and re-crop for Instagram.

4. Adobe Photoshop Express is my new favorite app for its presets, replacing PhotoToaster, my former favorite. The sharpen and reduce noise feature rivals that of Noiseware.

5. Blender and Filterstorm

I first saw your work at the L.A. Mobile Arts Festival in 2012. Has your work been exhibited elsewhere?

RR: Yes, quite a few places - you can find a Pinterest board here that includes all of my published iPhoneography.

Have you ever sold your work? If not, any plans for the future?

RR: Yes, I have. I also do commission work. I was commissioned last year by Emmy Award winner composer Larry Groupe to shoot the cover of his original scores CD using my iPhone and am a signed artist with a book cover publishing company. I was lucky enough to get two covers this year for Mobiography. I currently have some work at The Empty Spaces Project - Putnam, CT. Also, recently I had three pieces in the Pocket Vistas exhibit in Ontario, Canada, the New Era Museum Kansas City as well as New York and Toronto galleries.

Mobiography Magazine Featuring Robin Robertis

What advice would you give mobile photographers just starting out?

RR: Shoot what you love, your everyday. Experiment...Take that unexpected angle. I’ve been told the best camera is the one you have with you, and it's digital! For those of us who are old enough to remember film, let go of the old instinct of holding back and shoot, shoot, shoot. Connect with iPhoneography groups on Flickr, Instagram and Facebook and share with your fellow artists.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

RR: I am so excited to be in this group of new cutting edge artists. It's so exciting to me, and I can’t help but wonder what the artists of the Modernist, Dada and Surrealist movements would have done with this this medium.

Find Robin: Website / Instagram / Flickr / Pinterest / Facebook

Apps & Equipment Mentioned:
Optrix
Snapseed
TouchRetouch
Handy Photo
AntiCrop
Adobe Photoshop Express
PhotoToaster
Noiseware

Pixite has come up with some really inventive apps. Most mobile photographers are familiar with Tangent, Fragment. LoryStripes, Matter and Union. I'm very excited to be able to give away TEN promo codes for Union app. Special thanks to Ben at Pixite who so generously provided the promo codes for this giveaway.

What is Union?

Union ($1.99 on the App Store) enables you to make multiple photo compositions. With the various blending modes and masking capabilities you can create superimposed, silhouetted and double exposure images.

From within Union you can export your image to Tangent, Matter, LoryStripes and Fragment. This makes the transition easy to begin your edit in one app and continue in another Pixite app.

Below is a tutorial by award-winning mobile photographer, Brandon Kidwell. Brandon is known for his double-exposure imagery.

Here's another image Brandon created using Union. Click on the image to visit Brandon's website and see the step by step tutorial.

You are definitely going to want Union in your mobile photography toolbox. Sign up below by leaving a comment. Ten winners will be chosen at random on Sunday, August 31, 2014 at 9:00 a.m. PDT. Good Luck!

UPDATE August 31, 2014 : Congrats to the winners chosen by Random Number Generator
Petyr Campos
Kachouro
Marcia Dimberger
Ahmed Shaaban
Marilyn
Nico
Helge Jorgensen
Roxi Hardegree
Faastwalker
Jane Fiala

Add to Flipboard Magazine.

The Whole Story - Photo by Dionisis Kosmatos

This week in the U.S. we are celebrating Thanksgiving. This is a holiday that tends to focus around food, family and football. Since family plays a HUGE part of this holiday, I think it's appropriate to feature this wonderful image by Dionisis Kosmatos and share The Whole Story behind it.

For a chance to be featured just tag your Instagram mobile photos with the hashtag #the_whole_story.

The Photograph

The Whole Story by Dionisis Kosmatos

This is my mother in the kitchen of my family house. She suffers from Parkinson's disease and because of this, it is very difficult for her to move. The only thing she does everyday for the whole day is knitting. And she does it with persistence and patience as it's very difficult to make the fine moves that knitting needs. It hurts me when I look at her because she was a very strong and active woman, the person that could solve every problem in short time and effectively. And now she struggles to do things that we take for granted such as to speak or eat. When I look at her I am thinking what she thinks, what she feels, how much patience she has.....

All I know is that she is my hero because despite all these difficulties she struggles to do the only thing that maybe reminds her of the good old days.

The Photographer

Dionisis Kosmatos- I was born in Kefalonia in 1971, a small Greek island but now I live in Athens, where I work in a hospital. I study interior architecture and design by distance learning. I love cinema, reading, painting and of course photography, especially black and white.

As regards to my relationship with photography, I have always liked it. I still remember when my father gave me my first camera which he had found, and wanted to learn more. So around 2003, I took lessons in black and white photography for 8 months, of course I'm talking about analogue photography. The most important thing I learned wasn't the technical issues but the fact I was introduced to the masters of photography such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Arbus, Atget, Evans, Frank, Kertesz, Lange, Winogrand and so many others. After the end of lessons, I used to take pictures with a Pentax camera but the cost of development was too high and I stopped until I bought my iPhone4 two years ago. All photos are taken on iPhone and edited with Snapseed.

Apps Mentioned:

Snapseed

Find Dionisis: Instagram

Featured Mobile Photographer - Nico Brons

Chances are if you are reading this interview, it is because you are an iPhoneography buff. Whether you are just beginning, or an advanced artist, this form of expression has captured your attention. One of the people who ignited that interest for me is Nico Brons. It is therefore a huge honor for me to present this feature which explores his work and process.

Help Me Feel Alright © Nico Brons

G: What is your name and where do you live?

N: My name is Nico Brons and I live in Amersfoort, the Netherlands. Amersfoort is a nice town in the middle of the country. On Instagram you can see some images from this beautiful city with hashtag #amersfoort_nico.

G: How did you get started with mobile photography?

N: In early 2009, I saw some websites (flickr) with incredible images. I could not believe they were made by an iPhone. But they were! From that moment on I wanted to make such images too. I bought an iPhone 3Gs and started with smartphone photography. You can also make calls with it, but I used it more for photography!

Back to Black © Nico Brons

Children of the Night © Nico Brons

G: What device do you use?

N: I started with an iPhone 3Gs, but since December 2012 I work with an iPhone 5.

G: Do you have a traditional photography or art background?

N: I started with photography when I was about 17 years old. I lived near a military airfield and I was photographing airplanes. Nothing spectacular or with art in mind. Later on, I used my camera mostly for holidays and family. In 2004, came a great change in my photography and in my life. I bought a little digital camera, an HP 935. From that moment on I could manipulate my images in an easy way and I discovered a completely new world. Later I upgraded to a Nikon D70, D80 and I now work with a Nikon D700.

I have no art background, but it looks I had some little talent. Now I’am a professional photographer and I work for companies and individuals. My mainstream is photographing people. In February 2011, I begun studying photography at the photo academy in Amsterdam and hope to graduate in December 2013. For some assignments at the academy I used my iPhone and they were well received by the teachers. It is the image what counts and not the equipment.

Egg Mania © Nico Brons

Pacific Standard © Nico Brons

G: Who or what inspires your work?

N: I get inspired by many things, but mostly by music, books, movies, painters and other artists. I will mention some examples:

Music; Tom Waits, Black Keys, Nick Cave, Rammstein and many many others.

Books: for example Marvel Comics and other comic books.

Movies: Science Fiction and animation movies. (like Pixar movies)

Painters and artists: Salvador Dali, Rene Margritte, James Ensor, Max Ernst, Picaso and others.

Photographers: Joel Peter Witkin, Roger Ballen, Ed van der Elsken, Robert Frank, Robert Mapplethorpe, Anton Corbijn and many others.

Inemokh © Nico Brons

Nobody Knows 01 © Nico Brons

Nobody Knows 02 © Nico Brons

Nobody Knows 03 © Nico Brons

G: Do you shoot with the native camera app on your phone?

N: I shoot a lot with the native camera. For a few months I have also been shooting with an Olloclip. In addition, I use Hipstamatic, SlowShutter, Kitcam. Mostly the native camera is enough for me and my second choice is Hipstamatic.

G: Do you plan your shoots with a specific idea in mind?

N: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If I work on a series, then I do have a specific idea. Also for individual images I sometimes have a plan in mind. The best ideas I get at night when I cannot sleep. But I love to experiment and then I let myself be guided by the moment of time and place. I let go and edit what comes to mind. Often I work intuitively. I can work for hours or even days at one image. It must be perfect for me and there I fail a lot. I try everything out, which keeps me inspired.

Pim © Nico Brons

Still Life - Vase © Nico Brons

G: Your work includes everything from rich, textured landscapes to abstract portraits. Is there a particular style you prefer?

N: That’s a little problem, I do sometimes do too many different things. At the photo academy in Amsterdam, the teachers warned me about this. I am drawn to many styles. But I love photographing people the most and for my iPhone work I focus mainly on abstract portraits.. As said earlier: my mainstream is photographing people.

G: Do you begin editing a piece with the end in mind or does it evolve as you work with it?

N: I love to experiment and let my intuition do the work. Most of the time I let my subconscious mind guide me. Sometimes it's have and half. For example, the project “The Eye” is partly idea and partly experiment and intuition Sometimes I have a end result in mind, but the finished piece can be very different from my original idea.

The Eye © Nico Brons

The Big Mouth © Nico Brons

G: What are you favorite apps for editing or shooting?

N: My favorite shooting apps are the native camera with Olloclip and Hipstamatic. Besides them I use some other apps - SlowShutter and some others. When it comes to editing, well that's another story! I mix many apps together. I try them all in a manner of speaking. There are a lot of photographic apps on my iPhone. But there are a few workhorses to mention:

Filterstorm
Snapseed
DynamicLight
Image Blender
Moku HD
Photocopier
Mextures

The Road to Mrs. Johnson © Nico Brons

The Woman With...© Nico Brons

G: I discovered your work while visiting The Mobile Arts Festival Los Angeles in 2012. The particular piece that caught my eye was "Rosa". Have you exhibited your work elsewhere?

N: “Rosa” is a real woman and many people like the editing I have done on that piece. I feel honored you like the image too. I had four pieces at the Mobile Arts Festival in Los Angeles. I got good reviews on “The Ballerina”, also part of the exhibition. I have had exhibitions with iPhone Art in the Netherlands and Belgium. In my hometown, Amersfoort in 2012 there was a great photo festival and I was there with 50 iPhone images for a few weeks. I am pleased to say that it was a great success. In 2013, I had an exhibition in Ieper, Belgium. At this moment I have ten iPhone works on A2 format in a design shop in my hometown.

G: I am honored that you would give us an exclusive first look at your new series The End (below). What is the meaning behind this series?

N: It is about a vision of the End of the World after an atomic bomb. All buildings are destroyed and there are no people anymore. It is a view of a nightmare from me. I hate war and violence. It scares me. There is a lot of misery int he world right now - many people are very intolerant of one another. My worries and fears are the influence behind this series. There are a total of six images - three are shown here.

G: Anything else you'd like to add?

N: I want to thank all the lovely people who visit my work on the internet and I want to thank you all for all the lovely comments and likes. From my side I see a lot of great great work from other iPhone artists. I can not mention them all as there are too many and I would not forgive myself if I forgot to mention one! And finally I will thank Geri Centonze for asking me to do this interview.

Find Nico: iPhone Work / Non iPhone Work / Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / iphoneart / Flickr / pixelsatanexhibition (search Nico Brons)

All images in this feature are copyrighted property of Nico Brons published on iART CHRONiCLES with the consent of the artist.

What is your name and where do you live?

JJ: My name is Jerzy Jachym. I live and work in Przeworsk, a small town in southeastern Poland.

How did you get started in mobile photography? What device do you use?

JJ: I began my mobile photography adventure a year ago. In December 2013 I won a smartphone on a television contest. I had a lot of free time since I had just lost my job, so I was able to do a lot of photography. For a few months I used the HTC One. Currently, I use only the iPhone 5s to photography and the iPad Air to edit.

Do you have a traditional photography or art background?

JJ: From my school days, I was interested in photography. I photographed my family a lot. I've never had any formal training as a photographer and learned from the internet and magazines.

Who or what inspires you?

JJ: I'm interested in creative photography, surrealism, photography black and white, street photography, portraits and reportage. I love the work of Jason Peterson, Tomasz Tomaszewski, Tomasz Gudzowaty, Anton Corbijn and recently Vivian Maier.

Do you plan your shoots with an end in mind or do you shoot and decide later as you edit?

JJ: I try to shoot every day. I take a lot of pictures, many of them get rejected from the very beginning. Others I keep to edit later. I try to observe the surroundings, looking for interesting subjects and objects.

I really love your latest series of images with the light bulbs! Please share a bit about the process you use to edit them.

JJ: A lot of my work is graphic design. An example is the series of works with incandescent bulbs. The main app used for this series was Adobe Photoshop Touch. I also used the application: Union, Snapseed and Repix. The bulbs are very beautiful objects and I imagined that each may be a separate, closed world. Every one has its own distinct history.

What photo are you most proud of and why?

JJ: My favorite photograph shows the silhouette of a man walking behind his shadow. This was created quite by accident and exemplifies both my interest in street photography and the possibilities offered with editing. Photography, which I like very much is showing the silhouette of a man walking behind his shadow.

What is your favorite app?
JJ: My favorite application is "Union". It is a very good tool to work with multiple layers (also transparent). Particularly important is the fact that the results are high resolution. Using "Union" can create a combination of multiple images, create photo double exposures. You can also remove unnecessary background. I really enjoy working with this application.

Have you ever sold or exhibited your work? If not, any plans for the future?

JJ: I try to present my work on the Internet at many sites, including those where you can buy them and have also participated in many competitions. I am interested in new applications and am always looking for reviews of the latest. Along with posting my work on social sites, I also run a photo blog at Tumblr.

What advice would you give mobile photographers just starting out?

JJ: To all those who are beginning to take photos, remember that a good photography does not have to be taken with a very expensive and a professional camera. The most important thing is the joy and satisfaction we receive from doing what we love!

Find Jerzy: Tumblr / Twitter / Flickr / EyeEm / Instagram / Facebook / 500px

Apps Mentioned:
Adobe Photoshop Touch
Union
Snapseed
Repix

Take Photo

Monday, November 30, 2015

Featured at Susan Tuttle Photography Tap-In Series

Painterly Mobile Artist - Aylin Argun

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Robin Robertis - Featured iPhone Photographer

Union App Giveaway!

Friday, November 27, 2015

The Whole Story - Photo by Dionisis Kosmatos

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Featured Mobile Photographer - Nico Brons

Jerzy Jachym - Featured Mobile Photographer