Curated by Mike H. 

To see previous 1000 Words from IPA.

Prisoner Of Herself… by Wladmir Dal bo
IPA // IG // Facebook // Email

I did some photos of a friend sitting on the floor of the room in different positions and selected two of them for editing. My inspiration came from a dear person in my family who was in a difficult situation, reprimanded feelings, actions and emotions. Then, using the APP Juxtaposer I did an overlap of the two images and brightened the photo with the Snapseed APP. Using the App superimpose and the overlay made from the roots of the woman, I then used the Juxtaposer app again to erase unwanted areas. With the photo ready I used Snapseed again to improve brightness and contrast and finally used the APP VSCO cam to finalize it.

Amerikan Gothic by Joel Adam
IPA // Flickr // Eye’Em // Backspaces
This story on Backspaces

I feel restless. In an attempt to conquer the hungry, gnawing grip of restlessness, do we attempt to fill our time with things that don’t matter, because we’re afraid of what we’d do under its spell if they did matter?

Restlessness can be dangerous. We try to shake it off by turning to new pursuits or reexamining old distractions, but perhaps it’s the current that is really demanding examination. Clear and purposeful acts require forethought, planning and if undertaken during brief periods of restlessness could lead to regrets. Like a good book, I have trouble setting my regrets aside. I cling to them. I worry them as if my tongue caressing a sore in my mouth, a slight combination of pleasure and pain.

Restless actions lead to regrets which can lead to sleepless nights.
Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night, heart pounding. I dream of wild animals, murderers, death. I wake up and call out for you. It means I still need you. Need your arms around me. Reassurance, reminiscing, rewind… If I think of someone else, does that mean you do too? Is assuming you don’t like hiding somewhere where I can’t see you and assuming you can’t see me? If you find me, does that mean you’re overwhelmed with images of others? No one concrete, just random images of someone who can make you happier.

I want to box up all my fears, regrets and this damn cold restlessness. I want to box them all up and give them to you. Let you examine each jagged piece of my puzzle and attempt to reassemble me, but I know I’ll never be truly whole again. My biggest fear and what would end up being my greatest regret is letting you see my darkness.

Tonight I’m going to bury that box in the ground, deep down where you’ll never discover it. Keeping it buried means I can keep you, and keeping you keeps me sane.

Unmasked by Lee Thatcher
IPA // Flickr // Website // Eye’Em // Tumblr // Google+ // IG // Juxt

This was shot with Hueless and I used FocalLab, SwankoLab, Snapseed and Infinicam for processing.

No big story really, the picture was taken of my daughter as she was dressed in a skeleton outfit. It wasn’t Halloween or anything, she just likes dressing up, she’s 4, it what she does.

They Walk Among Themselves by Brett Chenoweth

IPA // Flickr // Website // Eye’Em // Email

This was initially a slow shutter pic that I took on the fly on my way to get my daughter from school. When I looked at it on my iPad I felt an immediate haunt to the photo, bringing me  back to some of the street work of Bill Brandt,  I  knew that I wanted to get an offset double image to nail down what I felt. First I took it into Snapseed to crop it to what I thought was essential and make it square. While in Snapseed I experimented with possibilities until I got a grungy washed out feel. Then I took it into Procreate, duplicated and offset the photo erasing everything but the figures in the duplicate image. Then I played with light brushes and color and added some noise. Not satisfied I took the image into BW Lab and added more noise. it felt better black and white, but needed more push. So I put it  into Dynamic BW. Now I was close. I just need to push the dark and grunge factor some. Scratchcam scratch filter finally did the trick.

Little Angel by Ana Cuk
IPA // IG

This beautiful little angel I photographed last year at the beach ..
I used snapseed to crop 1:1, grunge effect to get scratches and blur, center focus to get the light, and VSCO filter to get the color. Simple edit for simple childish beauty:)

Mr. Soul by Sacha Dohmen
IPA // Flickr // Eye’Em // Facebook // OGGL: maktub

I took this one on the Cathedral Square in Cologne, a fantastic place for street photography. I heard him before I saw him, a warm soulful sound. It would have been a crime not to try to capture the intensity of his being. I took the original shot with Hipstamatic Lucifer VI & Claunch 72 Monochrome, then isolating the subject with BigLens, PhotoToaster and ScratchCam and Blender for the texture, b&w in Filterstorm, a frame from Lo-Mob and finally the title with Type-Writer.

Call Me? by Victoria Thornhill aka Asherton at iPA
IPA

Someone on Tumblr reblogged this piece accompanied by a quote that read, ”True evil always starts from pure innocence.” And I was like wtf?! When I did a search, I found that the reblogger had exaggerated a bit as the actual quote is, ”All things truly wicked, start from an innocence.”
~Ernest Hemingway.

Either way, it made me feel bad for my little guy.
At my home base – IPA, he stirred up the same sort of feelings. Lots of comments using the word “eerie”, and mentioning being ”creeped out”. I have to laugh because when I was working on him I felt a little weirded out (more than a few times) myself!
I created him as a character to represent how: In this life, we have all – felt like a clown – and alone -and strange- or afraid. But sometimes, somehow, through the fear, or in spite of the fear, we will reach out to someone special…we have all done that… And then we wait, hoping we aren’t left alone there in the dark.

Anyway, that is what I wanted people to see. I really fell in love with my little clown along the way! And you know what? Thinking about all this right now brings to mind another quote. ”There is no truth, there is only perception.” ~ Gustave Flaubert

So everyone is right:)

Using the Windows phone has been an interesting challenge for me. I went into this with an open mind, the same way as I would going from one camera to the next back in my film photography days. After all, that’s what it was to me more than a phone, a camera. I feel that the Lumia 920 had no previous plans to be a device used for mobile photography, and instead they are testing the waters to see what works.

For this tutorial, I decided to shoot a place I was familiar with and have already done about a year ago to see if I could match the vision I already knew I wanted to produce with a completely different device from what I was used to, and trust me it is a completely different device! I had a few doubts at first, but I had an idea of what I wanted to do, a vision, and a idea is like a really nasty disease that grows until you conquer it. So I had to push myself. After all, within limits the master is revealed. Last time I was using an iPhone 4s and it was during high tide on a cloudy day. This was at a very low tide on a bright, sunny day and that combined with using a new device for capturing and editing my photo has given me a totally different perspective on this place.

I thank Microsoft for presenting me with this opportunity and challenge, and look forward to learning more on photography with a Windows Phone.

Apps used: ProShot, Fotor, PhotoPatcher (reduces resolution), fhotoroom

Step 1 ) For me the editing process starts when I see the subject I want to photograph, and is the most important part followed by taking the picture, and that IS step 1. If you take a bad photo then you’ll edit a bad photo. For this shot I used the camera app ProShot with the ratio set to 4:3 and saturation at -1.

But sometimes no matter how well you compose a shot there’s still some things that need to be fixed and removed like the stump on the right and a few of the pieces out of the center, which aren’t that bad but I know it would look better without it. And so the process begins…

Step 2 ) Removing that stump on the right is easy, just crop it out. I was considering making this photo square anyway, and while I don’t always agree with the played out over use of square format photos sometimes it works, It creates a good center for your photo so that your eyes can move from each corner and border at the same pace to the deepest place right in the middle. Plus there would be an excessive amount of empty space on each side if not and my subject would get lost. So I just used Fotor for the crop.

Step 3 ) This is where it gets difficult, and your patience will be tested using this app, but PhotoPatcher is the smoothest one I’ve used so far on Windows phone to clone out all the unwanted areas. Please note that this app will also lower the resolution of the photo that you save, and if you get frustrated easily it’s probably best just to stay away from this one. But if you have an idea you just can’t shake, like I usually have, this is what you do:

Using the clone stamp find an area that matches the spot you want to cover as far as texture, color and tones. I’m planing on making this monochrome so they don’t have to match 100% but it’s important to get as close as you can. Luckily for me the sand was a pretty smooth, consistent tone and the sun was at an angle that didn’t cause a lot shadows. Zoom in as much as you can and slowly start brushing out the spot with your finger like I did in numbers 1 and 2 below, the cloning target will move with you so be careful not to do it for long without resetting the target or you’ll start cloning things INTO the photo you don’t want, in my case here the branches on the right.

The shore line here was the most difficult. PhotoPatcher has no way to adjust the brush size or opacity so sometimes you have to clone one area and then add another clone over it on the sides or bottom to reduce the bigger one, like I did in numbers 3 and 4 above. This can get tedious and is where the frustration was starting to set in, if you look close you can see in number 6 below a part of the shore line was barely off just to the left of that middle branch sticking up. Eventually I was able to get it right enough in number 7 and 8 to move on.

Step 4 ) After I conquered that agonizing feat I opened up Fotor again and used the tilt shift effect, I chose the center tab with it dialed at 75% just enough to barely touch the tips of each part of the tree and blur every corner of the square to give the photo more depth and add a moody vibe to it.

Step 5 ) Under paint effects, I chose the B/W category and used the “Glow Grayscale” filter and saved it.

Step 6 ) Next I opened up the fhotoroom app. Tap basic edit and then vignette. I chose the vignette called “portrait 1″ set at 65% which is heavy on the top left and lower right corners and added part of the framing I wanted for this without overdoing it. Saved and then opened the vignette folder again, this time using the one called “blend” and I set it at 75%. Now it has a nice frame that’s just slightly heavier in diagonal corners.

Step 7 ) I wanted to give the sky a more surreal look and smooth out the vignettes so everything kinda flowed into one another so I opened up the tilt shift in fhotoroom and positioned it like in the photo below. This combined with the one from step 4 made a nice subtle transition into the blur and helped the dark borders merge with the rest of the photo, drawing your attention to the subject and adding a nice ambiance outside of it, while keeping the subject itself untouched and sharper. It has much more dimension and structure now.

And that’s it!

Appreciate ya stopping by!

Giuseppe Capozzo is his name.  He is one of the nicest, humblest, and most amazing mobile artist out there. He responded to my comment on his image and asked for my email.  I provided, he then sent me the highest resolution of the image.  My son and I went to Costco and printed it up.  To this day, it still is up and he adores it.

This is a long time coming.  I have wanted to interview Giuseppe for quite a while now.  I am proud and honored to introduce you all (in case you don’t know him yet) to Krapoz. My friend, Giuseppe Capozzo!

Tell us about yourself. Your work life, your family life, artist influences in your family and who and what they are?

Hi everyone! Even though I’m mostly known as krapoz even outside the mobile photography scene, my real name is Giuseppe Capozzo and I’m a 36-years-old music-digger app-junkie psycho-sensitive family-man.

I got a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction and worked so far as a Creative Technologist for some of the biggest Digital Advertising Agencies here in Italy. In the very recent times I’ve started refocusing my career and, as you can easily imagine, “mobile” is one of the keywords I chose for my professional development.

I have never approved the usual separation between letters and numbers, heart and reason, poetry and mathematics: rather, in my studies as well as in my work and in my interests, I always tried to find the intimate relationship between the two parties, as two opposites that attract and find support from each other.

I’ve been lucky enough to be born and grown up into a family with a good amount of members involved – both for work and passion – in the visual arts, including painting and illustration; for this reason it was easy for me to have a natural inclination towards such beautiful things.

Where are you from? Where have you lived prior?

I spent the first half of my life in the glorious sunshine of Southern Italy before relocating near Milan where I actually live together with my insanely lovely wife and daughter.

At the time when I decided to leave my parents’ house to experience the madness of the college life, I was chasing the dream of being part of an active alternative music scene: Milan was not Seattle but I’m happy to have come in contact with a lot of interesting people and situations all over these years – between concerts, records and dreams that have come and gone but, somehow, are still here.

How does your answers above influence your work in mobile photography and mobile arts?

Being in the end a tech-guy, I love to experiment with apps first of all because I’m interested in their functional aspects. In the last 5 years I downloaded about 1000 apps (of any kind even if the highest number of occurrences is from photo/video and music genres) and several times I intentionally integrated one app into my workflow with the only aim to “benchmark” its capabilities. And I’m not just speaking of editing power or special effects: I’m also referring to user-experience and usability, the key factors which in my opinion often make the difference between a good and a bad app.

On the other side, a lot of photographs at the base of my compositions have been taken when I was around with my family or during the short periods in my homeland at the seaside. Outside of work I try to spend a rather quiet life so, when the occasion arises, I love to invest a good part of my (very little) free time in the creation of small visual stories as a way to release my thoughts and relax before going to bed.

Who are your main draws for inspirations in art in general – fine art, music etc? Do you have 1-2 photographs or art that you feel are main source/s of inspiration in your work currently?

As said, music has always played a huge part on the creative side of my life: that’s why I’m very happy when people say that my images could be album covers. Well, I don’t pretend to be good at creating album covers (that still represent a great source of inspiration!) but every single image I create is definitely the cover of one of the imaginary records that continuously take shape inside my head. So we could go on for hours talking about musical references but, in brief, I really love bands/authors whose music manages to be imaginative, courageous, free and at the same time emotional.

In general, I like artistic expressions that can be enjoyed at multiple levels. And I’m strongly convinced that effective communication, in the arts as in all fields and especially when “speaking” to different audiences, is one of the hardest things to achieve; thus, being able to communicate this way is a gift and a priceless talent that ennobles the heart of both those who offer that those who receive.

On a more strictly visual side I can’t help but mention – as object of devotion before of inspiration – the work of the “classical”Surrealists (Dalì and Magritte above all); moreover in recent times I filled my shelves with a series of releases from Gestalten, a wonderful publishing house located in Berlin strongly focused on contemporary arts. Last but not least some months ago I finally had the immense pleasure of putting my hands on “Generative Design: Visualize, Program, and Create with Processing”, the book I was waiting for a lifetime: pure eye-candy.

When did you start in mobile photography/mobile artistry?

Ever since I got my first iPhone in 2008 (the good old 3G!), I’ve always tried to explore the creative potential of this amazing device. As for photography, things got “serious” when, back to 2010, I downloaded Hipstamatic. Suddenly my camera roll began to fill with nice retro-looking pictures – they looked so pretty despite the very limited capabilities of that tiny fuzzy camera – so I quickly changed my mind on the real possibilities of creating images with a phone.

But soon I was needing some more: a lot of image editing apps were popping up in the App Store and I was constantly tempted to try each one seemed to be able to offer something more or different than the others. At the same time, driven by curiosity I began to discover the first blogs and the first groups on Flickr dedicated to iPhoneography: I would have never imagined that so many people –regardless of age, culture and origins – were creating beautiful images and sharing them directly from their smartphones. I was immediately hooked and stimulated to create and share the results of my efforts; and after almost three years I’m here and it still feels great to discover and learn from the work of mobile photographers/artists from all over the world.

Can you tell us more about the stories you portray in your images? When you start your post process, what would you say sparks your ideas?

As you can see, in most of my images I like to stay on the edge between reality and hallucination; and to reach my goal I use to place fantastic characters within ordinary scenarios or, conversely, real-world elements inside abstract dreamscapes, depicting in this way situations that, depending on the occasion, may be evocative, ironic, surreal or simply weird.

Since much of my work consists of montages, my creative approach is rather meditated to such a point that the production of a new image can last for several days. Usually it all begins with a simple vision: this can happen on the way between home and work, during the exploration of a new app or just going backwards between photos taken more or less recently. Thus, feeling inspired, I start thinking about how to combine the material (pictures) and tools (apps) available to me in order to give life to the idea that flashed in my head.

Certainly every time I’m going to create a new image I feel excited and within a few minutes I am completely absorbed in the manipulation process, just as if I had stepped into a parallel dimension where I can finally free my imagination in search of a new way to blend reality and dream; therefore, besides a self-interpretation of my own oneiric world, this is definitely a fun way to rework the mundane experience in a more creative and dreamy way – also because each image and each title brings with it at least a reference to something that actually happened in my everyday life.

It’s so interesting the imagery you portray. It’s almost like a children’s book. Have you thought of text that may accompany your images in the form of a short story or even a children’s story?

I must say that you’re not the first telling me this and not only I’m really happy and flattered but at the same time I admit that it’s something I’d really like to do, if only I had a little more free time. The challenge in this case would be, however, to retain the original spirit of the visual storytelling: in some ways, I do not want my words to limit or constrain the free interpretation of the image that each viewer can give according to its sensitivity.

Anyway, being a father myself, I am rather trained on conceiving little bedtime stories and apparently my beloved daughter appreciates my efforts; on the other hand I’m a big fan of many of her picture books: in many cases these are truly works of art that should receive greater recognition.

This said, anything related to children is great: I hold in high regard their opinion and feelings because, in addition to be pure and not afraid to express their own emotions, they also have a fantasy that inspires and always leaves me in awe.

My kid absolutely loves the image with the shark! So much so, it inspired me to tell you how much it impacted him, in turn me. Without hesitation, you provided the file so I may print it out for him. To this day, he has it hanging up in his room. You’re heart is big man. It totally shows how inspired and inspiring you are. Can you name some of your inspiring mobile photographers/artists and why?

First of all, your kid is really, really cool and has – like his father –very good taste, ha! But seriously, to know that on the other side of the planet a child has enjoyed one of my works to the point of hanging it on the wall of his room is worth more than a million likes or a million followers. And it’s one of the best answers I can give to myself when I wonder why I’m up late at night to finalize my creative impulse.

About my mobile-related inspirations, I would like to avoid a flood of names since I’ve been impressed and inspired by the talent of so many wonderful guys so far. Instead I’ll just mention the unforgettable beginnings with the “app-migos” on Flickr, the really supportive and welcoming community of artists of IPA, the unbeatable purists of street photography and monochrome on EyeEm and all the tireless remixers of photography, typography and design that I love to discover on Instagram. To all of them goes my admiration and gratitude.

With the “only wanted to be nice with you” image, can you tell us your thoughts when you started this edit?

Most of the time people (myself included for sure!) are scared by someone or something they don’t even know. And just as often, even after knowledge, they get stuck to the prejudice and keep on being suspicious despite evidences of innocuity and integrity.

Look at the face of this shark: how could you be afraid? He goes to great lengths to redeem its reputation, even follow out of the water who ran away believing to be eaten shortly thereafter.

So with this image I wanted to describe the exact feeling I get every time I think about how difficult it is to prove and convince someone to be changed for the better after a lot of past mistakes; and, more sad, sometimes a lifetime is not enough to achieve such a goal.

On the other side, I’ve always liked the concept of the “fish out of water”, a kind of romantic figure who has to deal with places and situations that are not her/his own and, due to this inadequacy, ends up acting in an awkward and paradoxical way. And in this case, just to exaggerate, we have a big, really big fish. How sweet!

Can you do the same with “mind overseas / feet in the past”?

This image is all about introspection. It’s the inner struggle that we live when we are faced with decisions or changes that somehow mean giving up ideas and values that were once important to us.

It’s the search for an intimate balance with respect to our existence when we try to look at it and realize that, although it is easy to let ourselves go with projects, wishes and dreams, we always have to come to terms with our past.

In this way the image can have both a sense of hope (the dancer that follows the flight of birds with disenchantment) that one of resignation and acceptance of its limits (a human in the end can not fly due to its heavy body).

Can you walk us through the process for “The Story of Dr. Eugenius Katze”?

Sure, with pleasure! To be precise, this was one the images chosen for the first week of the 1000 Words showcase. As explained in the accompanying text, here we have “three different pics taken in three different seasons, three different sundays, three different places. Mixed together to tell one story, the story of Dr. Eugenius Katze”. Actually I did not take these pictures with the intention of creating a scene; rather, as often happens, the idea came scrolling through the items in my camera roll.

I envisioned a situation involving this strange character, half-human half-feline, caught by surprise while he was in the company of another subject (the “real” cat in the background), which presumably means a lot for him. A kind of love story, open to the imagination of the viewer, that comes from the mysterious past of a researcher who had dedicated his entire life to the study of felines and now has to hide to avoid the judgment of the common people.

As always I had great fun during the editing process: following are the primary steps of the “app-stacking” workflow that led me to the final image.

I created a raw two-pass montage in Superimpose, thus gathering the scenery and the protagonists of the story. Then, with the help of Big Lens, I added a simple DOF effect just to highlight the main character and hopefully deceive the viewer’s eye in a more convincing way.

I love the woodblock printing effect of the Moku Hanga app and I thought it would work well with the hair of the felines. So, after a bit of tweaking (this app offers a lot of parameters to control), I managed to get a satisfactory outcome; this done, I brought the resulting image into Image Blender and mixed it with its unprocessed version in order to soften the edges and reveal more natural colors.

Time to work on some details and refine the composition: first I loaded the last image in Tiffen Photo fx and enclosed the scene into a big white circle, just to enhance the overall visual impact (in fact this is an off-centered White Circle Vignette with Softness set to 0 and Amount to 100); then I added some depth in PicBoost, layering one of those beautiful gritty Film Overlays with about 50% opacity.

Finished compositing, I usually start with the color correction/manipulation. In this case I used the excellent Retro filter of PictureShow (that is one of the first apps I purchased in the far 2010): I really love those faded tones. Then I added a subtle handwritten texture in ScratchCam FX with the aim to increase the vintage look just achieved; finally, I opened the image in Photo fx again in order to finalize everything with a touch of Faux Film – no more than some grain to please the eye and bring together all the graphic elements introduced along the processing. Done!

What are your last thoughts brother for all the folks reading about you?

It’s impossible not to notice that We Are Juxt is a work of love and passion and this is exactly the thing that in my opinion leaves a strong mark in the soul and overcomes the passing of time. For this reason today I am truly honored to have had the opportunity to share my thoughts and showcase some of my work here. Thanks a million, Brad, I can feel from overseas your dedication to our community and I greatly appreciate your precious support and encouragement; and thank you kindly, reader, I really hope this will be another way to shorten the distance and – if not already happened – have the pleasure of crossing our paths soon.

Visit Giuseppe:
Flickr // EyeEm // Instagram // Twitter

Mobile photography is taking the world by storm. The beauty of mobile photography is not just in the ability to take an image and post-process. It’s also about sharing and building community.

We Are Juxt is proud to officially announce our participation in the Windows Phone Challenge, using Microsoft’s flagship Nokia Lumia series (920) – voted Smartphone of the Year in 2012 by Engadget Readers.

Through this program, Juxt(er)s will be putting their iPhones down and shooting exclusively with the 920 and providing tips and techniques for Windows Phone users to achieve added value in the photographs they take. Juxt(er)s will also be playing around with the apps available in the Windows Phone Store and sharing their thoughts with the community. It’s a great challenge and we look forward to sharing our results with you.

Meet the Juxt(er)s involved with the project and see a photo they’ve taken with the 920 thus far.  Click here.

These photos will be tagged #wearejuxt #wpphoto on Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and other various social networks.

Below is the We Are Juxt Windows Phone gallery showcasing works from not only Juxt(er)s, but also mobile photographers who use Windows Phones from around the world.

Please note:  WELCOME all Windows Phone mobile photographers! We are honored to have you in the community! We look forward to your expertise, engagement, and collaboration!

Come on in, the water’s fine!

Here Comes The Rain Again - by frankensinatra

International March Against Monsanto, Seattle 2013 - by BP (We Are Juxt)

International March Against Monsanto, Seattle 2013 - by BP (We Are Juxt)

International March Against Monsanto, Seattle 2013 - by BP (We Are Juxt)

International March Against Monsanto, Seattle 2013 - by BP (We Are Juxt)

International March Against Monsanto, Seattle 2013 - by BP (We Are Juxt)

International March Against Monsanto, Seattle 2013 - by BP (We Are Juxt)

International March Against Monsanto, Seattle 2013 - by BP (We Are Juxt)

 « prev      1   2   3   4   5   6   ...  63      next »  
(499 Photos)

When my kids asked me what I wanted to do on this sunny Mother’s Day, it was easy: Family Photowalk! I didn’t want flowers or candy, I wanted to go out and shoot.  I took advantage of the fact that this is one of the few days of the year when I can make them do what I want and had everyone grab their iPods and cameras.  Despite a few groans, we hopped in the car and headed to Mare Island. I’ve been there a few times before and wanted to come back and try my new Oggl by Hipstamatic. I was fortunate enough to be a beta tester of this app and I’m in love. I am already a hipsta-addict, and the ability to switch lenses and films post-shoot is great. I’ve learned so much about what combos work in what situations, and more about what doesn’t.

So, a little bit about our destination:  Mare Island is an abandoned Naval shipyard in the San Francisco Bay Area.  It isn’t really an island, it’s a 23-mile-wide peninsula in the San Pablo Bay.  In 1850 President Fillmore reserved Mare Island for government use.  Construction began in 1872 and was completed in 1941.  At one time Mare Island employed 18,500 workers and had a hospital, a chapel, several dry docks, a train station, classrooms and accomodations for employees and Navy men.  In 1995, Mare Island Naval Base was deactivated as part of the cycle of U.S. Base closures.  There has been talk of revitalization, repurposing, rebuilding, but for now it sits and rots, a graveyard of huge buildings, cranes, and barracks, now occupied by hundreds of homeless people.

I am impressed by the immensity of the abandoned buildings from a distance.  They are imposing and beautiful. I find it hard to capture their grandiosity with a camera.  They look a bit surreal and cartoonish.

Being with my kids in this place was the best day I can remember in a long time. They loved it too. Here are some of my favorite of the over 200 pictures I took last Sunday.  For me, as with most things, the beauty is in the details.

asdfasdf

Fabs Introduction
I was a crawling babe on IG when I got in touch with Crispin Giles’ (aka @100million) feed. I got amazed by the free spirit I’ve found there; scratches, juxtapositions, strong body language, street photography, all mixed to create an extreme narrative full of originality and energy. Immediately he became an inspiration, and because of that I was planning this interview since I join JUXT on December 2011. But we all know, life happens and there is a time for everything; during this time, Crispin  became the creator and one of the minds behind Tiny Collective; a group of talented people around the world who do a really great work when it comes to push mobile/social photography to its limits. On this interview we talk about Tiny, its initiatives and the partnership with Impossible Project, Backspaces and of course, his creative process. Please have a sit and meet this awesome artist. Enjoy it.

“It feels like we’re in a kind of a mobile renaissance now and I think we’re going to continue to see the things grow and mature with mobile photography becoming an accepted stream in photography, and I mean accepted into the mainstream.”

F: Fabs C: Crispin

F:  To begin with: tell us about the early days of Tiny. Who came out with the idea and how did you work the concept?

C:  In the summer of 2011 I was looking to start a group and I asked my friend Roni if she’d want to start something. We ended up doing a group collab with our mutual friend Instatone, we called it #tinycollab and it kind of went viral. I mean kind of. Not in a way that had millions of people involved, but in a way that showed us there were people out there into working on stuff collaboratively, in a group setting, so things kind of gained some momentum after that. I remember calling the group Tiny Mobile Collective for awhile, and I set up a really lame tumblr with that name. It wasn’t long before we shortened it to Tiny Collective and asked more of our friends to join and built a way more focused portfolio at  tinycollective.com

But when I was first going around asking people if they wanted to start a group, there was kind of this question like – “what’s this all about?” “What does it mean and why would I want to do this?” And I mean, yeah – fair questions for sure. So it just took getting the right people together, finding the right fit with personalities and styles and interest levels etc. It’s not an easy exercise bringing a bunch of people together (many of whom have never actually met in person) and trying to pull off even the most humble of projects together. But when it works it’s awesome.

F:  Talking about Tiny’s mission, what does it mean, in practical terms, to ” propel and explore the new social area of digital arts”?

C:  In creative terms this means pushing ourselves and each other to do new work, to try new things, not rely on easy patterns and familiar ways doing things. To be engaged and present and plugged into what we’re doing – as a group, as individuals.

During a group meeting, it was Koci who came up with the concept of “social photography”. Replacing “mobile” with “social” as a way to really focus and underline the human connectivity behind the mobile community. That there is this very tangible, and genuine social component at play here. Not only with what we’re engaging in together on sites like IG etc. but how this community has helped bring like-minded people together to work on projects outside of these sites (of course I’m talking specifically about Tiny here), and I think it just helped remind us how the larger community has really become an important aspect of it all.

“Mobile photography is probably the most democratic an art form I can think of, besides finger-painting or something.”

F:  Where do you see Mobile Photography and Mobile Arts going? You have been  there since the very beginning. What role do you expect Tiny to play and how can groups like Tiny support photographers and artists?

C:  It feels like we’re in a kind of a mobile renaissance now and I think we’re going to continue to see the things grow and mature with mobile photography becoming an accepted stream in photography, and I mean accepted into the mainstream. I feel like there’s going be more events specific to mobile photography and with innovations by cool companies like Impossible leading the way and pushing the boundaries between old and new ways of doing things, we’ll continue to see more engagement and crossover from mobile to different forms of photography.

In general terms I think Tiny Collective will continue to generate ideas, and explore new ways in which we can animate ourselves in the community. Ways we can continue to develop our thing as a group, as well as remain active in our personal artistic pursuits too. That’s the cool thing about Tiny; we’re together but also apart so there’s this push and pull that keeps the work fresh. I think groups, if handled with care and run well, can be awesome. Kind of like a home base where members can draw energy and bounce ideas around and kind of just feel part of something bigger than themselves. We’re all human and for the most part require interaction and communication with other humans. For the most part.

F:  I see more and more, a great distance between what is a community play (Instagram, EyeEm) and what is a real artistic movement/behavior. But we must agree that these communities helped a lot to develop the creativity inside this new “darkroom”. Do you see them more apart in the future or is there any chance yet?

C:  Well, I think there’s bound to be creative shifts and movements within any community at any given time. I mean we’ve seen that with various groups and projects maybe starting to take things more seriously, maybe deciding to become more organized, others maybe parring back a bit and becoming more lean and flexible. I’ve definitely seen more people take a greater interest in mobile photography, and that comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes. I find it really exciting watching this happen, and I’m totally seeing a kind of collective confidence emerge as well. People seem to be taking things into their own hands and empowering themselves, choosing to showcase in different ways, on different sites and I think this illustrates how far things have come in such a short time.

But I think there’s always going to be a place for the uninitiated, the casual, or the curious. You know, room to investigate things, to become involved by starting at zero, by learning what they can do and what they can say with mobile. And of course there as many avenues as there are those involved in this pursuit, this all really speaks to the democracy of the medium.

F:  How do you guys decide the creative direction of the group?

C:  Because there’s a lot going on and so much to deal with, responding to everything as a group can be impractical. We’ve figured out ways of working within the group context, and found what works, what doesn’t. With the core members, everything is put to vote. Things like membership and invitations are all done by nomination and then invites are sent to perspective members based on this elective process.  We’ve recently started identifying a lot of specific roles and responsibilities within the group and had to organize things a bit more officially lately as well, just to stay on top of everything. Bringing together a group of people to work on creative things requires a lot of structure to get projects done. But it’s surprisingly easy to come to consensus on stuff when you’re working with the calibre of great people we currently have in Tiny.

F:  Can you tell us what is next for Tiny Collective? Besides the site, where else are you going to spread the word?

C:  Well, at the end of June we’re involved in this very cool partnership with Impossible Project where we’re gonna open 9 shows in 9 consecutive days in in 9 different cities in 5 different countries. Will be something like 900 unique images in all. It’s crazy. Every show will be printed live, on opening night, exclusively using Impossible Instant Lab. It’s a really forward thinking device that processes Impossible prints directly from the iPhone. Very cool, It basically bridges the worlds of instant and mobile photography. We’re all really excited about it. You can check it out here.

F:  IMO you are one of the thinkers from this so called “mobile photography community”. I see it very clearly when it comes to Tiny. When it comes to 100million, I see an intuitive, flammable and sometimes meditative artist behind the image making you do. Can you say something about this? Is there a Crispin, that is a thinker, and then 100million who is the image maker?

C:  I think there’s a ton of people doing really incredible things in the mobile community now. Every day I’m blown away by the talent and creativity I see out there. I can learn so much, you know, just be exposed to so many cool ideas just watching stuff scroll past me on my phone. It’s kind of incredible. But I think I’m like everyone, you know, my work shows different sides of myself at different times. For sure there’s a pensive side, and a moodiness to me as a person but there’s also carefree and playful sides to me as well. I mean, I believe we’re all multi-faceted and we are revealing variations of ourselves at any given time. I think subconsciously it all comes through in what we shoot.

F:  On your profile you say : “I am not concerned with purity, technique or the reverence of past movements and their tired conventions.” On the other hand I really believe that this quote by Ansel Adams applies to you: “You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.” Am I right? If so, how these two worlds play inside you?

C:  I did say that didn’t I? Sounds a bit precious. I think what I was sort of trying to assert my own place, and also kind of make no apologies for having an uneducated hand at photography. Maybe some self-inflicted pressure about legitimacy or something. “I’m here and I’m doing my thing and I don’t need to know what I’m doing…”  Sounds ridiculous actually. But of course, none of it matters. Mobile photography is probably the most democratic an art form I can think of, besides finger-painting or something. I like some of the pictures I make, and if others do too, then that’s cool. I don’t have anything to prove. If I did I’d probably use something other than a phone to take pictures.

But yeah, I totally agree. We bring all that we’ve absorbed into everything we do, and influences can be something outside the sphere for sure. We experience things we don’t even know we’re letting in and in turn we push it back out again. I mean, this is totally how we learn. Everything is fluid.

F:  I believe that style is more about what someone chooses to capture as a human being than the way someone edits an image. I do believe that if I take off all the noise from some of your images, the 100million’s seed will still be there. The eye of the hurricane. Can you describe your creative process? Why and how you make the choices behind your images? Did you ever had some kind of turning point where you found a verve which you don’t have realized yet?

C:  That’s interesting. I think style is just another version or facsimile of something. Something you design, something you seek out maybe. I mean I believe this is totally connected to our subconscious, to the choices we make as people in the world and the parts we want to expose about ourselves to other people in the world. First impressions, ego, self image, all of that. But in the end, I think it’s all the same thing. If I can have an honest reaction to a picture, then I don’t see the difference between a raw shot and an app-stacked piece. For me it’s all about feeling something. I just don’t believe there’s a pure and not pure, a true and false at play here. I don’t like to make that distinction.

So yeah.. I have no idea why I take one picture and not the next, and on a good day there’s no conscious choice being made. I am not in control. It’s all impulse, and everything seems like it’s on auto when I’m really really focused on what I’m doing. And I LOVE that. I think there’s a strange irony in such a focus equalling impulse. It’s a state of mind, and this is where plateaus are broken, where personal limitations are explored and I think ultimately where we grow as artists by pushing these lines out to the maximum.

F:  You said Backspaces is a game changer and I do agree with you; can you give us more thoughts about it?

C:  I just think there’s always so many different ways of saying something, of expressing yourself creatively. On IG it’s very much a static, kind of ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ kinda environment – and that’s awesome. And with Backspaces it opens up this whole other space, I mean not only with the ability to add multiple images to a post, but the ability to add text I think really just widens the field of possibilities. It pushes the narrative. That said, I rarely add text to my BS posts… So there you go. But yeah, it’s a very happening app and the guys behind it are equally as happening. Super good people.

F:  When it comes to music; what’s your soundtrack now? Do you listen to something while shooting? I barely do that to keep me alert

C:  I actually don’t listen to music when I’m out shooting. Most of my day is centred around music, in my job, so it’s kinda like a reprieve to go out and walk without listening to music. I will definitely wear headphones when I’m on the street taking pictures, but rarely is there any music playing. Right this second, as I write this, I’m riding a streetcar west on Dundas St. listening to Mikal Cronin’s new record MCII. Highly recommended listen. So good…

F:  Give me your TOP 5 anything. =)

C:  Great question!

1. My beautiful wife Priya
2. My confusing, and often frustrating creative experiences
3. My life in the Bush of Ghosts
4. My runner’s  high
5. The freedom to communicate my confusing and often frustrating creative experiences

Meet Crispin Giles here:
Tiny Collective // Backspaces // Instagram

The idea behind Juxt(er)s is to empower mobile artists to share more than a daily photograph on various social media platforms. JUXT(ing) is to further engage through daily or weekly blogging about themselves, their work, and the stories that accompany them. Please make sure to visit the Juxt(er) page to meet all the amazing photographers and artists from around the world!

Big thanks to Microsoft for this opportunity to take the Windows Phone Challenge. The photos below are from the Nokia Lumia 920.

WELCOME all Windows Phone mobile photographers! We are honored to have you in the community! We look forward to your expertise, engagement, and collaboration!

Come on in, the water’s fine!

Meet the Juxt(er)s involved with this project!

—————————————-

Anna Cox Kentucky

Read Anna’s Stories

Artist Statement
I am a mother and working artist in Central Kentucky. I discovered photography in college while studying the fine arts. I shot exclusively in black and white then and years later when I discovered the camera on the iPhone I went back to my roots. I love black and white because it forces you to look at the details. There are no distractions by color and noise. It forces the image to stand on its own, to move the viewer solely on subject matter. For me, life and love are in the details. Black and white forces those to the surface.

Email / Instagram / Twitter / Flickr / Website

—————————————-

André Hermann San Francisco, CA

Read Andre’s Stories

Artist Statement
André Hermann is a San Francisco bay area documentary photographer and full time educator at the Academy of Art University, School of photography. He got his first taste of documentary photography at a young age exploring and photographing abandoned houses in the High Desert town of Lancaster, California. His fascination with these domestic remnants grew into a life-long passion for documenting the lives of people. He has covered many diverse social topics, from homeless metal thieves, rare diseases, and food justice to underground dining events, and documenting illegal trash dumping sites. His fascination for street photography and the iPhone has grown into a love affair that has spawn an occult following on Instagram, a bi-coastal hide-and-seek a photo book project, and an exploration into combining oldhistorical processes with new technologies to challenge the viewer’s understanding of what photography still is and what it has become. André’s work has been featured in the New York Times Lens Blog, NPR’s nationally broadcasted radio show, “The Story,” Travel & Leisure magazine’s travel blog, Creative Quarterly magazine, Go! magazine, and various other publications and photo blogs.

Website / Instagram / EyeEm / Flickr / Twitter

 —————————————-

Bridgette S. Seattle, WA

Read Bridgette’s Stories

Artist Statement
Three words that describe me are simple, social and creative – all of which have played a part in strengthening my passion for iPhoneography. What you see is my vision of the ordinary and not so ordinary, most of which are captured whilst I’m out and about with my son. As a mom to a toddler, it’s important I catch all those milestones and have a record of our daily adventures. Having an iPhone means I don’t miss a snap and it also means the world gets to see what I see – at all times. Mobile photography has also given me the chance to meet like-minded enthusiasts both in person and on the web. It’s truly remarkable to see the community grow and be amongst those who offer support and inspiration. It has opened new doors and reawakened my imagination; I embrace it and will continue to learn in the process.

Email / Twitter / Instagram / EyeEm / Website

 —————————————-

BP Seattle, WA

Co-Founder, We Are Juxt

Read BP’s Stories
Read BP’s Interviews

Artist Statement
BradPuet (BP) found creative expression through photography by way of his mobile phone. By day he is a director of a human services program in Seattle. He also has a long history of organizing many grassroots organizations and is a co-founder of two arts organizations in Seattle, one focused on cultural arts and the other with youth. BP is a Co-Founder of We Are Juxt. He has contracted mobile photography workshops with Photography Center Northwest in 2012 and is currently faculty at Seattle Central Community College teaching 101-301 courses in Mobile Photography. His work has been exhibited in Tehran, London, Berlin, Mexico, Japan, New York, and Seattle. He also has photos published in the Washington Post and CNN. Street photography has been his main passion within the artform.

BP has lived in Seattle for 25 years and is always trying to document it’s rich history through art. He believes that art is the vehicle for change in society.

Email / Twitter / Instagram / EyeEm

—————————————-

Chris G Seattle, WA

Co-Founder, We Are Juxt

Chris unknowingly began his mobile photography love affair in 2003 with the purchase of the Sony Ericsson T616, but has always been fascinated with digital media (videography & digital photography) since the early 80’s (remember BetaMax?). Fast forward eight years, countless devices, and tens of thousands of pictures later, he still enjoys capturing and sharing life in front of him. And that to him, is what We Are Juxt’s all about.

Email / Flickr / Twitter / Instagram

 —————————————-

Darvin V Seattle, WA

Co-Founder, We Are Juxt

Darvin owns a canon G10 and a Rebel XTI. You would think the mobile camera to be a gateway drug to DSLR cameras…WRONG. Both cameras are collecting dust in the studio while the mobile camera stays in his left pocket. The easy access makes for capturing every STUPID BEAUTIFUL little thing and viewing it with new eyes. Boohi works as a graphic designer and storyboard artist. Other interests include graffiti, typography, snowboarding and muscle cars (everything Mopar)

Email / Flickr / Twitter / Instagram

—————————————-

David Norbut Wilmington, DE

Read David’s Articles

Artist Statement
Drawn to capturing the raw beauty of the people I meet, and the environments surrounding us. I feel that we are all one people, and I attempt to show this connection through my portraits. In my travels I will document all that I see, in hopes the generations of the future will see the beauty of the past.

Website / Instagram / EyeEm / Flickr / Twitter

 —————————————-

Holly @musiccityace Temple Indiana

Read Holly’s Stories

Artist Statement
I am a mid 30′s wife, mom, homemaker in northern Indiana. Married to my best friend @kewiki for almost 16 years! I always had a little interest in photography but never really tried until joining Instagram in December 2010. I’m very random and shoot what catches my eye but am always drawn to a good sunset.

Instagram / Flickr / Twitter

 —————————————-

Jeff O Seattle, WA

Co-Founder, We Are Juxt

Jeff is an architect aspiring to be a goat farmer someday. He has been involved with the visual arts to the built world. He is an everyday mobile device user, like you- learning as you go.

Email / Flickr / Twitter / Instagram

—————————————-

Jennifer Bracewell San Francisco/ Bay Area

Read Jen’s Stories

Artist Statement
I am a mother and artist living in the San Francisco Bay area. I see beauty in the dark, the decaying and broken. I am an avid people-watcher and studier of human behavior. I especially love portraits and believe that if we look closely we can see inside a person.. emotion, untold secrets, and often learn something about ourselves. I am very grateful for the wonderful sense of community that mobile photography has brought to my life … oh, and I don’t sleep much.. at all.. really ever.

Website / Instagram / EyeEm / Flickr / Twitter

—————————————-

Mike Hill New Orleans, Louisiana

Read Mike’s Stories

Artist Statement
In the words of Tom Waits, “brawler, bawler & bastard” born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana in the United States. But these days I dwell in Orlando, Florida with my girl and our two dogs living the quiet life of a peaceful warrior armed with a camera phone. I started doing mobile photography sometime around august 2011, I love the idea that I can take a photo and edit it with something that’s in my pocket and I always have with me. Everything I shoot and edit, I do 100% iPhone from beginning to end. A lot of my photography is of urban exploration and abandoned places, but no matter the subject I usually keep it dark, detailed, moody and gritty. I like to think of myself as more of a photographer then a digital artist, and I try and preserve as much of the original photo as possible, without heavy apping. Blurring the lines between edited and minimal processing just seems a better fit for me. I’m seeing this art form of mobile photography as the next step in the evolution of photography, I’m curious to see where it goes, but I’m very proud of what it has become so far.

Email / Twitter / G+ / IPA / Instagram / EyeEm / Website / Flickr

—————————————-

Nicholas C. Columbus, Ohio

Read Nicholas’s Stories

Artist Statement
Proud Husband and Father + Mobile Photography + Interactive Design and Strategy

I am intuitively drawn to capture subjects that generate social awareness, tell a story and provoke dialogue. My professional background in design and user interaction inspires me to present my work with a clear focus on emotion and composition. Motivated by my Urban Curse documentary (IG: UrbanCurse), I hope to extend mobile photography in ways that positively impact the community and promote it as a genuine, artistic form of communication.

Website / Instagram / EyeEm / @Urbancurse / Twitter

—————————————-

Richard Koci Hernandez Bay Area

“Why do you want to make these pictures?…Because I’m alive.” -Robert Frank

Read Koci’s Stories

Bio (traditional)
Richard “Koci” Hernandez is a national Emmy® award-winning video and multimedia producer who worked as a photographer at the San Jose Mercury News for 15 years. His work for the Mercury News has earned him two Pulitzer Prize nominations and was awarded a national Emmy® award for the New Approaches to Documentary category. His work has appeared in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, Wired Magazine and international magazines.

Artist Statement:
For me, painting with light is about change and acceptance. My daily struggle is learning to embrace the now, to find a clear, quiet signal amidst the noise. Photography allows me a brief instant of the here and now, distilled to the humanity of the moment, presented to the viewer in shades of grey. Photography is my memory, a constant reminder to allow events, people and the circumstance of the moment to influence and change me. In the end, it’s the final artifact that matters, not the tool.

Website / Twitter / IG / EyeEm / Flickr

—————————————-

Ryan Coleman Denver, CO

Read Ryan’s Stories

Artist Statement
My photography is a constant progression from one piece of inspiration to the next. The only constant is change. The thing that keeps drawing me deeper into photography is its limitless potential. You get the rare opportunity to take something that already exists, and then create something new from it. You’re afforded the chance to see life in a way that you might never have seen before. The simple & mundane, becomes the new beauty that’s all around you.

Email / Instagram / Society 6 / Flickr / Twitter

-Ansel Adams

 Thank you for joining us for the fourth volume of Art Critique and Community. This month we are looking at the genre of landscape and our submitters have brought beautiful, diverse work to the table. We do hope you are enjoying this series and are learning along with us.

 Photo by Daniel Berman

Critique written by Senda Shallow
LAKE AND TREES This is an asymmetrical image of trees reflected in water.   The photo is focused well, and the color variation effectively draws the eye into the photo.  It’s very warm and has the feel of an antique photo without the wear.  The reflection of the trees on the lake creates an almost abstract shape reminiscent of a sound wave close up, moving from silence to sound, a beginning point.  The light is calm, warm, and peaceful, although on closest inspection some of the very tops of the deciduous trees are more blown out in the air than their reflection in the water.  Simply because of the levels of the photo, my eye is consistently drawn from left to right across it — from the pale distant shore to the close, dark trees.   The mist and bright levels keep the photo ethereal and idyllic.  It reads as the story of a quite afternoon in the sunlight, maybe on a dock, maybe with my feet in the water watching for little fish nibbling. Because of the weight and draw of the dark right hand side, I find that there is an excess of empty space to the left, and nothing to bring me back to that side.  I’d question the crop here — if the photo might not be more powerful with a little less emptiness there.  There is also one splash of blue that jumps out against the warm browns of the edit in amongst the trees that distracts from the powerful cohesion and vertical symmetry. Overall there is a lot of impact in the shape and horizontal asymmetry of this picture.  It jumps out and you while remaining so very still.

Critique written by Gemma Anton
When looking at the photograph we see a peaceful autumnal landscape. A river which brooklet is fulfilled with trees and cabins. The quietness of the flow allows a perfect reflection of the border line creating a strong horizontal symmetry.

The theme and composition is clearly based upon classical occidental landscape paintings, with a strong use of perspective. The focal point is placed in the center part of the rectangle and the main vanishing lines frame the trees and constructions in an acute isosceles horizontal triangle on the right part of the picture.

Symmetry is also the key for the negative space. The river being a reflection of the sky where a homogenous ochre tone provides a neutral background which highlights the scene on the right.
The edit enhances the composition. A slight foggy treatment helps to blur the horizontal borderline. The nearly monochromatic use of color accentuates this idea.

The use of classical rules of composition as symmetry and centered perspective, and the use of color gives the frame a unitarian character which reinforces the peaceful atmosphere of the photograph.

Technically the picture is remarkable, but in my opinion the question here might be if this picture says something personal, distinctive. Everything in this photograph takes us to “The pictorialism” movement, that dominated photography during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and worked photography as “paintings”. It’s been a while since and lots of research and experimentation has been done. Now that the technique is obviously in control, maybe the key is trying to take all the possible advantage of the medium.

Critique written by Shaun
Description: A gorgeous foggy shoreline, reflected over still waters. Beautifully subtle colors and warm tones, along with the sparse leaves on the trees, give an autumnal feel.

The shoreline fades as it curves into the distance and in the thickness of the fog. Trees, both deciduous and evergreen populate the shoreline, with hints of houses between the trees and small docks with chairs on the water show that this is a peaceful place and a favorite of spot to come and rest and reflect.  Ambient light coming through the fog suggest a morning time.

Analysis: Both the luminance, and the white balance have been significantly boosted. I enjoy the mood it gives, but personally would tend to a more subtle hand on these. Particularly with the “curves”, or luminance brought up so high that I feel that some detail was lost, in the tops of the trees, that would have added to the beauty of the natural scenery. The line of the shore is very pleasing as it leads into the distance and vanishes in the fog. The negative space used in this crop feels a bit much. It doesn’t quite feel balanced and the beauty of the shoreline gets minimalized slightly.

I like the wide format of the frame, but to balance it I would bring it, from the left of the frame, at least 15%, and crop a little tighter to the trees and shore.

Overall, the first impression when I see the photo is that it is a lovely scene, and it is well seen by the photographer.  When I spent a little more time with it, I felt a little more efficient use of the framing and lighter hand on the edit would have made it even better.

Photo by Josh Jones

Critique written by Senda Shallow
BLACK AND WHITE RAIN This is a black and white photo of rain and a lake. This photo plays with the depth of field, pulling the rain droplets into sharp focus while allowing the landscape to blur out.  The view is dark, giving only a hint of the passing landscape on the top right hand side, maybe a dock and an outcropping of trees.  The spread of the droplets suggests motion despite the stillness of the actual landscape.  The lighter values to the right guide the eye in that direction, while the the motion lines of the droplets and the line of the dock itself bring the eye back in. This photo feels very depressed, mostly because of the dark values and the dark mysterious shapes of the landscape.  It gives an impression of the world sliding past while the viewer sits still, protected but untouchable.  The jagged shapes on the right are reminiscent of teeth, of a huge beast with jaws that are reaching to close.  Overall this photo is extremely emotive and very effective in creating a mood.

Critique written by Gemma Anton
The background of the photograph seems to show a river which brooklet is fulfilled with trees while in the foreground we can hardly distinguish a pier. Each ground has a different perspective, breaking up any supposed unity within the image.

Here we sense more than we see. Neat raindrops turn the camera lens into a real screen that filters the information in the picture, maybe as a reminder of the inherent subjectivity of any glance.  The rainy weather, the lack of reflections, the heavy sky and moved water add strength to the concept of mental landscape.

The use of the black and white and the grainy texture help to remark the idea of interrelated abstract patches of different intensities, turning the lack of negative space on a whole non-space that waits for something to happen.

Everything in the composition highlights the plain surface of the photograph as an object, stressing on an abstraction that, having  to do with the oriental landscape paintings, takes us through the Greenberg’s influence in modern photography.

In my opinion, this picture makes the most of the possibilities of the medium in order to show a personal point of view, at the same time it creates tension with its search of abstraction. Against that I would say that maybe the lighting and the contrast should have been more accurately calibrated.

Critique written by Shaun
Description:  A somewhat abstract landscape in stormy weather, shot from, what appears to be either a moving car, or through a window with strong wind against it. The raindrops streaked across the window are in focus and give a sense of movement and wind, as the landscape is blurred and partially obscured by the vignette. This also is looking across a shoreline that fades in the misty distance, with pilings in the foreground sitting starkly in the water. It feels very minimal in it’s composition.  The dark gray and black tones with a strong vignette give a stark and bleak mood.

Analysis:  The dark tones accentuate the feeling and drama of the storm.  The plane of the glass, shown through the rain drops, along with the line of the shore give a sense of movement along the waterfront with a front row view to the power and magnitude of the storm. The heavily treed horizon is very familiar to me, living in the Puget Sound. I’m not sure where this was taken, but it could easily have been just down the road from me. The darkness has an almost oppressive feel to it, along with the thick layer of clouds overhead, and dense forest. I really like the contrast of the pilings against the water. They appear to be abandoned, as there is no discernable dock to be seen. The framing seems balanced between the dark and light, and the use of space in the clouds gives great context. Also the blank space of the water and the use of the shorelines to frame the pilings are very nice. It does not appear to be heavily edited, as it seems like it could have very possibly come out of the camera that way, with a simple black and white filter. The vignette could have been added, but depending on the conditions, it could have very well been natural with the use of the glass, from a dark car and with inclement weather. The little black specks streaking across the frame are a bit mysterious. I’m not sure if those are an effect of the glass, sand flying by or simply raindrops caught in mid-descent.

Regarding the subject of the photo, I would like to engage in a small discussion, as it is not entirely obvious at first, to me anyways, what the exact subject of the photo is. My suspicion is that others may have wondered this as well, so I hope this discussion can be useful.  I think I felt it intuitionally, what this photo was about, first before I could articulate it.  I acknowledge that sometimes the subject is not always a physical thing as it can be more of an emotion, or impression, or even a force.  I’m totally fine with that personally, but I do believe it takes a special skill to be able to pull that off successfully, without going too far into mere moodiness or sentimentality. Perhaps, here, a good replacement for the word “subject” could be “story”. What’s the story here? At first I was asking myself, is the subject the raindrops? The pilings? The mood? But, when thinking in story terminology, it makes me back out a bit, and it becomes clearer, I think: it’s a story of travel. This is interesting to me to consider, as the story is not exactly what is “in” the photograph, but rather the photo gives clues through all the contextual elements to what is not photographed.  It makes for a quiet, but I think skillfully made, point by the photographer. Because of its subtleties, I think this could be passed over by some as a weak photo, but I personally find it more enjoyable. The darkness of the photo can almost overshadow the story, and it’s close here to going too far. However, the emotional element is really important to me in making a photo more compelling.

Overall, I love the photo. I love when black and white photography is used to it’s potential in creating shape and form, shade and mood. I appreciated how the contextual elements were used to tell a story about what wasn’t photographed, as much as what was.

 Our Panelists:
Gemma Anton. Born in Valencia, Spain, in 1974. After working for several years in Madrid, I have moved to Paris.

I am an Architect who sees public space as a “moving collage” of differences. A crossroad of endless disciplines addressed to serve as tools to understand the everyday of human existence. I understand Architecture practice as a lifelong learning process, a continuous questioning which will find its answer in social reality, as a net of different natures in progress connecting at different scales and multiple levels.

Active Iphone Photographer and collagemaker, I try to capture the glances of existence day-to-day life carries in its streets. Our epoch’s juxtaposition of heterogeneities. The contingence upon the temporary meeting points, their fugues and voids included. The disappearance of every kind of hierarchy and an the « assemblage » of inequalities. Overlapped messages which texturize ephemeral realities, only fulfilled if related with the environment. As a collage.

\\ IG \\ Flickr \\ Tumblr \\

Senda Shallow is a mom with a mountain commute and a love of photography.  She has worked for Apple and as a independent web designer, and is now in eBook distribution.  She sews, reads, obsesses over perfect birthday parties for her son, takes lots of pictures, and has a newly acted upon obsession with steampunk.

  \\ IG \\ Instacanvas \\

Shaun Swalley Photography is a relatively new, passionate hobby for me. I’ve always admired it and didn’t have the tools and time to pursue it before. The possibilities and ease of using the iPhone, along with inexpensive apps for editing, blew up the world of picture taking. I have been able to use style, technique and effects that were never before within reach for me. Also, the social networking aspect of Instagram helped inspire, challenge and teach me. Trees are a favorite subject of mine. I’m partial to the form of bare branches and the dramatic shapes they take. My wife and three kids make our home on Bainbridge Island, WA.

 \\ Flickr \\ Facebook \\ Twitter \\ Email \\

Our Submitters:

Daniel Berman is a fine art photographer, filmmaker & digital artist. With a background as a producer of music and nature programs for television, Daniel brings a lifelong passion for rhythm and the imagery of the natural world to his art.

Just a few of the many television programs he created and produced for his company Original Spin include Rhythm & Blooms a 39 part series on great botanical gardens for Discovery Channel, SOLOS: the jazz sessions a set of 39 hours on legendary jazz musicians and a 39 part series of rock concert specials called Beautiful Noise. His programs have been broadcast in dozens of countries over a 15 year period. Some of the musicians with whom he’s worked directly include Levon Helm, Sonic Youth, Bill Frisell, Billy Bragg, Steve Earle, Mickey Hart, Feist, Brad Mehldau, and My Morning Jacket among dozens of others.

In addition to his television productions, he works works regularly as a freelance photographer and as a creative consultant to corporations and universities.

Daniel is also the founder of the Mobile Photo Awards, the world’s largest competition and open gallery call for mobile photography and art.

He was born and raised in Toronto, Canada and now lives in the scenic hills surrounding Milton, Ontario.

// Twitter // Instagram // Web //

Josh Jones Husband. Father. Entrepreneur. Author. Innovative civil engineering CADD tech. iPhoneographer. Web designer. Follower of Christ.

\\ about \\ 500 \\ Flickr \\

——————-

Art Critique and Community is moderate by Anna Cox. If you would like to be involved please send us an email. We would love to hear from you.

The 24 Hour Project stands alone as the largest street photography event of its kind in the world. The 24 Hour Project, a completely unique experiment in photography, is a true marathon for participants. The project pushes the limits of the photographer emotionally, physically and creatively and was envisioned by street photographers Renzo Grande and Juxt member Sam Smotherman in 2011. The 24 Hour Project is a day with 24 dead lines and no room to make up a lost opportunity. One image from every hour is chosen to represent those 60 minutes in a permanent gallery online and also select shots will be hung in actual gallery shows.

This project is unique in the way the photographs are shared during each photographers 24 hours. It utilizes the immediacy of social media platforms but the project is more than mobile photography and social media. While there are strong roots in both of these areas the project is, in the end, about the pursuit of capturing the world around us no matter the tools for capturing and sharing.

On the weekend of June 8th-9th, the 24 Hour Conference will be held in the Los Angeles area. This is a two day event spanning 24 hours and will offer an opportunity for lovers of street photographer to take in a gallery show, a workshop and panels with world renown street photographers. The latter event is graciously being hosted by local NPR station 89.3 KPCC.

The Conference will consist of three events: a gallery show and talk by photographers, a workshop, and a free public event hosted by NPR station 89.3 KPCC. The workshop which costs and the KPCC which is a free event are ticketed events with limited space.

The events will begin on June 8th and opens with the gallery show. The Space Gallery is hosting the show with doors opening at 6PM at 250 W 2nd Street, Pomona, CA 91766. The gallery show will be representing only part of the 2011 – 2012 years with work of over a hundred street photographers. The gallery contains a selection culled from two years of shots and showcases only a small percentage of the three thousand plus shots that were uploaded worldwide. During the show, participating photographers will host a panel to discuss their craft and other issues within the realm of street photography. The panel portion of the conference will include photographers who have participated in one or both years of the project, including both of the projects founders Renzo Grande and Sam Smotherman. Other notable panelists include Juxt members: Brad Puet, Koci Richard Hernandez, and Tammy George as well as photographers Robert Stacy and Tony Marquez.

On June 9th the speakers from the gallery opening will be offering the first 24 Hour Project Workshop focusing on the ins and outs for street photography. Your guides will be Renzo Grande, Sam Smotherman, Brad Puet, Koci Richard Hernandez, Tammy George, Robert Stacy, Tony Marquez along with SF street photographers Benjamin Heath and Travis Jensen. Space is limited for the workshop is to keep groups small and intimate. The walk will be held in Downtown Los Angeles and will span over three hours of on the street shooting and learning. After the work, panelists will be available to review portfolios. More information and ticket availability at www.the24hourproject.com/confrence

The 24 Hour Conference will then wrap up with a free panel discussion on street photography hosted by KPCC at the Crawford Hall. Eight photographers who lead the workshop will join us to talk about making images with everything from a mobile phone to a film camera on the streets of the cities where they live. The day will be broken up into three segments.

The Snap: Find Your Approach to Taking Pictures
The Edit: Cultivating Creativity Through Selectivity
The Share: Navigating the World of Social Photography and Beyond

If anyone wants to attend the free public event MUST RSVP on this page http://www.scpr.org/events/2013/06/09/24-hour-projectworkshop-kpcc/. This includes anyone participating in the morning workshop.

The complete portfolios of both 2012 and 2013 can be viewed at
www.the24hourproject.net

Please also visit the work of the panelists and Juxt members
Brad Puet 
Koci Hernandez 
Tammy George 
Sam Smotherman

Cofounder of the 24 Hour Project
Renzo Grande 
and
Benjamin Heath 
Travis Jensen 
Tony Marquez 
Robert Stacy

Rebecca: This week I proudly give you Carina.  Her work is always close to my heart.  Her style and emotions are similar to mine and I love all of her beautiful creations.  Although English is not her first language, her words a touching and beautiful.  Happy Sunday….

Carina: Nostalgia is my main inspiration. I think I have always been fascinated by old things, especially old photographs that have a connection to my childhood and beyond that.

Hipstamatic was really love at first sight.  In the beginning of
2011 I bought my iPhone just to get hold of the app. I had seen some
photos taken with it and my love for photography from earlier days was
instantly back. I had no idea then what it would mean to me, how
much I would learn from others, that I would make contact and friends
with so many wonderful people, be a part of a worldwide community like
this and that it would actually change my life.

I had no idea either at that time that my mother, so healthy and so in
love after 14 years as a widow, would soon die of cancer. At some
point, during her last six months, when I was staying with her at her
house, I found Instagram,  a place to reach out, or hide
out, like a parallel room next to my world  with my closest
family.

I posted my first sundaybluesedit more than a year ago and found a
place with so much art filled with emotions, and so much love between
the artists. That has inspired me and taught me how to put my
grief into something creative. I also realize now that I have had the
Sunday blues, more or less,  during my whole adult life.

The sundaybluesedit tag has inspired me to try editing. Not to make a
photo look better but to try to convey an emotion. Usually it is the
editing in itself that interests me and not the result. Except for a few,  I don´t
like many of my edits anymore, but all of them are
still important to me because of the process.

This specific edit started with a Hipstamatic double exposure with an
old photo of me and my mother, together with a religious icon. This
edit is the result of the strong emotions caused by Mother’s Day
approaching. The style is very much inspired by Rebecca and this is
one of my edited photos that I will continue to love.

Please visit Carina’s wonderful feed on Instagram at @lillamys