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Mobile Photography Interview with Lee Atwell – Street Photographer

As many of you will know, among the assortment of hats that I wear, writing for the BBC and Vogue, I am also Contributing Editor to LensCulture.  I have a brand new interview in the works, which will be published soon and in the meantime, with kind permission of LensCulture, I will be republishing my work to our beloved TheAppWhisperer website – the most popular mobile photography and art site in the world. You can view the original post on LensCulture here.

First off today, is the interview I published with Lee Atwell entitled ‘Angels in Streets’.  I hope you enjoy this, Lee’s work is truly beautiful.

“In street photography, the lightness and the darkness around us fascinates me. The questions of how our outer world can reflect our inner world and can somehow be intuitively an extension and expression of ourselves”

—Lee Atwell, in conversation with LensCulture Contributing Editor, Joanne Carter

© Lee Atwell

To many, street photography is not a pre-meditated act and it is not reportage. Instead, it is defined by intuitive seeing, by a natural reaction. But in looking at Lee Atwell’s street photography, we begin to see a different side to the genre. Atwell approaches her street photography from a spiritual place, a place of internal reflection—an approach which seems initially at odds with our stereotypical experience of street photos.

© Lee Atwell

Atwell has been a yoga practitioner since childhood, a background which strongly informs the rest of her artistic endeavors. Her experience of taking photographs is part of a mediative experience that enables her to be present within her surrounding environment. This sense of connection reflects Atwell’s deep-set empathy with her subjects and her surroundings—an empathy that is borne through her images.

 

© Lee Atwell

But Atwell’s photography is not only internal. Her best work conveys the sense of external intimacy and shared personal space that are the hallmarks of all great street photography. One of Atwell’s cherished images is of an angel walking through the streets of Seattle [image #20 above]. The shot is reminiscent of the classic film “Wings of Desire,” a film in which the normally invisible angels who watch over us become visible and offer the possibility of hope. The idea of these angels, like Atwell’s image, support the intuition that we are not completely alone—that there is lightness within the dark.

© Lee Atwell

The reclusive and intensely private street photographer of the 1950’s, Vivian Maier, also holds a strong influence over Atwell’s photography. Atwell’s images, like Maier’s, are as unpretentious as the life they document. There is no unnecessary visual drama added; no single shot is staged; she never uses flash and never asks. Instead, her images offer us tangible instances of her observation of the world around her. She brilliantly blends herself into the environment, capturing candid moments whilst the subjects are oblivious to her presence.

© Lee Atwell

Atwell’s images have great clarity, they need no explanation. In Atwell, we are looking at a photographer who has a deep-rooted and profound view of the world with an intuition that allows her to treat the street as theatre, witnessing the dynamics of life with the gaiety of poetry.

—Joanne Carter

Editor’s Note: Joanne Carter is the Founder and Editorial Director of TheAppWhisperer.com

© Lee Atwell

© Lee Atwell

© Lee Atwell

© Lee Atwell

© Lee Atwell

© Lee Atwell

© Lee Atwell

© Lee Atwell

© Lee Atwell

© Lee Atwell

© Lee Atwell

© Lee Atwell

© Lee Atwell

© Lee Atwell

Joanne Carter, creator of the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website— TheAppWhisperer.com— TheAppWhisperer platform has been a pivotal cyberspace for mobile artists of all abilities to learn about, to explore, to celebrate and to share mobile artworks. Joanne’s compassion, inclusivity, and humility are hallmarks in all that she does, and is particularly evident in the platform she has built. In her words, “We all have the potential to remove ourselves from the centre of any circle and to expand a sphere of compassion outward; to include everyone interested in mobile art, ensuring every artist is within reach”, she has said. Promotion of mobile artists and the art form as a primary medium in today’s art world, has become her life’s focus. She has presented lectures bolstering mobile artists and their art from as far away as the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea to closer to her home in the UK at Focus on Imaging. Her experience as a jurist for mobile art competitions includes: Portugal, Canada, US, S Korea, UK and Italy. And her travels pioneering the breadth of mobile art includes key events in: Frankfurt, Naples, Amalfi Coast, Paris, Brazil, London. Pioneering the world’s first mobile art online gallery - TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com has extended her reach even further, shipping from London, UK to clients in the US, Europe and The Far East to a global group of collectors looking for exclusive art to hang in their homes and offices. The online gallery specialises in prints for discerning collectors of unique, previously unseen signed limited edition art. Her journey towards becoming The App Whisperer, includes (but is not limited to) working for a paparazzi photo agency for several years and as a deputy editor for a photo print magazine. Her own freelance photographic journalistic work is also widely acclaimed. She has been published extensively both within the UK and the US in national and international titles. These include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Popular Photography & Imaging, dpreview, NikonPro, Which? and more recently with the BBC as a Contributor, Columnist at Vogue Italia and Contributing Editor at LensCulture. Her professional photography has also been widely exhibited throughout Europe, including Italy, Portugal and the UK. She is currently writing several books, all related to mobile art and is always open to requests for new commissions for either writing or photography projects or a combination of both. Please contact her at: joanne@theappwhisperer.com

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