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Mobile Photography – StreetWise – Second Challenge Results – Shadows

Welcome to our Second StreetWise Challenge Showcase – ‘Shadows’.  We are thrilled to share it with you!

Photography is an art of observation. It has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” Elliott Erwitt

We hope that you found this to be an inspiring theme – perhaps seeing the streets around you and those that inhabit them in a new way and perhaps from a perspective that you may not have noticed before. The most difficult part of curating the showcases is choosing a limited number of photos from all of those that were submitted – thank you so much for participating and for inspiring us all with your images!

Many congratulations to the following artists for being featured:

Ile Mont, Roger Guetta, Rene Valencia, Dominique Torrent, dinalfs, Armineh Hovanesian, Gina Costa, Ocean Morisset, Frederic Mahy, Cara Gallardo Weil, Karen Divine, Liliana Schwitter, Vanessa Vox, Maurizio Zanetti, Susan Rennie, Paula Broom, Ger Van den Elzen, Stefanie L.P., Alon Goldsmith, Sebastian Kroll, Donna Donato, Julia Nathanson

Please continue to submit your photos to our regular StreetWise Flickr group for our next general showcase to be published in June. Here is the link

Please also join our Facebook forum group for fabulous interactive chats and information here.

We hope you will enjoy viewing the showcase as much as we enjoyed putting it together!

‘Sunday’ – Ile Mont

Ile’s beautiful photo immediately draws the viewer into the scene with the curved and flowing composition of the ‘umbrella stream’ overhead and the bold circular shadows below. There is almost an illusion of being underwater looking up through the sparkly light-filled circles above. A wonderful and unexpected juxtaposition is to see umbrellas in a street photo that are so luminous and filled with light.

There are so many circles and curves in the photo, including the umbrellas, furniture, trees (some with legs) that are all punctuated by the people walking into the rectangle in the center of the photo – that helps to create the depth and stunning quality of this great radial composition. Well seen, Ile!

‘Riffin’ – Roger Guetta

Roger’s photo stands out as it illustrates the use of indoor shadows in street photography, and here, combined with a silhouette. The low contrast adds such a moody and mysterious quality that allows the viewer to feel like they are in this club near the stage listening to the riffs. The gradation of grey tones and the shapes of the shadows (including hats and glasses) of the other musicians and their instruments that frame the musician in the foreground are stunning. The light on the instrument to the right draws the viewer to the main subject adding a bit of shimmer that gives the photo depth and makes it come alive – fabulous, Roger!

‘Redhead’ – Rene Valencia

Rene creates a dynamic scene. The colors are bright and the shadows are dramatic. So are the silhouettes. Right away the eye is drawn to the main subject; the silhouette of the woman whose red hair pops against the color of the blue sky. That’s what’s so interesting — silhouettes as solid shapes are often a single color, and yet the woman is more than just a shadowed outline, she is made alive, and even mysterious, by being able to see the unusual brightness of her hair.

Added to this is a strong architectural component and perspective. While one is allured by this graphic portrait, the top of woman’s red head meets the lines of the buildings so one’s eye is drawn in and runs along to the distance to the architectural silhouette of a church – its dome rising into the blue sky – then back again.

Rene’s composition is made all the stronger by her use of repeated silhouettes and shadows: from the main subject in the foreground, to the church in the background and a building across the way, to another figure just behind the main one. These simplified elements are arranged beautifully within the perspective of the architecture and the street. This it is a lively street scene for all of its color and dramatic outlines. Nicely done, Rene!

Untitled – Dominique Torrent

Dominique’s Untiled lady is a unique image, departing slightly from traditional street photography. Its artistic take on something so simple as a bird’s eye view of a woman walking is what draws the viewer in. From the color of her red coat to her stylish black high heels, at once one gets the idea this is a woman of fashion, perhaps elegance. There is a sense of something lively going on in her gait. We wonder from the long shadow can she be dancing? If so. What has had made her dance? Or, are her steps hurried and long? Is she in a rush to get somewhere? We are intrigued and want to know more than what her shadow is revealing. Who is she? These are the wonderful questions one entertains when viewing Dominique’s fun photograph. Well captured, Dominique!

StreetWise Shadows Showcase

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Ilana Buch-Akoundi is an Interior Designer with a background in fine arts, and a passion for mobile photography. Influenced by classical art and literature, she views mobile photography as not simply capturing moments as they happen, but as a marriage of dreams and visions from inner life and reality. Street photography, as a composite emerging from the speed of life, and what’s resonating within. Born in New York City where she still resides with her husband and two children, Buch-Akoundi recently founded hipstaNYC dedicated to Hipstamatic images of New York City, where people from all over the world can showcase their photographs of NYC. She has had photographs featured in mobile photography websites and web-magazines as well as international shows. Lee Atwell has been passionate about the art, science and magic of photography since the time she was a child – at which time her father had converted a small bathroom into a darkroom. For the past few years, she been captivated by the versatility, convenience, and creative potential of mobile photography. In street photography, she enjoys the challenge of capturing the unexpected and also the necessity of being present moment to moment with the surrounding environment – whether it is the continual shifting of light and shadows or the instantaneous and fleeting expressions and postures of people on the street. She has received several international photography awards and has had photographs featured in publication, mobile photography websites and web-magazines. She has also had photos exhibited in several cities – in the USA, Canada, Italy, France, Hungary, Belgium and Portugal. Atwell also teaches yoga and owns a yoga studio in Seattle with her husband.