Cara Gallardo Weil – My Top 5 Photo Apps
Welcome to our new Photo App Lounge section of theappwhisperer.com. This is a very small area on our site where we ask highly accomplished iPhone photographers what their top five photo apps are and why.
Kicking us off today is Cara Garllardo Weil, we previously interviewed Cara in both our Day In The Life series and also our Extension of the I interviews. Cara Gallardo Weil was born in Hong Kong to Filipino parents who moved there in the early 60s to work in publishing. Her early life was spent in Hong Kong, Singapore and the Philippines. She studied graphic design in London and spent more than 20 years there before returning to Hong Kong, where she currently resides.
Her Hipstamatic work has been featured in the global photography project, ‘Adventures in Hipstaland’, run by the developers of the Hipstamatic app, ‘Adventures in Hipstaland Hong Kong’ in November 2010, ’Adventures in Hipstaland Tuscany’ in July 2011 and ‘Adventures in El Nido, Palawan’ in January 2012.
She was also recently included in the list of ‘5 Amazing Hipstamatic Photographers’ by Business Insider and one of her images ‘Double Crossing’ was selected for inclusion in Mashable’s ’10 stunning Hipstamatic iPhone Photos’.
We caught up with Cara in between shoots and asked her what her top five photo apps are, this is what she said…
Copyright image – Cara Gallardo Weil – ‘London Reflections’
‘Wow, it was hard narrowing it down to 5 apps!!! But I would say these are my top 5. I do use Iris a lot as well … I slipped that in with Snapseed as I often use it in combination with Snapseed…’
Number 1 – Hipstamatic
‘My iPhoneography obsession started with Hipstamatic. It is still my number 1 go-to app. I generally use it to shoot everything. The only time I use either the native iPhone camera or ProCamera is when the light is bad. I do find that you need to have good light with Hipstamatic otherwise you can end up with very dark images.
I have my favourite combos John S with most of the lenses, Libatique with Blanko and I really like the two lenses that were released recently, Jane and Foxy. For black and white images I tend to use John S or Lucifer VI with most of the black and white films, and Foxy is pretty good too. It may seem a little daunting at first, as there are so many combinations. You need to shoot a lot and experiment in order to figure out what appeals to you. Hipstamatic have an
on-line field guide that is very useful . There are several Hipstamatic groups on Facebook that are good for reference and the community is always very helpful if you have any questions’.
Number 2 – Snapseed
‘I almost always go to Snapseed when I begin to process an image. I always use it for straightening and cropping images. It has some good filters drama and vintage. I will sometimes combine Snapseed with another app, like Iris’.
Number 3 – Photo Wizard
‘Photo Wizard has lots of tools to make adjustments to images hue, saturation, colour balance, etc. You can also use it to sharpen images. There are also many filters available if you want to distort the image’.
Number 4 – BlurFX
‘I like using this for blurring parts of images. There are 3 choices for the blur effect and the mask option is really good for accuracy you can zoom in on the image and reduce the size of your brush for more accuracy’.
Number 5 – TouchRetouch
‘This app is fantastic for removing anything that you don’t want in the image. Unwanted scratches, specs of dust even bigger things like wires, poles, manholes on the street… its great! It has a clone tool that can also be very useful’.
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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: [email protected]
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6 Comments
Kim Martino
AWSOME Cara! Thanks to you & Joanne :))
Cara Gallardo Weil
Thanks Kim! 🙂
David
Great list, Cara!! Your lead image “London Reflections” is magnificant!
Cara Gallardo Weil
Thank you so much David! There are lots of other apps I use on a regular basis like Iris, Image Blender, Juxtaposer, ScratchCam, Slow Shutter, Photo toaster and Wood Camera… so top 12! 🙂
Laetitia Harnie-Coussau
I like so much your ‘London Reflections’ nice shot and edit 😉 Like you, I remain faithful to hipstamatic.
Robert Lancaster
Fantastic images and app collection!
The only one I have yet to lay my hands on is Slow Shutter.
So many apps … so little store credit.