Top 5 Apps For iPhone Photography – Photo App Lounge With Mel Harrison
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 Mel Harrison. We previously interviewed Mel in our A Day In The LIfe column, if you missed that you can read it here. Mel has always had an artistic outlet in her life, be it drawing, soft sculpture or textile art. Mel has seen her work exhibited around the world since, including one of her macro images projected onto a wall in New Zealand. Mel has been named Artist of the day at iPhoneArt and voted as Artist for the month of March.
We caught up with Mel in between shoots and asked her what her top five photo apps are, this is what she said…
Copyright Image – Mel Harrison ‘Don’t look at me I am hideous’
‘This image above, “Don’t look at me I am hideous” is an example of an image that used some of the apps below (and more) to create. It is a multi-layered image with many hours of work involved. Without each of these apps this image could not exist’.
Number 1 – 6×6
‘I have found my style works best in square format and 6×6 is my shooting app of choice. It’s simple and user friendly but the results are crisp and clear. It works really well on my macro work’.
Number 2 – Snapseed
‘I would be lost without Snapseed. It really is the one app I would never give up. It’s user-friendly interface and fantastic results have trumped any other similar app I have tried. When the updated the black and white settings a little while ago it really became my all encompassing editing app. I rarely step outside Snapseed for basic editing now days’.
Number 3 – Juxtaposer
Juxtaposer is essential to my artist pieces. Being able to mask off an image and save it as a stamp to use over and over again is the most appealing aspect of Juxtaposer. Being able to save a session and come back to it later is fantastic for busy people too because some masking can be very fiddly and that takes time to get right.
Number 4 – Image Blender
‘I would say Image Blender is used on 99.9% of my artwork. I guess I use it more as an opacity slider for effects from other apps. Apps such as perculator or shock my pic etc that do not have any control over intensity will get a run through Image Blender to tone it down a little, or a lot depending on the work. Some of my pieces will have 5 or 6 runs through Image Blender between apps to get it just right. I do use the blending modes occasionally when needed but a lot of the work I do in Image blender is simple normal mode blending with masking’.
Number 5 – Paint FX: Photo Effects Editor
‘If I could only chose one effects app then PaintFX would be it. For the very simple reason that is allows you to paint on the effects exactly where you want them to be. I use it a lot for highlights and brightness. The lift that can be given to an image by just brightening, even slightly, where the natural light falls can be the difference between a nice image and a WOW! Image. I also use PaintFX for backgrounds, painting over an image with a texture to create a blank canvas to import into Juxtaposer or Image Blender’.
Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter is a British photography journalist, editor, curator, and the founder of *TheAppWhisperer.com*, one of the world’s leading platforms dedicated to mobile photography and art. Since its launch in 2009, TheAppWhisperer has become an international hub for artists of all levels to discover, learn, exhibit, and engage with contemporary photographic practice.Built on principles of inclusivity, accessibility, and artistic excellence, Joanne has spent almost two decades championing mobile photography as a serious artistic medium. Through interviews, critical essays, exhibitions, competitions, and education, she has helped shape and document the evolution of mobile art on a global scale.Her work has taken her internationally, lecturing on photography and mobile art at institutions and events including the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea, alongside appearances in the UK and Europe. She has served as a juror for international photography and mobile art awards across Portugal, Canada, the United States, South Korea, Italy, and the UK.Joanne is also the founder of *TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com*, one of the first online galleries dedicated exclusively to collectible mobile art, connecting artists with collectors across Europe, the United States, and Asia.Before founding TheAppWhisperer, Joanne worked extensively in print journalism and photographic publishing, including roles at a paparazzi photo agency and as deputy editor of a leading photography magazine. Her freelance journalism, criticism, and commentary have been published widely in both the UK and the US, with bylines in *The Times*, *The Sunday Times*, *The Guardian*, *Popular Photography*, *NikonPro*, *DPReview*, *Which?*, *Vogue Italia*, *LensCulture*, the *BBC*, and more recently, the *Financial Times*, where her published letters on photography continue to contribute to wider conversations around the medium.Alongside her editorial and curatorial work, Joanne’s own photographic practice has been exhibited internationally across the UK, Europe, South Korea, and the United States. Her work increasingly explores themes of grief, loss, death, memory, and the body.Her current research interests centre on grief, death, and poverty, with forthcoming postgraduate study leading towards doctoral research in these areas.Joanne is currently developing new long-form writing and photographic projects and is available for commissions, editorial projects, speaking engagements, and collaborations.Contact: joannetheappwhisperer@gmail.com)
2 Comments
David
Great list of apps! And I love Mel’s image…wonderful!!
Robert Lancaster
Great list of apps and amazing artwork produced by Mel!