The App Nerds Workshop By Lola Mitchell – Session Two
Recently we announced Lola Mitchell as our new Columnist, if you missed that please go here. Today, we are very excited to publish Lola’s second article for her new column, The App Nerds Workshop.
The App Nerds Workshop is something very different and we are very excited about it. It will become a virtual classroom, an environment for new talent to share their work, for Lola to share some of the ways she uses apps and for the not so new talent to share some secrets. Lola will sometimes assign broad themes to keep the creative juices flowing. We are hoping this will be a grand scale creative interactive classroom. This should be where sharing and creativity abound. We are hoping your mind will be tickled into creating, experimenting, daring, dreaming, making, doing.
We have set up a Flickr group where you can submit your images, we will import a slideshow that will show all submissions. Over to you Lola, (Foreword by Joanne Carter).
SESSION TWO – TECHNIQUE AND STYLE
The first time I tried doing an edit, I was a bit shy. I am not good with computers, never learned how to use photoshop (although always wanted to). I think I was scared that it would suck. Which is silly, sometimes my photos suck and I have learned that thats ok. I sometimes learn more from the failed photos and edits then from the great ones.
So I started looking for tutorials. I saved two that I thought were incredible and that really spoke to my esthetic. Here are the links.
I read them over and over….and then one day, I was in my yard and decided to try it out. So I took a couple of Hipstamatic shots of my son running around. And I started doing what I could remember of it. Even when I look back at this first photo, I am amazed because it is still a photo I could make today.
© Lola Mitchell
When we look at a photo and it draws us in, the reason behind it, is unique to us as an individual. I think it reflects your life, you, your influences, your taste.
When I go through a little bit of a lack of inspiration I sometimes try to reproduce an element that I like from a photo I admire, as a technical exercise.
It is what got me started really, so why stop doing it? What always amazes me is that it never looks like what inspired me, it is always unique. But I always learn from it.
I think often artists are worried that they do not have a recognizable style. You do not have to work at having a style, you have to work at perfecting your technique, your eye, your art. Don’t get stuck in something because it worked once if it does not inspire you anymore, keep having fun with it. If you put yourself into what you make then the result can only be unique, because well you are unique. It is an expression of your being.
I realized recently that it sometimes reflects what you are going through. When I looked back at my flickr, I realized that before my father passed away, when he was really sick, I made these photos that were very still. Waiting. I was not consciously doing it, but it was a quiet, sad time and it transpired in the editing decisions I made.
© Lola Mitchell – ‘Brilliant Encounter’
© Lola Mitchell – ‘Her World’
It just comes out if you put your heart into it. As you play with apps, and start taking more and more photos, you will start seeing yourself in it. It is in the decisions you make. The energy you put into your art will be rewarded. I am very instinctive in my work but I know some people that have a full photo planned way before they even shoot it and edit it. There are as many ways of working on a photo as there are individuals. You just have to find your way.
Be kind to yourself and have fun with it. You are the only one like you! And art should be fun, exciting and challenging.
Next session on February 4th, I will let Wstairs take over and share a little of his technique with us. and share some of his truly amazing work with us. I am very excited to have some guests enrich us with their knowledge.
Below you will find a selection of the amazing photos that were posted to our group in the past couple of weeks, these images will be updated every hour. Please keep posting.
Joanne Carter
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]
6 Comments
Janine Graf
Well done Lola! I was in a discussion with an iPhone friend about this very topic (self doubt) over on FB yesterday morning. It’s a good topic to talk about as we all experience it at some point along the way. Key is to snap out of it and carry on. 😀
Lola Mitchell
Thank you! Yes we all go through it. Keep snapping and you will snap out of it. Ultimately we have to remember we do it because we love doing it.
Brett Chenoweth
Awesome!
Thanks Lola
Lola Mitchell
Thank you Brett!
Jennifer Bracewell
Wonderful, Lola!
Lola Mitchell
Thank you so much!!