The App Nerds Workshop – Experimenting

“Experimenting, everyone tells everyone to do that in photography but what does it mean? I think it is different for everyone. It is as wide as your imagination.

Any idea you have, crazier probably the better, try it! What can you lose? Playing around with angles is a classic but what does it mean for you. Maybe you are a contortionist and then wow. I cannot wait to see this!

In my case it means trying to keep it interesting and exciting. I love taking macros of bugs but not necessarily showing it. However you have all seen these, I use them as textures. My macros always end up being textures in my photos. It was an idea and I liked the result. I still do it. It makes me think differently sometimes about what to capture with my macro olloclip.

‘Enchanted’ ©Lola Mitchell Apps used: Scratchcam, superimpose, picture show, alien sky, blender

In this photo I used macro shots of a bee’s wings as well as drops in a spider web. The background is a photo of the ground (note the crack next to my daughter’s shoulder) and passed it through scratchcam.

Recently I started getting into something that made me cringe and very uncomfortable. Self portraits. Yes. Really!

For someone who does not even really like mirrors it is huge. And thats why I did it. It made me uncomfortable so I needed to try it. I had made a few attempts but mostly to use a photo while trying to learn new apps.

It took me being sick at home and seriously wanting to take photos to just turn the camera around. At first it was neck and hair and now slowly my eyes are making an entrance too.

I am sure at some point I will get sick and tired of seeing my face and that will end. For now while I still have the inspiration, I will keep going.

As a result I started thinking differently. I think self portraits for me, are not about having a beautiful photo of me. How boring would that be. They are more about ideas and the fact that right now I do not have a model, so I use myself.

“Spring is coming’ ©Lola Mitchell – Apps used: Hipstamatic, Picfx, Blender, Glaze, Procreate, superimpose, luminance, snapseed

Before that I would capture a beautiful moment and wanted to transform it. But the canvas was always circumstantial. Now I have started thinking before even taking the photo. It makes it much harder and very interesting. It has also changed a bit how I take action shot, believe it or not.

Now not all my experimenting results are good. I usually forget about these or sometimes they give me an idea to do something else. Much like I delete tons of my photos, I decide some of my ideas are not so good. Some sound fantastic and when done don’t look good at all. Even sometimes a little embarrassing. Cringing just thinking about some of mine. But I know that even with these I learn, even if its just don’t ever do that again.

Sometimes there are happy accidents which are kind of my favorite. It is the wow that worked in ways I did not expect.

This is a bad shot for what I was going for that I still loved. So I played around with it. I am saying playing because really just was trying out a new app. DaliCam and the combination of both gave me an idea and I went with it. I think it was a success!

‘Connected’©Lola Mitchell–Apps Used: Procreate, Dalicam, Kitcam, Snapseed, Photofx

So what I am trying to illustrate is that having fun, experimenting, getting out of your comfort zone, is what it is all about. It is about developing your skills by trying and trying and trying some more. If you do not like heavy editing, then it is about experimenting with light, angles, subject matter.

I go back and forth between heavy editing and almost no edit. Again that keeps me interested. what keeps you interested and excited?

What have you done recently that was outside of your comfort zone? Please share it and post it onto our Flickr group. We still are working out how to best feature our favorites in here. In the meantime here is a screen of the latest uploads.”

Procreate
Dalicam
Snapseed
Photofx
Hipstamatic
Pic fx
Image Blender
Glaze
Superimpose
Luminance
Alien Sky
Picture Show