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Top Five Photo Apps – Photo App Lounge With France Freeman

Welcome to our Photo App Lounge section of theappwhisperer.com. This is an area on our site where we ask highly accomplished mobile photographers what their top five photo apps are and why.

We recently published the Top Five Photo Apps as recommended by Yannick Brice , Cedric Blanchon, Irene Sneddon, our Columnist and Award Winning Mobile Artist Sarah Jarrett as well as Louise Fryer, Lisa Waddell, Davide Capponi, Ali Jardine , Clint Cline and Elaina Wilcox’s Top Five Photo Apps including accompanying images demonstrating these selections.

France Freeman is a professional photographer, and runs the in-house photography studio for a Fortune 500 company in the Northwest US. She discovered photography with the iPhone in 2009 and was immediately hooked by it’s lightweight mobility, endless creative possibilities, and the sense of community on the internet with other mobile photographers around the world.

France is a featured artist in the book “The Art of iPhoneography” by Stephanie C. Roberts, and she is still taken a bit by surprise when her camera starts ringing.

You’re going to love this article, we’re sure…

Number One – Slow Shutter

app

©France Freeman

 

Right now I’m really enjoying Slow Shutter and exploring movement. There are so many creative possibilities with this app and the results can be magic. You can pan with a moving subject to get a blurred background and sharper subject, you can move the iPhone during the exposure to create soft watercolor effects, or you can put your iPhone on a tripod and the only blur will be the things that move. I love using the last technique for self portraits and creating ghostly blurs.

 

$0.99/£0.69/download

Slow Shutter Additional Example Image

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©France Freeman

Slow Shutter Additional Example Image

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©France Freeman

Number Two – Juxtaposer

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©France Freeman

 

I do a quite a bit of compositing in my images. Juxtaposer is one of my favorites because it allows you to mask out a portion of an image and then save that as a stamp which you can use multiple times, as I did with the flying bicycles in this collaborative image with fellow iPhoneographer Gianluca Ricoveri. Vintage image from Gianluca, composited with several of my original images, masked and composited Juxtaposer.

 

$2.99/£1.99/download

 

Additional Juxtaposer Image

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©France Freeman

Number Three – Image Blender

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©France Freeman

 

Another compositing favorite that allows you to blend images using classic Photoshop layer blending modes. And if you want to use only a portion of the image, Blender allows you to mask, resize and rotate.

$2.99/£1.99/download

 

Number Four – Pro HDR

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©France Freeman

 

This app is great for higher contrast situations. Very often the extremes of highlight and shadow in a scene are just more than a single shot can capture. Pro HDR takes two images, one for highlight, one for shadow and combines the two for greater detail throughout the image. In this backlit, and high contrast image of the old car and restaurant, I wouldn’t have been able to get any detail in the sky without a combined exposure. I often use a Pro HDR shot for my base image and then use additional apps to create the final look I want.

$1.99/£1.49/download

Additional ProHDR Image

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©France Freeman

Number Five – Hipstamatic

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©France Freeman

 

Despite Hipstamatic being achingly slow to shoot with, and despite not being to use it to process previously shot images from your library, I still use this app a lot. With multiple combinations of film, lens and flash, you can create endless looks. Some of the looks are very beautiful and reminiscent of shooting with film. I especially love the look of BlackKeys films, and the newer D-Type and C-Type films. For me, shooting with Hipstamatic is often just the starting point adjust further using other apps or composite with other images.

$1.99/£1.49/download

 

Additional Hipstamatic Image

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©France Freeman

Additional Hipstamatic Image

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©France Freeman

 

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)

9 Comments

  • Robert Lancaster

    Wow, what a fantastic set of images!
    I use all of the selected apps extensively but not to this degree.
    It is quite liberating to see how much I still have to learn and grow.

    • France Freeman

      Thank you Richard! Yeah, slow shutter is a somewhat overlooked app I think. The best place to see my iPhone images right now is on Flickr, @FranceMarie . Happy Shooting! -France

  • France Freeman

    Thanks Joanne for featuring 5 of my favorite apps! I’m loving this new column, it’s such a great way to discover new apps, and to discover new ways of using older apps!
    For Richard, and those interested in seeing more of my images, you can find me on Flickr, @FranceMarie Unfortunately my photo blog went away with the demise of Posterous so I’m in the process of finding a new sharing spot.
    Cheers! -France