Mobile Photography – A Picture’s Worth with Meri Walker – TheAppWhisperer
‘A Picture’s Worth‘… is where we ask mobile photographers that have created powerful mobile photography/art to explain the processes they took. This includes their initial thoughts as to what they wanted to create, why they wanted to create it, how they created it, including all apps used and what they wanted to convey. We also ask these incredible artists to explain their emotions and how the image projects those feelings. We have published a few A Picture’s Worth articles recently, if you have missed those – please go here.
In this A Picture’s Worth today we asked Meri Walker to tell us more about her image ‘Icarus’, she has done so, passionately below…
Apps used (with links): Camera+, Repix, PicArts, Polamatic, Rollworld, Photocopier, Stackables, Leonardo, iColoramaS
“For me, the last month of living in the United States of America has been a dark journey: physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.
As winter descends rapidly here in the Northwestern US, by 3 o’clock in the afternoon, I get panicky that there’s just a little light left before the long night closes in again. My hands ache all the time with the damp and the cold.
I long for the light and warmth of the sun. And I long for relief from the surges of grief and rage spreading across the nation, tearing at our communities, ripping our hearts apart. War, racism, sexual brutality, moneymoneymoney, power and drugs have gained ascendance again in my homeland, obscuring the precious value of Life on Earth, driving delight underground.
So, as I’m taking my (not so) late afternoon walks with Blaze, I’m seeking signs of color and life in the dying leaves. Something I can laugh about. Something beautiful to soothe my aching heart. And hands.
This is the mental and emotional soil in which “Icarus” took shape last week.
Walking along, musing on the crazy cops and reckless greedy bankers, droves of Wall Street predators, desperate returning soldiers, jaundiced media and power-hungry fake food makers, exhausted teachers and healthcare workers…I found some drying mimosa pods hanging at eye level. In the gathering darkness, their markings looked like little sets of pursed lips. I laughed out loud as I captured some black-and-white macro shots using Camera+ on my iPhone 6“.
Contact details for Meri:
‘Plain B&W shot’ – ©Meri Walker
That evening, I used Repix, PicArts and Polamatic to edit one of the macro shots into a pretend “Polaroid,” suggesting that it’s mimosa seedpods (not their boyfriends) that give 13-year-old-girls hickies/love bites (UK).
‘Polaroid-look shot’ – ©Meri Walker
A day later, with my heart still tied up in knots over the lack of justice for the murderers of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, I found myself flipping through my Camera Roll, back to the silly seedpod shot. My fingers opened it into Rollover, reaching for the soothing balm of surprise.
And I found it. As the seedpods disappeared into a swirl of curves opening into a virtually endless “sky,” I saw Icarus and Daedalus, the mythical father and son, taking flight towards the sun. There they were, in my iPhone, powered by the hubris of believing they could and should be more powerful than anyone else on Earth.
As I continued to muse on the myth, I used Photocopier to add some texture and color to what was an essentially black-and-white shot and then added some color and texture combinations in Stackables to separate “above” from “below” in the seemingly endless space. I used Leonardo and iColoramaS to fine tune the clarity and contrast, and to infuse the “scene” with believable mythical light. At the last moment, I found the peeling texture and blended it through the smooth field of light, foreshadowing their coming destruction. And ours.
‘Icarus’ – ©Meri Walker
At this point, it’s looking more and more like hubris is our entire nation’s tragic flaw.
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]
4 Comments
gina costa
Meri, it is so interesting to learn how you arrive at these mesmerizing images. Thank you for sharing with us. Sending you light!
Carolyn Hall Young
Thanks to Joanne for bringing the glimpse of Meri to us! Thank you, Meri, for bringing your whole self to this!
Jelly Beans
Meri, right on point! thank you for your wisdom, generosity, spirit, and womanhood!
Jelly Beans
Thank you, Meri!