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My Latest Mobile Photography LensCulture Article – ‘In Conversation with Cara Gallardo Weil’

“I like to shoot with my iPhone as it gives me the ability to be spontaneous, to work discreetly and to catch moments of life without being obtrusive. Having access to different apps opens up many creative possibilities – one can push an image to the limit or keep it simple”.

—Cara Gallardo Weil in conversation with LensCulture Contributing Editor, Joanne Carter

 

I am currently writing a wonderful assortment of mobile street photography interviews for LensCulture (as their Contributing Editor) and this week I am delighted to publish, (simultaneously here at TheAppWhisperer.com), a captivating interview with Cara Gallardo Weil, a street photographer we are all very familiar with. Not only does Gallardo Weil, co-edit (with Gina Costa) our hugely popular women’s mobile street collective – StreetsAhead, but she’s also renown as a huge talent to mobile street photography.

I have published the article below and if you would like to also view it on LensCulture, please go here.

To view some of the other articles I have published to LensCulture, please go here.

“I like to shoot with my iPhone as it gives me the ability to be spontaneous, to work discreetly and to catch moments of life without being obtrusive. Having access to different apps opens up many creative possibilities – one can push an image to the limit or keep it simple”.

—Cara Gallardo Weil in conversation with LensCulture Contributing Editor, Joanne Carter

When I first discovered Cara Gallardo Weil’s street photographs, I felt as though I had travelled the world with her. Viewing the heady flow of imagery, harnessing the excesses, exuberance, noise and pollution she has experienced on her travels, allowed me to experience life, as viewed through her eyes and evoked a sense of being part of her world, not a passive observer .

“I generally have to be quite stealth when photographing people in Hong Kong [where I live], as they don’t really like it. In the markets you see many signs that say “no photos” which seems a shame. I haven’t really had this problem in places like Indonesia or the Philippines, where people can be quite engaging. In Europe, it can be difficult too, especially France where the privacy laws are much stricter. Using the iPhone to capture street scenes enables me to be more stealth so people are less likely to notice that I am taking photos”, she explains.

Her images bear out her instinctive approach whether shot in color or black and white and register with a heavily graphic based lead. The thirty years she spent in the Design Industry working with the likes of acclaimed photographers, including Nick Knight, Anton Corbijn and Trevor Key, heavily influences her pictures. With raw poetic vision, Gallardo Weil’s photographs involve shapes, patterns, lines and topography with an abundance of unusual characters and interesting juxtapositions thrown into the mix.

Gallardo Weil works in the space between documentary and pure street photography, capturing the essence of the subject, in relation to the whole notion of everyday life but also seeking to tell an understandable story. It is this ambiguity that fuels her passion. Working in style to one of her idols and Masters of Street Photography, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gallardo-Weil is the distant observer but at all times watching and listening to her subjects, characterising her images with a certain humble silence.

“It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera… they are made with the eye, heart and head.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson

Gallardo Weil recognises the responsibility street photographers have in documenting society, communities, neighbourhoods and lives. Her images do not reflect herself, they reflect life as it is being lived, running with an underlying theme of the importance of building a visual legacy.

Gallardo Weil is pushing the boundaries of mobile street photography, the lure of the street photograph amplifies the purity of her vision. She is a photographer who will soon be on her way to another country, another shoot, another day.

“A photographer must always work with the greatest respect for his subject and in terms of his own point of view.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson

 

Hong Kong © Cara Gallardo Weil

Hanoi © Cara Gallardo Weil

Amsterdam © Cara Gallardo Weil

Hong Kong © Cara Gallardo Weil

London © Cara Gallardo Weil

London © Cara Gallardo Weil

London © Cara Gallardo Weil

Hong Kong © Cara Gallardo Weil

Hong Kong © Cara Gallardo Weil

Sapporo © Cara Gallardo Weil

lens culture

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]