Mobile Photography Interview – A Day in the Life of Eliza Badoiu from Romania

Let’s start at the beginning of the day, how does your day start?

I always kick off the day by getting my son ready for school and us running here and there around the house like crazy. Photography has already become my daily necessity, the sweetest addiction, that miraculously happen in itself only after having dealt with householding affairs, my son’s school homework and my everyday job.

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

Do you like to head out and take photographs early on?

This usually happens during semesters when I can enjoy the bit of a free time or once the summer holiday approaches. I love having some time ‘of my own’ and that is usually dedicated to shooting and creating new edits, indeed. It is in between running and being constantly busy that I find something worth being photograph, whether there may be something I spot in traffic or just a quick, randomly shot self portrait.

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

How did the transition from traditional photographer to mobile photographer develop?

As a teenager I attempted taking part in a photography class, but it wasn’t really too serious and it didn’t last for more than a couple of weeks before I quit. That didn’t take me that far. So, I basically stepped directly into dealing with mobile photography by chance (I was looking for a new smartphone and I asked my husband to find me a good one in terms of camera specifications, as I am poor in new technological devices). But I somehow believe photography has always been there, buried inside the frame of my very mind and soul, since forever.

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

How did the transition from traditional photographer to mobile photographer develop?

As a teenager I attempted taking part in a photography class, but it wasn’t really too serious and it didn’t last for more than a couple of weeks before I quit. That didn’t take me that far. So, I basically stepped directly into dealing with mobile photography by chance (I was looking for a new smartphone and I asked my husband to find me a good one in terms of camera specifications, as I am poor in new technological devices). But I somehow believe photography has always been there, buried inside the frame of my very mind and soul, since forever.

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

Do you like to download new mobile photography and/or art apps regularly?

I have already got accustomed with some of the apps that I come to be very fond of, and I always use while working on ‘delivering’ a new image. I don’t invest much into apps as long as I base my photos more on concepts I create myself inside the frame rather than on digitising the image itself or importing other displayed images. I only play with layers, tones, texture. I don’t like to change a lot of the initial image I have shot but for the mood that the image must display to the viewer. So, I am not an addict in testing each and every new app, but I tend to keep myself preoccupied with the meaning I get to create inside the frame itself, sometimes this can be achieved with the minimum of art apps.

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

What is your preferred platform, Apple iOS, Android, Windows? Would you consider changing platforms and why?

At first I started shooting and editing on Android starting in 2013. For more than a year and a half now, I have switched to the iOS platform, which I find fantastically greater for my artistic attempts. I love the quality most of my apps supply and the quality of the initial shot with the Iphone 6S is greater for prints as well. So I could never see myself going back to any other operating system or platform than iOS.

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

How often do you update your existing apps?

Not that often unless the apps are doing it by themselves or I notice the notification, whenever I desperately need something and I cannot reach for it but by only doing the update itself.

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

What are your favourite photography/videography apps and why, what features do you look for in a new app?

I am mostly interested in rendering the remote atmosphere of women’s unconsciousness inside my images. Being mostly driven towards exploring the inner, deeply hidden parts of female psyche I am mostly concerned with creating the mood, and I need texture in order to achieve that and blurring effects , layering more of my images- as I have almost never used other images than the ones shot by me. I love Mextures and Stackables, I fix tones in Snapseed, iColorama works miracles for all the brushes, Lightroom. It is usually a combo of more apps until I am content with the final result.

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

Where’s your favourite place in the world for a shoot and why?

Generally speaking, I consider all places good for a shot as long as you already see, feel and envision the scene in your mind. For me, my room is the perfect tiny studio for doing my selfshots as 98% of my photography is being recorded against the wall of my bedroom or any empty wall I can find while inside. So, it is the closed space of the rooms for me that always provides the infinite digressions of the self in better trying to translate and define female psyche.

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

Where do you like to upload your photographs to  Flickr, Instagram etc?

I have first started with EyeEm but quit uploading images there more than a year ago. I have quite recently started uploading on Instagram and Flickr and majorly I make new posts on Facebook where most of my friends and the center of the mobile community really is .

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

Do you use your mobile phone everyday to take images?

Yes, I do, but not all photographed frames get the chance of being ‘born’ as final images! I think playing around while shooting and editing is what brings the best results -in time…it is for me a sort of self motivation, accurate addiction, if you please, I am not ready to give up anytime soon.

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

Do you like to use external hardware products with your mobile device for image and video capturing, such as lenses, tripods, external storage and battery packs?

Just the tripod that is necessarily needed for the self portraits.

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

Do you edit images on your mobile devices or do you prefer to use a desktop or laptop computer?

I only use my iPhone and not any other device while working and processing my images.

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

Where do you envisage your mobile photography passion will take you? Have you been involved with exhibitions etc.

I am a natural born dreamer and photography has already driven me to very interesting, remote corners of my imagination, reconnecting myself with the world itself. I am being featured on the online showcases that so many of the community groups are weekly or daily having on Facebook or Instagram. I have been given the chance of being exhibited in some art galleries around the world in different events such as mDAC 2015 and 2016, California ,USA, projects that the Smart Gallery undertook in Paris, in Rome’s Lancelotti Gallery,, Porto twice, once with MIRA MOBILE PRIZE 2016, and this year I had my own solo exhibition in Porto’s iNstantes Photography International Festival, and been a couple of times present in PH21 Gallery, Budapest, Hungary. I had prints in events in Indianapolis, US and London also.  And why not I am putting together a collection of images, debating over the art of turning the common ‘selfie’ into an artsy self portrait through the art of iphoneography.

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

Artists are drawn into photo-fx and painting fx a lot and the results are brilliant.

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

Do you think it is country Specific, are some nations more clued up?

I come from Romania and at this point I assume that any other European country is more specific to the mobile photography movement. However, the interest in this form of expression is growing bigger and bigger all around the world as there’s great interest in the online social media, especially, which helps to a better promotion to the art we produce.

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

If you could select a specification for a smartphone, what features would you select, photographically speaking?

I only use and love technology because of the passion I embrace for the imagistic issues, so it definitely has to be something related to camera, lens, filters.

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

What do you think of Joanne andtheappwhisperer.com?

Joanne is to me one of the most extraordinary figures involved in this artistic internationally defined movement of mobile phone photography. She is responsible for our constant growth as artists. Her contribution in promoting artistic values is endless and can’t be surely quantified. For me theappwhisperer has been the group of fine, talented people where I developed and got the chance of being better exposed in the community and outside the borders of my country. I am thankful and proud to be a part of this!

Photo ©Eliza Badoiu

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Photo ©Eliza Badoiu