COLUMNS,  StreetWise

Mobile Photography – StreetWise Showcase – February 2017

If you can smell the street by looking at the photo, it’s a street photograph” Bruce Gilden.

Hello everyone!

Thank you all for submitting your images to our StreetWise Flickr group during the month of February. We are always so inspired to see the quality of photography submitted to our group from around the world and it is an honor to share the showcases with you.

It is always incredibly difficult for us to choose such few images for the showcase from all those that were submitted and we want you to know we appreciate each and every post.

As a reminder, we choose images for the showcase that are in keeping with our group’s intention and guidelines focusing on the key aspects of street photography composition, timing, juxtaposition, catching the decisive moment  rather than relying too much on Apping or images that are more art-oriented or painterly.

If you are a mobile street photographer, please consider joining our growing community.

To those new to our street photography community, welcome – it is great to have you join us!

Flickr Group (for weekly showcase submissions)

Facebook Group (for information sharing/discussions) StreetWise – Mobile Street Photography – an TheAppWhisperer.com Group

A special thank you to Joanne.

We hope you feel inspired by this showcase and our wonderful group. Until next time, happy shooting, everyone!

Ilana and Lee

Many congratulations to the following artists for being featured in this showcase including:

Dina Alfasi, Nick Kenrick, Barb Nebel, Luison – Lrh, Albion Harrison-Naish, Gergely Hando, Isabelle Wolter, Marc Zetterblom, Alegremartin, Laurence Bouchard, Magda DJM, Isabel Afonso, David DeNagel, Alejandro Cendan Rodriguez, Ilovetodig004, Ger van den Elzen, Andy, Rob Pearson Wright, Julia Nathanson, Daniel Vondav, Maurizio Zanetti, Donna Donato, Karen Axelrad, Dixon Hamby, Paula Betlem, Tim Bingham, Michael Dev, Stefanie LP.

(music this time is ‘Endian’ by Ludwig Amadeus)

Dina’s photograph is bursting with elegant noir style and masterful mystery. The subject, one fancies, might have stepped out of the Forties, a detective straight from black and white cinema taking a cigarette break, drinking a bottle of coke. Dina’s wonderful of use lines that move toward the subject and light and shadows all add to the drama of this image. But it is the cloud of smoke masking the man’s features that hearkens to the old film genre and at once we are plunged into mystery and the world of the imagination.

Beautifully composed and captured, Dina

‘Paris Noir Series’ ©Nick Kenrick

Nick’s photograph is classic in style simply by capturing one of Paris’ most iconic places, The Louvre. The viewer enjoys a beautifully composed scene replete with magnificent architecture, both new in Pei’s glass Pyramid and old in the landmark 16th century palace that surrounds it.

The viewer appears poised to meet face-to-face with the beautiful, stylish subject  a woman with an assured stride, who seems so perfectly composed while making her determined way. We are transfixed. Is she really coming over? And what would we say? One thing we can see is that somehow the crowd in the distance has been left behind, seemingly a crowd of men, all with their backs turned as if they missed out on the opportunity of being in the presence of this fascinating and powerful passerby.

What a lovely capture, Nick!

‘Car Trouble in Havana’ ©Barb Nebel

Barb’s photo is not only compositionally superb it is an example of story telling in the street at its best.

This is a beautiful color capture where the viewer is drawn to the photo initially by the dated red car that almost fills the photo horizontally, and is punctuated on the right by the man’s purple shirt. The horizontal lines in the foreground are well balanced by the vertical columns in the background. The man leaning against the white pillar perfectly balances the man in purple, and the two men looking under the hood are perfectly framed by it being opened.

When we look closer at the scene, we see the car seems to be covered in dust and the hood is ajar indicating there is some trouble within. But, upon closer viewing we see there are challenges on the outside too — the car’s tire is flat indicating this vintage vehicle will require a fair amount of fixing to be operable. This is where the storytelling comes to life. We are engaged as the viewer and invited to linger and to ask questions – whose car is this? Are the men trying to fix the car? Will they be able to? Who is the observer in the background?

Great moment captured, Barb!

‘Smile’ ©Luison

Luison’s color capture is phenomenal – a beautiful street portrait of a stylish woman so wonderfully framed by yellow, while the white and red in the background, with the shape of her head, create a heart.

At first, it almost looks as though she has long grey hair cascading across her chest. However, on closer viewing we see that it is a rather stylish rolled scarf that frames her face so well.

She is holding her cane in a way that gives this woman an appearance of strength and endurance. Her expression also has an enduring quality with a seemingly faraway gaze that almost gives her an angelic appearance – a look of becoming closer to spirit, at the end of her life, but with so much grace.

Who is this woman, we want to know? If only we had the opportunity to meet her in person, to converse with her and ask about her life and to hear her stories – one can imagine she has many to tell!

Beautiful photo, Luison!

StreetWise Video Showcase

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Ilana Buch-Akoundi is an Interior Designer with a background in fine arts, and a passion for mobile photography. Influenced by classical art and literature, she views mobile photography as not simply capturing moments as they happen, but as a marriage of dreams and visions from inner life and reality. Street photography, as a composite emerging from the speed of life, and what’s resonating within. Born in New York City where she still resides with her husband and two children, Buch-Akoundi recently founded hipstaNYC dedicated to Hipstamatic images of New York City, where people from all over the world can showcase their photographs of NYC. She has had photographs featured in mobile photography websites and web-magazines as well as international shows. Lee Atwell has been passionate about the art, science and magic of photography since the time she was a child – at which time her father had converted a small bathroom into a darkroom. For the past few years, she been captivated by the versatility, convenience, and creative potential of mobile photography. In street photography, she enjoys the challenge of capturing the unexpected and also the necessity of being present moment to moment with the surrounding environment – whether it is the continual shifting of light and shadows or the instantaneous and fleeting expressions and postures of people on the street. She has received several international photography awards and has had photographs featured in publication, mobile photography websites and web-magazines. She has also had photos exhibited in several cities – in the USA, Canada, Italy, France, Hungary, Belgium and Portugal. Atwell also teaches yoga and owns a yoga studio in Seattle with her husband.