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What Apps Are We Using This Month? with John Williamson

Welcome to TheAppWhisperer’s new section, “What apps are we using this month” series, where we discover which apps you are particularly enjoying. Kicking us off today is non-other than notable Mobile Artist John Williamson.

Hi: my name is John Williamson.

I live in rural Lancaster County, PA USA

I’m 66. I had a career in the tech industry. My work always took me to diverse business locations and I always took a camera with me. This became much easier with the advent of mobile devices.

art
©John Williamson

I retired a few years early from the business world with the intention of making art. I think I’ve always had a creative mind. In addition to mobile art, I also paint art with “Encaustic Wax” – this is a process where I can add texture and colour to my photos with melted wax. I’ve found mobile art + the encaustic process = magic!!

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Edited in Prisma app with Aviator ©John Williamson

I’ve spent my life on crutches due to leg problems from a birth defect. Now I’m also using a wheelchair, I guess that makes me a disabled artist. Whatever the title, I love making art.

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©John Williamson

So, I’m a lifetime photographer and a mobile art creator for the last decade. I absolutely love making art on mobile devices. I use an iPhone 12 Pro, and a iPad 11” Pro with an Apple Pencil. I was invited by Joanne Carter to identify the apps I use and my favourites.

Long, long ago I used a darkroom to do black & white photo processing. I used many tools to “dodge” or “burn in” areas of my image – – to modify areas of the print to look differently.

That former process is exactly how I view mobile apps. Apps are simply my tools.

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©John Williamson

Many of my favourite apps are also popular with other mobile creators. Rather than just identifying my favourite apps, I want to give a few ideas about how I specifically use apps.

1- Procreate: I like to import photos and then use my Apple Pencil to “paint over” existing images, stretch, shrink, enhance lines, and overall, create new pictures.

2- Snapseed: This is the perfect tool to “dodge & burn” parts of an image with the brush tool. It’s the fastest app for doing these lightening & darkening efforts. Also, speedy vignettes and borders. Again, I want to reiterate the words quick and easy. Snapseed is both.

3- Creatic: This app is my layering tool. Layers are a non-destructive method of modifying my image. I can change the look of my picture in multiple ways and still get back to the starting point with no problem.

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©John Williamson

4- IColorama: This app does everything and more but sometimes it’s not the easiest tool in the toolbox. I use it to blend more than one image together. The app has a rich depth of blending modes. I also like its “sketch, edges, triangle, tone lab, raise, and directed light” tools.

5- Prisma: This app was one of the early “AI types” of apps. It takes my picture and applies “the look” of a specific art style. For me, a little Prisma goes a long way! If I’m adding a Prisma art style, I’ll dial down the effect to 15-25% (and put the changes in a layer that I can blend in). I use Prism quite a bit but definitely in moderation.

6- FotoDa: This app will search through my Camera Roll and blend two or more images together. This is a wacky app. I use it to give me ideas for mobile art projects. It’s my brainstorming tool!

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©John Williamson

Other apps I frequently use are Lightroom and Photoshop (of course) on the iPad, I use Mextures for its gradients, Blur Photo, WordPack (for background text), and LensLight (for “light streams”).

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©John Williamson

A few new apps that I’m playing with in the past weeks are:

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Filmé – this app seems to have some unique filters. Some give a kind of “glitchy” look that I like.

Photos of Clarity – I like its “sharpening” modes

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©John Williamson

mK Pro – this app helps remove the subject and leaves a clear PNG background (and has some unique fade effects for the subject).

This is my toolbox of current apps. I’m always trying new apps and experimenting. So next month my list might be different!

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©John Williamson

To read our other interviews in this series, please go here.

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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: joanne@theappwhisperer.com