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News,  What Apps Are We Using This Month?

What Apps Are We Using This Month? with Zarina Ibrahim

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 Zarina Ibrahim.

My name is Zarina Ibrahim (aka Ina Ibs @aniraz95 and @ina_loves). I live in a busy township about 20km from the capital city Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I am 61 years old. I am married to a wonderful 75-year-old who also enjoys art and travelling like me.

I am working as the executive secretary at the Malaysian Institute of Architects in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. My work mostly involves administration, writing, managing the office and staff, and coordinating meetings and events.
I started using my iPhone to take photographs and edit in 2017. Currently, I am using the iPhone 14 Pro Max to take photographs which I transform into ‘artistic’ images. I fine-tune photographs that I capture on the iPhone using the native photo app, and Snapseed. 99% of my edits are on the iPhone.
Depending on the type of photos I capture and the mood I am in or the quality or image of the photos, sometimes I will edit using DistressedFX for textures to the backgrounds, after fine-tuning in the iPhone native photo app or Snapseed.
Lately, I find myself using Hipstamatic a lot for the ‘artistic’ transformation of the original photographs. So far I am still experimenting with capturing images using the Hipstamatic camera but the images don’t turn out the way I like so I continue using Hipstamatic as filters or edits.
I prefer to transform my images into what I call outrageous and surreal images as compared to soft, painterly, clean, true images! Although I love and admire these minimalist, painterly and ‘clean’ images, I always end up making my images busy, colourful and textured.
Hipstamatic has absolutely wonderful filters and gears that I could play around with, especially in addition to the adjustments to the light, exposure, crop, vibrancy, highlight and shadow, depth of field etc. The possibilities are endless but I find myself ending up using a limited type and usually the same type of filters and gears!
I also enjoy using the Slow Shutter app to create blurs and patterns and lately attempting double-exposure images using iColorama or Snapseed. However, most of my attempts have not yet produced results that I am happy to share! In the past, I have also used MetaBrush and ICPainter but have not lately as I guess I am enjoying them too much the Hipstamatic App!

I have used Tiny Planet app and enjoyed the results but have not used it lately. Here is one of my favourite images that I edited using the Tiny Planet app.

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©Zarina Ibrahim

Below are some of the images I created with the apps I have mentioned above.

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©Zarina Ibrahim

 

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©Zarina Ibrahim

 

©Zarina Ibrahim

 

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©Zarina Ibrahim

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

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Joanne Carter is a British photographer, photography journalist, editor and curator and the founder and editorial director of TheAppWhisperer.com, an independent international photography publication established in 2009.Her journalism, criticism and commentary have appeared in The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, BBC, Vogue Italia, LensCulture, Popular Photography, Android Magazine, NikonPro, DPReview, Which Digital Camera and Which Camera. She has lectured internationally on photography and mobile art, served as a juror for international photography awards, and exhibited her own photographic work across the UK, Europe, South Korea and the United States.Alongside her editorial work, Joanne's photographic and postgraduate research explores death, grief, memory, representation and social inequality through contemporary photography, participatory practice and visual research methods, with the longer-term aim of developing this work through doctoral research.Through TheAppWhisperer, she continues to publish independent photography journalism spanning contemporary photographic practice, mobile imaging, photographic apps, computational photography and emerging imaging technologies.Joanne is available for editorial commissions, photography projects, judging, curatorial work, speaking engagements, consultancy and selected collaborations.