What Apps Are We Using This Month? with Deborah McMillion
Welcome to TheAppWhisperer’s section, “What apps are we using this month” series, where we discover which apps you are particularly enjoying. Kicking us off today is none other than Award Winning Mobile Artist, Deborah McMillion.
Hello, I am Deborah McMillion, and I live in Phoenix, Arizona, USA.
At the beginning of the Internet, I joined a university-hosted discussion group on Gaslight-era detective/ghost stories. I met authors, scholars, librarians and small press publishers. We were a tight-knit group connecting with people who shared our passions. Just like the Flickr group for app arts, like artists found each other. I just wanted to say thanks to Joanne Carter and many members of this TheApp Whisperer community for continuing that all-important Connection.
I also had one of the first online portfolio galleries. I got a “Quality “ badge for my website from Yahoo. Of course, at that time, there was ONLY Yahoo. I’ve seen so many apps come and go, from raspberries to short-sighted gamers for killing Stamp My Face. Why? Why TileDeck? No! Not Phoster! And I have Formulas but not Stackables.
What was the thinking there? None of my work is just one app now. And because I work in layers, when I add blending modes, not even layers are one app. I do keep the collapsed and blended layers separate.
Because my work is so detailed (horreur vacuui) I like the back background simple with textures like fresco, and Adobe, so I take photos of walls. Solid blue skies can lead to madness relentlessly day after day. So I give cloud boosts (Formulas distressedFX) or my Monsoon Season clouds. I keep Photowizard for the plaster FX. It adds a 3D-based relief texture of those clouds, skies and desert, or add water beads to a figure using Repix, flowing scarves with Flowpaper. Or make it all look more illustrated with ToonCamera.
Tooncamera because it can make my old photos sharper w/o making them artificial. Finally, I like the accessory tier of apps used on finished images, like making your own comic books with Halftone2, PopDots Stripdesign, Mixerpiece and Bamboo books.
To read our other interviews in this series, please go here.
Please support us
TheAppWhisperer has always had a dual mission: to promote the most talented mobile artists of the day and to support ambitious, inquisitive viewers the world over. As the years pass TheAppWhisperer has gained readers and viewers and found new venues for that exchange.
All this work thrives with the support of our community. Please consider donating to TheAppWhisperer as this New Year commences because your support helps protect our independence and we can keep delivering the promotion of mobile artists that’s open for everyone around the world. Every contribution, however big or small, is so valuable for our future.
Joanne Carter
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.
