Hipstamatic Launches ‘Cause Beautiful’ Philanthropic Foundation – Empowering Young People
Hipstamatic have launched a philanthropic foundation called Cause Beautiful, the aim is to help inner-city kids use photography to document their own communities. It has launched under the direction of Luanne Dietz, an Emmy Award Winning Photographer and former staff member at the San Francisco Chronicle.
Cause Beautiful is a 501c3 that offers a mobile photography project focused on empowering inner-city youth, along with providing grants to fund photographers and their work. To Cause Change is to Cause Beautiful.
“The foundation’s goal is simple.” said Dietz. “We believe that photography has the ability to change the world.”
‘I am really excited about this new foundation launched by Hipstamatic and am looking forward to working closer with them on it very soon…’
Do Beautiful:
Cause Beautiful’s first project is a student arts initiative called The W.H.Y. Project, which stands for ‘We Hear You’. Prompted with the question, “If you could tell the world anything, what would you say?,” students from Life Learning Academy in San Francisco and KDOL’s Media Enterprise Alliance in Oakland, will spend the semester using mobile photography to capture issues that are important to them and their communities.
Dietz started The W.H.Y. Project three years ago after teaching photojournalism in an inner city middle school and learning what the students are capable of when someone believes in them.
“There is an emerging generation that is looking for a way to express themselves and get out of the vicious cycle of unattainable dreams as seen in low income neighborhoods,” Dietz said. “Their eyes have become their voice, and their voice needs to be heard.”
Make Beautiful:
Along with The W.H.Y. Project, Cause Beautiful will be sponsoring grants and scholarships for professional photographers to continue to Make Beautiful and hold society accountable through their stories.
“From mobile photography to longterm personal projects, professionals need funds to tell the stories they care about, and we want to empower that.” Dietz said.
Dietz has spent the last ten years working in the photojournalism industry and is a trained visual storyteller. Her ability to capture story and bring that out in people comes second nature to her compassion.
In 2009 Hipstamatic changed the pace of mobile photography by introducing the filtered, square image. In recent history, images made through the medium from war zones and natural disasters have appeared on the front pages of national and international newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times and Time Magazine.
“Photography gives anyone the ability to capture their story and share it with the world,” said Lucas Allen Buick, CEO & Founder of Hipstamatic. “After partnering with The W.H.Y. Project we knew this was the perfect match. Together we can help creative people change the world by capturing and sharing how they see it.”
For more information please visit http://www.causebeautiful.org
Joanne Carter
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: [email protected]
