SHOWCASE
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Mobile Photography & Art Flickr and Instagram Showcase – 4 October 2020
“However long your stay on this small planet lasts, and whatever happens during it, the most important thing is that-from time to time-you feel life’s sweet caress.” Words to live by as told by William Boyd in his sixteenth novel, Sweet Caress. This week you’ll notice a audacious, sweeping, rich layer cake of a showcase, a gasping hall of mirrors of lives, well lived. Enjoy! Thank you to all the talented artists for submitting your works to ourshowcasethis week. If you would like your work to be considered for entry in to our weekly Mobile Photography and ArtFlickr Group, please submit it to our dedicated group,here. You can also submit…
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Mobile Photography & Art Instagram Showcase – 27 September 2020
Double Life a book-length photographic project by Kelli Connell has kept me entranced this week. At first, the viewer will imagine that the images are of shared moments in the life of two women, who possibly appear to be a couple. Then as each page is turned, we begin to realise that it’s not two women, it’s one, the same woman and the mystery begins. The images are documentary style and not dissimilar to the autobiographical work of Nan Goldin, albeit without the edgy undertones. Connell describes this project as “intimate moments experienced personally, witnessed in public, or watched on television“. This body of work is regarded as self-portraiture but…
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Mobile Photography & Art Instagram Showcase – 20 September 2020
As photographers it can be difficult to know when not to take a photograph. Sometimes these moments are out of our control, perhaps based on ethical, moral or religious grounds. When I look back at the times I chose not to take a photograph one moment stands apart from the others. It was early morning and I was on a train enroute to my job at a paparazzi photo agency. I had a window seat, which was unusual and I noticed her immediately. It was the billowing blue floral dress that caught my eye, it was so summery, so joyous and yet the weather was bleak, cold, dark and it…
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Mobile Photography & Art Instagram Showcase – 6 September 2020
Many photographers draw on literary influences on which to base their images. Hannah Starkey used Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s 1832 poem The Lady of Shalott as a reference point for a body of work exhibited at Maureen Paley Gallery in 2010. In the poem, The Lady of Shalott is subject to a curse. She is only able to view the real world refectled through a mirror. Temptation ensues and she sneaks a glimpse at a knight’s shining sword, looks out of the window and dies. This is a very brief gist of the poem but the idea is that if you only view the world through shadows of reality through reflections…
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Mobile Photography & Art Instagram Showcase – 23 August 2020
Not all self-portraiture includes the photographer, sometimes it is possible to use other people to stand in. I mentioned Sophie Calle‘s work last week and her series ‘Take Care of Yourself 2007-2009), is an example of this. Some photographers use people in a metaphoric sense, I’m thinking of Maria Kapajevea, in ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman, 2012-ongoing’) or some choose not to include anyone in the picture at all (Nigel Shafran, Washing-up 2000). All of these approaches are classified as self-absented portraiture, similar to self-portraiture but none include the photographer in a literal sense. In many ways, physically, I have started to feel that maybe I…
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Mobile Photography & Art Instagram Showcase – 16 August 2020
Walk with me.. I’ve been lecturing on Sophie Calle this week. Calle became known for creating emotional artwork from her own personal experiences. She once spontaneously followed and photographed a stranger, a man, all the way to Italy. Another time, she found a lost address book and interviewed and photographed everyone within it about the owner and then published the results in a French newspaper. One time, she chanced a job as a chambermaid in a Venetian hotel, just so she could photograph all the mess and details left behind. Even before my dear friend Tracey Emin portrayed her famous bed, Calle opened up her own bed and invited strangers…
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Mobile Photography & Art Instagram Showcase – 9 August 2020
The chronological picture or photo essay is something that is often repeated in contemporary photography and can be very compelling. Linear picture narratives guide us from a beginning point to an end point which is in line with classical ways of forming narrative. The sequencing of the images is important in ordering the unfolding narrative; we’re guided by the photographers intentions. However, there’s an important difference between the picture essay (or story) and a piece of classical prose. A writer will give you the information they want to tell you in a precise order that you, as a reader, aren’t in control of (unless you read the back pages first).…
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Mobile Photography & Art Instagram Showcase – 2 August 2020
I think the easiest decision I’ve ever made is in answer to the question of whether I’d like a glass of champagne with my afternoon tea at the Langham Hotel, central London. Oh god, that is not a hard decision to make. I have a collection of great memories, what about that secret room in the bistro in Paris? Oh bliss. And that Bouillabaisse served by waiters who cared enough to even place my handbag on a low stool. When I look back life seemed to be a combination of simple joys with droolworthy salubrious details. I recall walking extremely slowly in the Bois de Boulogne in the 16th arrondissement…
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Mobile Photography & Art Instagram Showcase – 26 July 2020
When we push ourselves, really push ourselves, when we dare to do something we wouldn’t ordinarily do, when we take risks, measured risks but risks nonetheless, it is then that we feel an overarching sense of accomplishment. Savouring each day as our last, that’s when we feel most alive. I walked under a tree yesterday and I heard a little voice call from above, ‘hello‘, I looked up, there was a tiny girl, high above me in the tree, her face so full of glee, so proud to have reached its heights. Her natural shyness had all but disappeared, she wanted me to know what she had accomplished. The summer…
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Mobile Photography & Art Instagram Showcase – 19 July 2020
There is and there always has been a vast difference between a photographer and someone who is interested in photography. David Hurn (Hurn, D and Jay, B. On Being a Photographer. (3rd ed.) 1997. Pp.43-44) explains that the person who becomes a photographer in not interested in photography as an end result but uses photography to pursue an intense interest in something else. This is a very important point because otherwise, photography only becomes about the hardware and it is so fitting in respect of mobile photography. Although mobile photographers are interested in the latest smartphone, iPad’s, the latest add on lenses, filters etc, I have noticed, that that interest…
