Mobile Photography/Art Showcase – 1 August 2021
Mobile Photography and Art is about, among other things, the interconnectedness of our lives, about what we choose to see and ignore as we move through our own worlds, about the power of small acts of decency. Our shared vision is so vivid and multilayered enabling what we produce to become something more than remarkable. The real joy in this weeks Mobile Photography and Art Flickr Group Showcase, is the relentlessly compelling and extraordinary portrayal of lasting beauty. I have tried to create an atmosphere offering privileged access into multiple spheres of existence, discovering the secret languages of each work of art, conferring dignity and consequence with each image and…
Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase 9 May 2021
It is Mother’s Day in many parts of the world today, not officially in the UK, we celebrate that day in March. But Mother’s Day, really is everyday, with a beautiful mother of my own and three gorgeous children, I live both sides and it is glorious, in spades. It is a day, not only to be thankful but also to rejoice, to laugh, be happy, to celebrate. Laughter is the best medicine and its positive effects on our health have been clinically studied since the 70’s. There are over 5,000 laughter clubs worldwide, originally inspired by Dr Madan Kataria, who developed laughter yoga in Mumbai, I’m thinking of starting…
Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 11 April 2021
When my beautiful daughter leaves home for university later this year to read law, there is a book I’ll slip in the bottom of her case, indeed it is a book that I have bought for friends in the past, to help them work through some feelings at difficult times. It is a book by Charlie Mackesy, he was a cartoonist for the Spectator as well as a book illustrator for Oxford University Press but more importantly than that, he is the most kind and generous artist who only wants to give. It consists of conversations between the characters, who match the title of the book – The Boy, the…
Mobile Photography & Art Flickr and Instagram Showcase – 7 March 2021
Reminiscing about touch… can you recall when you last touched someone that does not live with you? I can, it was when the brunette and I were in ‘our’ secretive riverside café eating home-made cakes and drinking freshly brewed cappuccinos. Chocolate cake for the chocoholic and carrot cake for myself. The staff are also the owners of this café and a mutual embrace is the norm for their regulars. It leaves an inner glow that lasts long after the visit is over, usually into the following week for me. But like all ‘non essential’ businesses in this pandemic, it has been closed for a year now. This is resulting in…
Mobile Photography & Art Flickr and Instagram Showcase – 23 January 2021
In Ways of Seeing, John Berger discusses Rembrandt’s self portrait painting when he was aged 58 and contrasts this with an earlier self portrait painting when he was 28 – thirty years apart, explaining that the latter portrait only reveals ‘an advertisement for the sitter’s good fortune, prestige and wealth’. It was painted in 1634, in the year of Rembrandt’s first marriage. He is flamboyantly showing off his bride, not knowing that withing six years she will be dead. The painting is cited to sum up the happy period of his life. It was also during this period of history that oil painting was betoken to be ‘a celebration of…
Mobile Photography & Art Flickr and Instagram Showcase – 29 November 2020
Art can take you anywhere and nowhere more immediately or more variously than within our mobile photography and art showcase this week. It abounds with hidden treasures: the world seen and understood through the mind and gifts of each artist. Enjoy! Thank you to all the talented artists for submitting your works to our showcase this week. If you would like your work to be considered for entry in to our weekly Mobile Photography and Art Flickr Group, please submit it to our dedicated group, here. You can also submit images to our Instagram tag for this section#theappwhisperer. Karen Axelrad, Vadim Demjianov, David DeNagel, Jun Yamaguchi, Clint Cline, Susan Rennie, Rita Colantonio, Kathy…
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…
Mobile Photography & Art Flickr/Instagram Showcase 28 June 2020
The desire to belong is one of the greatest driving forces behind TheAppWhisperer.com’s longevity. Roles of photographers and artists have changed throughout history and to many, they can be lonely or isolating pursuits but it is the facility to identify within the structure of a collective, that individuals seek counsel, share ideas and pull each other forward to the benefit of each and everyone. Together, we have created one of the world’s most enduring and successful collectives. Its formation was not incidental, it was born from international experience of 20 years of photographic journalism and discontent with mainstream media’s portrayal of mobile art practice. During lockdown I have been agitating…
Mobile Photography & Art Flickr/Instagram Showcase – 14 June 2020
“In these last decades ‘concerned’ photography has done at least as much to deaden conscience as to arouse it”, Sontag, S. On Photography (1979). Sontag argued that beleaguering the public with sensationalist photographs of war and poverty was a definitive way to numb the public’s response. Sontag believed that the more distressing images people viewed, the more immune they became to their impact; viewers became reduced to inaction, either through guilt or a dismissive lethargy towards making a difference. Sontag reversed this view in Regarding the Pain of Others (2004), but ‘compassion fatigue’ is still used as an argument against war imagery today. I have been thinking about this a…
Mobile Photography and Art Flickr/Instagram Showcase – 17 May 2020
Art therapy has the power to relieve trauma and I believe it should be used widely to help survivors rebuild their lives. There seems to be a general consensus that more should be done to end slavery and trafficking but still it is an area of criminal activity that appears to be on the rise, even as we now find ourselves in lockdown. Art therapy itself covers various forms, drawing, photography, painting, but it’s still not widely implemented in a role of healing for victims. This is a disparity that some aid organisations are not embracing, I wonder if it is because some donors are unprepared to invest in this,…
