TheAppWhisperer

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 29 March 2020

2020-03-292020-03-29 by Joanne Carter

It is a glorious spring day outside, there was a beautiful dawn chorus emitting from the garden birds this morning, the flowering bushes are starting to blossom. There’s a cold east wind but the piercing sun heats up our glass roofed conservatory, where I am writing this column with so much warmth, I envisage I am basking on a warm coastline, cocktail in hand. Of course, the realisation that Coronovirus was going to be a very serious problem came to me several weeks ago. My husband was interviewing a photographer in Northern Italy, before the lockdown, but after the schools had closed. He spoke about all the teenagers hanging around, everywhere and how closing the schools had only pushed all the kids out into the streets, none were staying home. Our schools were still open at this stage, my daughter attending daily assemblies with hundreds of other children. I am on immunosuppressant drugs for a chronic disease and in the high risk category. I took my daughter out of school before they closed, I explained that she needed to socially distance and of course, my popularity ratings hit rock bottom. Now all the schools are closed and new measures will be implemented next week to restrict our movements further. The supermarket shelves are empty, I have seen the photos online, hunter-gatherers we maybe but with the support of freezers and fridges we will reach a point where we run out of storage space. I’ve had one or two tearful days this week, much like all of us, none of us can know what’s next but we can try to reduce our anxiety. What we must do, is respect the measures to keep us all safe and healthly, to respect our healthcare workers and most of all, to continue, to create beautiful art. Stay safe.

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 #mobilephotographyandimagery.

Mimi Svanberg @imagomimago, Paul Yan @cresting_wave, Anita Elle @hipstanitaelle, Jenny Pieters @sodium_light22, Cintia Malhotra, p.a. hamel, Diane Neubauer, @luison_street, Sabine Gromek, @nadvodnuk – Nadvodnuk Galina, @povaliaeva – Povaliaeva Tatl, @pause.and.breathe – Susan Latty, @_jenbeezy_ – Jennifer Bracewell, @klimtt M. Cecilia Sao Thiago, @roberamitchell9675 – Roberta Mitchell, Lorenka Campos. @sunflowerof21_365 – Elaine Taylor, Eliza Badoiu, Manuela Matos Monteiro, @ebuka__michael, @remintrusions – Damian De Souza, @lizanderson48, @guryanova_phone, @coeiphoneart – Gerry Coe, @ja_graham – Jennifer Graham, Deborah Morbeto, @artistunveiled – Margot, @wphotonick, @marshadraws – Marsha Estes, @salwa_afef Salwa Afef, @honingdruppels, Christine Mignon, Robin Cohen @psychephoto, Jane Schultz, Jon Arne Foss, Jun Yamaguchi, Clint Cline, Rita Colantonio, TheiPhoneArtGirl – Meri Walker, Catherine Caddigan, Andy Alexandre, Gianluca Ricoveri, Peter Wilkin, Judy Wahlberg, Karen Axelrad, Hanni K, borisbschulz2009, Candice Railton.

Music this week is ‘Utopia’ by Goldfrapp

Mobile Photography & Art Showcase – 8 March 2020

2020-03-08 by Joanne Carter

Clive James the prolific Austrialian author, poet and broadcaster died late last year. I’ve always been a fan of his work, he made his name as a television critic, essayist and wit but he started as a poet and just over five years ago he was diagnosed with leukaemia, emphysema and kidney failure – he described it as ‘the lot’ and he ended as a poet.

There’s a particular story I remember reading about James, it goes like this…

One time he was going through a creative dry spell. He had written a play for the London stage and it bombed spectacularly. Not only did it ruin his family financially but it also cost him some dear friends. He fell into the deepest depression and shame. When the play closed, all he could do was sit on the sofa in his lounge and stare at the wall, mortified and humiliated. His wife held the family together, somehow. He did not feel he could ever write again. He stayed under this spell for a very long time. One day though, his young daughters interrupted his grieving process. They asked him if he could make their old scruffy secondhand bicycles look nicer. James obeyed, in a dutiful but not joyous manner. He carefully painted the girls bicycles in bright shades of red, frosted the wheel spokes with silver and when the paint dried he added tiny silver and gold stars all over the bicycles. ‘A field of exquisitely detailed constellations’. James couldn’t stop painting stars, the girls wanted their bicycles back and grew impatient. When at last he handed the bicycles back to the girls, they pedalled off up the road, on their magical ‘new’ bikes, completely thrilled and excited. The next day, his daughters brought home a little girl from school, who asked if he would paint stars on her bicycle. He did it. When that was done, another little girl turned up and soon there was a whole queue of little girls wanting him to paint stars on their bicycles.

James, one of the worlds greatest writers, spent weeks painting thousands of stars on little girls bicycles in his garage and as he did so, he began to recover. He realised that he really did want to keep on creating things and as he did so, he was healing, something was coming back to life within him. He thought, ‘I will write about this someday’, when he thought this he realised he was free and the creator had returned.

As always, this is another fabulous week of mobile photography and art, 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.

Many congratulations to the following featured artists this week including:

Jenny Pieters, Jennifer Graham, Nancy McClure, Nina Papel, Deborah Morbet, Fiona Christian, Rita Colantonio, Jennifer Bracewell, Maria Moscoso, Jane Schultz, @da_ny_550, mitrydate, Lorenka Campos, Rita Tipunina, Peter Wilkin, Cathrine Halsor, Jean Hutter, Cintia Malhotra, Marsha Estes, Becky Menzies, @terrible.bones.photography, Susan Latty, Boris Schulz, G R Fotos, Deborah McMillion, Gianluca Ricoveri, Candice Railton, Jun Yamaguchi, Jill Lian, G Billon, P. A Hamel, Susan Rennie, Chhororo.

Music this week is ‘Falling Too’ ©Veda

Mobile Photography & Art Showcase – 23 February 2020

2020-02-232020-02-23 by Joanne Carter

Sally Brampton (founding editor of Elle magazine, UK – who killed herself after health professionals ‘missed opportunities to offer her help’, in 2016) said in her memoir on depression: “We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval: ‘He fought so hard.’ And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong.” And so, this week, my thoughts have been with the local family of a 15 year old boy from my daughters school who killed himself. Of course, a well known British celebritiy also did this last Saturday, even with the same method. Except I’m not ‘allowed‘ to discuss the method as The Smaritans warn of the dangers of ‘imitational sucicidal behaviour‘ and request that there’s no placement regarding actual methods. But if we don’t talk about it, aren’t we ignoring mental illness and that’s become so ‘popular‘ to talk about right now? There are more suicides, certainly for poeple under 35 and more so males, than there are road deaths currently per year. Artists are also one of the leading groups of whom suicide is common. ‘Tortured Geniuses’ are most likely to commit sucide, the first-ever study of suicide by professionals from the ONS, which covered England in the years from 2011 to 2015, showed that people who work in arts-related jobs are up to four times more likely to commit suicide. People, are so ashamed, hurt, overwhelmed for so many reasons, that they’d rather end their lives, than seek help. It was reported this week, that Caroline Flack, the celebrity I mentioned above, did reach out to a friend but her friend told her it was too much for her. If we don’t talk about it, when someone approaches us, if we don’t soothe them, offer support, listen, then aren’t we ignoring the obvious, of what will inevitably come? They already feel ignored and unsupported. Isn’t that why people confide? We must continue to talk, we must support, mentor and above all, care… isn’t that why we’re here?

In the UK the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

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.

Many congratulations to the following featured artists this week including:

Enio Godoy, Deborah McMillion, Rita Colantonio, Jun Yamaguchi, Milly M, Candice Railton, Jean Hutter, Jill Lian, Jon Arne Foss, Gianluca Ricoveri, Catherine Caddigan, p.a. hamel, Susan Maxwell Schmidt, Lee Atwell, j.a. Graham, @deborahmorbetoffinear, M. Cecilia Sao Thiago, @berleyart – Kim Clayton, Linda Hollier, Rejane Rubino, @sunflowerof21_365 – Elaine Taylor, Michael Vaile Garner, Janis Brandenburg, @remintrusions – Damian De Souza, @Badgrowshop, Brendan O Se, @marshadraws – Marsha Estes, @ange_ombre, @jormain, Eliza Badoiu, Alisa Smith Williams, Jane Schultz.

Music this week is ‘The Other Side’ by Ruelle

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 16 February 2020

2020-02-16 by Joanne Carter

Fatigue with the stress of life, current news, financial worries, sickness, broken relationships, abuse, wreak havoc. As I shot my (medicinal) drug needle miraculously through my fingernail instead of my thigh this week, I know and it hurts but there’s also something called ‘compassion fatigue’ in relation to photography. It is so called when people view vast quantites of shocking images, perhaps photojournalism from a warzone for example and they become muted, to the visual atrocities before their eyes. From as early as the 1980’s ‘compassion fatigue’ was also known as ‘Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder’, essentially it developed from an excess of compassion. David Campbell, Director of Programs and Outreach at the World Press Photo Foundation, has written a time pressing essay on the subject entitled ‘the dream of photojournalism and the cultural anxiety of images’, I urge you to engage with it. I further researched this subject and was satiated to read, Jeremy Adelman’s, (Henry Charles Lea professor of history and director of the Global History Lab at Princeton University) essay entitled ‘Don’t Look Away’. He said, ‘when Susan Sontag composed her first essay on photography, for Epstein and Silvers, she was thinking about ‘Napalm Girl’. The sight of her agonised face ‘was more memorable than a hundred hours of televised barbarities, it may even,’ she speculated, ‘have done more than anything else to mobilise the anti-War movement.’

In 2020 as we navigate between connection and isolation, company and solitude, know that when you’re creating mobile photography and art you are driving the framentary narrative forward, we can change things, for the better. This weeks carefully curated mobile photography and art showcase gets under your skin and leads the way for the ultimate climax. Enjoy!

Many congratulations to the following featured artists this week including:

borisbschulz2009, G Billon, Susan Detroy, Susan Rennie, Jane Schultz, Gianluca Ricoveri, Andy Alexandre, Jill Lian, Rita Colantonio, Candice Railton, Lorenka Campos, Joseph Cyr, Milly M, Jun Yamaguchi, Clare Taylor, j.a graham, Eliza Badoiu, Jenny Pieters, @bortolinimassimo, Ile Mont, Sarah Bichachi, Christine Mignon, Alisa Smith Williams, Amo Passicos, Kim Clayton, Dina Alfasi, Rodolfo Alcaraz, Jean Hutter, Adrian McGarry, Mehmet Duyulmus.

Music this week – ‘Over the Love’ Florence and the Machine

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 25 August 2019

2019-08-252019-08-25 by Joanne Carter

“Everything was calm. The sun was shining. I was swimming in the deep. And then, when I surfaced twenty years later, I discovered there was a storm, a whirlpool, a blasting gale lifting the waves over my head. At first I wasn’t sure I’d make it back to the boat and then I realised I didn’t want to make it back to the boat. Chaos is supposed to be what we most fear but I have come to believe it might be what we most want. If we don’t believe in the future we are planning, the house we are mortgaged to, the person who sleeps by our side, it is possible that a tempest (long lurking in the clouds) might bring us closer to how we want to be in the world…Life falls apart. We try to get a grip and hold it together. And then we realise we don’t want to hold it together.” The Cost of Living, by Deborah Levy a book I have been engrossed within this week. This was part of an autobiographical project by Levy, something she calls ‘a working autobiography‘, it’s a mediation on marriage, death and writing. Levy is a woman of our times, she confides in the reader, giving an account of her internal life, which to many, is so much more interesting than their external life. This is a book that hits hard and fast, in some ways, not so much a memoir as an eloquent manifesto or what Levy describes ‘a new way of living‘ and thus mobile photography and art, represents ‘a new way of seeing‘ and this is as clearly apparent in this weeks showcase as it is in the post-familial world. Enjoy!

Clarrise Debout, Eliza Badoiu, Aanca Balaj, Oola Cristina, @talesbytully – Tully Chant, @not218.808, Wemarriage_goddes – Bridget Robertson, @ja_graham, @rain.is.poetry, @after.1st.illumination – Jane Schultz, Manuela Matos Monteiro, Marshadraws – Marsha Estes, kmartist – Kathleen Magner Rios, elaineofyork – Elaine Taylor, john_nieto – John Nieto, cresting_wave – Paul Yan, eilisrealize – elis, @mariette_schrijver -Mariette Schrijver, filizakart – , @janisbrandenbury – Janis Brandenburg, cpatrickphoto – Cindy Patrick, emilio.nadales – Emilio Nadales, marian.rubin – Marian Rubin, aqua_libra – Max Lies …, Anne Highfield, Arko Rayhan, columnsovsleep, Charlie Little, Candice Railton, Karen Axelrad, Linda Hollier, Paul Toussaint, Oola Cristina, Jun Yamaguchi, Vadim Demjianov, Lorenka Campos, Albion Harrison-Naish, Sebastian Burczyk, Clint Cline, Salwa Afef, woltarise, Susan Rennie, Laura Peischl, Hanni K, Deborah Field, zananiro, Judy Wahlberg, Gianaluca Ricoveri, jilllian2 – Jill Lian, Barbara Braman, TheiPhoneArtGirl – Meri Walker, Rob Pearson-Wright, Sina, Tuba, p.a.hamel, Deborah McMillion, Jeremy Cassell, Rita Colantonio, Sergiy Beliayev, Catherine Caddigan.

Music this week is by one of my favourite British performers, Rhodes with his live track ‘Close Your Eyes’ at Burberry Menswear Spring/Summer Runway Show

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 26 May 2019

2019-05-262019-05-26 by Joanne Carter

“As soon as the vote of Brexit came through, half the people I know were trying desperately to work out whether they had Irish grandmothers. But I would never take dual German nationality because I owe this country too much, and I wouldn’t want to dilute it”. Deeply loyal, Judith Kerr speaking in the Financial Times in 2017. Commonly known, within Britain, as our ‘national treasure’, Kerr led a remarkable life and wrote and illustrated the most enchanted children’s stories. I was so saddened to read that she had died this week, born in 1923 into a bourgeois Jewish family in Weimar, Berlin. Her father, Alfred was a famed theatre critic and essayist and her mother, as well as housewife (no small task), a talented composer. Alfred was outspoken in his prose and it attracted enemies. Not least when it came to mocking the Nazis and as soon as Hilter became Chancellor in 1933, the family fled Germany. Nine year old Kerr and her elder brother Michael, with their mother escaped by train across the border to Switzerland, after a few months, penniless, they arrived in Paris. Kerr wrote how she loved the ‘brevity of the French (language) after the endless sentences in German’. Fortunately, for the family, the film director, Alexander Korda, a Hungarian Jew, working in Britain, bought Alfred’s script about Napoleon’s mother and this enabled them to move to England and therefore avoid the Nazis invasion of France in 1940. The film was never made and Kerr always suspected he only bought the script to save their lives.

A fascinating story and there’s so much more I could tell you about her life. Most of all, I am grateful for the influence she has had on my own small family. Two of my children have serious developmental disorders, along with specific learning difficulties and I read and snuggled up with them relentlessly when they were younger. So, it really warmed me when speaking with my middle son, Jovian (almost 18), who was actually the only child consciously wandering around the house, when I started to compose this Sunday’s showcase early this morning. I said to him, ‘Good Morning Jove, do you remember when I used to read ‘The Tiger Who Came To Tea’, when when you were little?’. He hesitated, but of course, once I showed him the glorious illustrations, he recalled the story instantly and he smiled warmly with the memories and thus his smile ignited me and gave me another excuse to hug him. That’s the legacy that Kerr has left behind, to many families, a warm embrace with enchanted memories firmly planted in our souls. Very often, children’s authors, try to ‘get rid of the parents’, in order to build the excitment of the story, but Kerr kept the parents as central to her work and that’s an aspect that I really appreciated. My tiny family mean the world to me and I really wanted them to feel that parents can actually be fun and enjoy their excitement too. I still recall my children’s eyes widening when it came to the part of Sophie’s parents taking her out to tea (after dark) – because the tiger had eaten all their food – what an adventure, what magic!

This is the influence of art and all that you do, all that you create. When creating mobile art, remember, it’s not just you that feels the warmth of your creations, it’s the rest of us. Draw, paint, photograph everything, you’re gifts are priceless.

Candice Railton, Hanni K, Rob Pearson-Wright, Paul Toussaint, Eduardo Llerandi, Arko Rayhan, Jun Yamaguchi, Deborah McMillion, Lorenka Campos, Damian De Souza, Kathy Clay, Judy Wahlberg, Susan Rennie, before.1st.light – Jane Schultz, pa.a hamel, Anatasia Potekhina, TheiPhoneArtGirl – Meri Walker, Woltarise, Rita Colantonio, Gianluca Ricoveri, Yasuo Furue, Michael Hamments.

Music this week is ‘Love Heals Us All’ Dave Tough

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 5 May 2019

2019-05-052019-05-05 by Joanne Carter

“Whenever the world throws rose petals at you, which thrill and seduce the ego, beware” Anne Lamott. I was told a similar thing, not quite so poetically, when I was promoted and became the technical editor of a print camera magazine, many years ago… it’s long gone. “Many congratulations Joanne, but keep those feet on the ground“, cautioned the main editor of the title. Sound advice, but doesn’t it get a little boring sometimes? For years now, I’ve noticed that I have become more and more sensible and it’s getting frustrating. I’m organised, at least in my mind, it might not show physically in my office. I keep my children’s diaries, as well as my own ticking over, day by day. I attend fabulous five star art events, around the world, I attend school meetings with senior teachers, I view the most breathtaking art – on a daily basis, I share my life with the richest most eloquent artists I’ve ever had the good fortune to befriend, I read and respond to specialist medical reports, I attend countless hospital appointments and physical examinations monthly and each time, return home, to remain forever sensible and organised. Even my car, is so understated that it only occurred to me recently, why it was that every single time I look into my rear view mirror on the motorway, that there seems to be a horizontal row of traffic a good 100 yards behind me, the reason being, the British public appear to believe this is an undercover police car and I’m about to turn on my hidden blue lights to anyone who overtakes me. It’s actually quite useful, I can get to destinations much quicker and my car remains untouched when unattended (unusual for around here).

To desire is as good as to possess and I think, I’ll just keep being judicious a little longer, at least until I can fully reveal what I’m working on, after that, I can assure you, my feet won’t touch the ground, yours won’t either and the only blue lights we’ll see, will be the ones at the celebratory party!

Oola Cristina, Chris Feichtner, Paul Yan, Jun Yamaguchi, Clint Cline, Lydia Cassatt, Robin Robertis, Allyson Marie, Karen Axelrad, Catherine Caddigan, Jennifer Bracewell, borisbschulz, Poetic Medium, jilllian2 – Jill Lian, Yasuo Furue, Tracey Grumbach, Rita Colantonio, Kristie Michele Art – Kristie Benoit, Joseph Cyr, Kat McClelland, Lawrence Lazare, Damian De Souza, before.1st.light – Jane Schultz, Susan Blase, jon jon, Kate Zari Roberts, Susan Rennie, Judy Wahlberg, Rob Pearson-Wright, TheiPhoneArtGirl – Meri Walker, p.a. hamel, Michael Brunsfeld, Lorenka Campos, Candice Railton, Gianluca Ricoveri.

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 21 April 2019

2019-04-222019-04-21 by Joanne Carter

Earlier this year, I attended the press view of ‘A Fortnight Of Tears’ by and with Tracey Emin, at The White Cube Gallery, London. What has interested me, particularly, since the exhibition are the wide ranging and diverse reviews and critiques of this show. Having spent time speaking with Emin, as well as sharing the exhibition and space with her, I felt closer to this artwork and to her psyche than I ever have before. Many of the reviews were critical, she is an artist who has always attracted harsh critics. Her most infamous work “My Bed” (1988), is in many ways, metaphorically, part of this exhibition. It’s re-inacted as fifty huge iPhone selfie images displayed on the gallery walls, taken as she awakes in bed, displaying plastic surgery scars, moods and various nightgown changes. In an interview, she describes to Griselda Murray Brown, Financial Times, how this exhibition relates, “the Bed for me, is the closest thing that I have to [these] works because I stained that bed, I cried in that bed, I shit in that bed, I fucked in that bed, probably vomited in that bed. Everything that that bed is, is in [these] paintings”. Her theme of art has been the same for sometime, over 30 years, and consists mainly of abuse, abortion, love, loss, death, so not for the fainthearted but to define this recurring theme in one word, I would choose ‘life’. She has relentlessly been criticised for yelling about rape, this was before the #MeToo era and her response to that was “Of course I’m screaming about rape. Why shouldn’t I be?” frankly, I couldn’t agree more, don’t you? “I kept trying to say [this] to people years ago”, Emin continued. “Suddenly I’m allowed to express myself and to have the language and the voice that I’ve had for years and years. Now we’re in a time where we can put things right, and this is what my work is about”. Critics continue to urge her to ‘move on’ but much of the true grit of life, is incessant.

Another recurring critical aspect of Emin’s art and again it’s one that is repeated throughout the art world, is ‘is it art?’. I wonder why we are still asking this question.

In 1988, Richard Woodward wrote a feature article in the New York Times discussing recent photographic work, entitled “It’s Art, But Is It Photography?’. He went on to say “It isn’t clear anymore how photography should be valued or looked at, where within our museums it should be exhibited-even what is or is not a photograph”. In the late 1800’s debates literally raged about the status of photography, ‘is it art or not?’ critics hollered. Amusingly, (or not, depending on your sense of humour), in the 1920’s even Edward Weston accused pictorial photographers of making ‘pseudo paintings, instead of photographs’. Of course the debate has shifted full circle. Since the 1960’s , the question of whether photography is art became irrelevant with the acceptance of photography into museum collections. But the question once again shifted in the late 1980s to ‘Is it photography?’. It could be said that the prestigious Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York was not accepting of the depiction, not of art but of photography and in turm, what could be concluded, as photography. Prior to the 1990s MOMA had not given an exhibition to David Hockney, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman among others. It seems the theory being the work of these artists might have been art, but not photography.

This is an extract of a larger piece of writing that I am working on and it is relevant today in our era of mobile photography and art. We have made huge strides to encompass what we know is the most formidable and time changling art today but we still have further to travel. This weeks mobile photography and showcase, highlights once again the pioneering artists pushing the boundaries, challenging the status quo. Colour and wild creativity flourish, each visionary coherently embracing dreaming, while awake. Enjoy!

Gianluca Ricoveri, Rita Colantonio, Tuba, Kathy Clay, Fleur Schim, Kate Zari Roberts, Jun Yamaguchi, Candice Railton, Erik Beck, Nick Kenrick, Joseph Cyr, Poetic Medium, Erik Viggh, Susan Blase, jon jon, AleDi Gangi, borisbschulz2009, Catherine Caddigan, Mark Swanson, Johann Veers, Deborah McMillion, Ivan_sl, Francesco Sambati, Cristina Rossi, Clint Cline, Sherrianne100, TheiPhoneArtGirl – Meri Walker, Rob Pearson-Wright, Susan Rennie, Amo Passicos, klimtt – M. Cecilia Sao Thiago, 123ems, Lorenka Campos, Karen Axelrad, Ian Clarke, Tricia Dewey, Ioannis Sidiropoulos, Heather McAlister, Jane Schultz – before.1st.light, p.a.hamel.

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 7 April 20019

2019-04-072019-04-07 by Joanne Carter

After scoring a hat trick, I am back! As some of you will have noticed, I was off last week. Not one to take life easy, I managed to cram it with, Mother’s Day, my 50th birthday and a serious lung infection. An accomplishment even by my own standards. The lung infection leading the way, I spent my days and continue to do so, (desperately trying to avoid another hospital admission), dosing up with antibiotics, sleeping sitting upright (it can be done, I’ve learnt, once complete exhaustion sets in) and reading a wide variety of books. I got it down to two books every two days, a record for me. This is all in sharp contrast to the preceding two weeks where I, at least felt like, flew around Amsterdam and swanned around Paris, with a scrum of journalists in close contact throughout, trying, initially politely, to avoid some persistent esoteric amorous advances. No doubt, the grounds I picked up the lung infection but that’s a little unjust; I feel quite hip these days, sharing a serious autoimmune disease with a raft of celebrities. ‘Lady AppWhisperer‘, has a bit of a ring to it, don’t you think? The main treatment for serious autoimmune diseases (for the uninitiated) are strong immunosuppressant drugs. These are delivered to my home address every two weeks, straight from a refrigerated van, handed to me in person and placed immediately into my own fridge (middle shelf, with nothing touching the contents, ‘not too close to the back, front or sides‘, my nurse voiced, as she inspected my placement). Then every two weeks, I inject myself, the fun part is I get to select the location, will it be my left or right thigh this week? Or perhaps and I’m still striving to gain confidence, will it by my abdomen, just along from my tummy button, hmm – the mental battle continues for that one. The result is that in order to reduce the immune system attacking itself, my immune system is reduced to next to nothing, therefore, any bugs floating around, once caught, take quite a bit of shifting and this lung infection is still lingering and I foresee, will continue in a similar vein for the next week or so. It’s proving to be the hardest secondary illness I’ve had, since original diagnosis to eliminate…

Speaking of books, one was bought for me this week by my eldest son, Jake, ‘Do No Harm’ by Henry Marsh. It’s a book by a neurosurgeon (Henry Marsh) of forty years and once picked up, hard to put down. Perfect when you’re confined to bed. Reading the accounts and surgeries of his poor patients, certainly helped to keep my own predicament in perspective. One quote from this book stays with me “Anxiety might be contagious, but confidence is also contagious” and of course, that’s what we strive so hard, to build here at TheAppWhisperer for the community of talented mobile photographers and artists that share their work with us. This weeks mobile photography & Art Showcase is a bumper one (I missed last week, see above), as it plays out, you’ll view, what is sure to be called, a ‘superbly original and exquisite spellbinding twenty first love story’, asserted by many of the major mobile photographers and artists operating in our world today. It’s pure poetry, mysterious and yet glittering, enjoy!

Rita Colantonio, Deborah McMillion, Kristie Benoit, aka Tman, Jon Arne Foss, Paul Toussaint, Lorenka Campos, Isabel Afonso, borisbschulz2009, Paul Yan, Tomaso Belloni, Candice Railton, Susan Maxwell Schmidt, Susan Detroy, Kat McClelland, Jun Yamaguchi, zeeyan, Eduardo Llerandi, Ian Clarke, zeeyan, Eduardo Llerandi, Ian Clarke, Linda Hollier, Clint Cline, Catherine Caddigan, Laila, Oola Cristina, Gianluca Ricoveri, Vako Darispanashvili, Kate Zari Roberts, Judy Wahlberg, Susan Blase, Michael Beresin, Hanni K, TheiPhoneArtGirl – Meri Walker, Montse Abad, Karen Axelrad, Yasuo Furue, Basak Aytek, Poetic Medium, Catherine Caddigan, M. Cecilia Sao Thiago, Susan Rennie, Tuba Korhan, Fleur Schim, before.1st.light – Jane Schultz, Paula Broom.

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 24 March 2019

2019-03-24 by Joanne Carter

As a journalist of many decades, I’ve always been attuned to what is communicated to me and mostly I commit it to memory. I store up conversations and it is a treat for me to unwrap them at will. I may be in the bath, and recall a glorious conversation that made me laugh many moons ago and will laugh out loud, much to the amusement of my family. I may wake in the night and remember somber stories I have been told or witnessed and thus shed tears. But now there’s a new phenomenon too, to gather stories. Since the implementation of the mobile phone, people appear to have loud one-sided conversations wherever they may be. It’s good timing for me, because I have severe hearing loss and have only had digital aids for a few years. Since having these aids fitted, a whole world has opened up, or so it seems. It took me a while to progress to wearing digital hearing aids all day, when you have has spent most of your life without aids, suddenly hearing everything, can be really challenging, as with any radical lifestyle change. I remember sitting in a Drs waiting room one day and I could hear the other patients talking to each other. When my GP called me in to her room, I asked her if it was ‘normal’ to be able to hear other patients talking in the waiting room and she said, ‘yes, that’s normal’. And so, when on the bus the other day, I should not have been surprised to overhear a conversation that a woman was having with a friend. It appeared (to me) that she really didn’t care who overheard when she confided that her boyfriend had left her, for another friend (since renamed to ‘that slag’) and she was trying to sell a necklace on eBay that he had given her. The problem was, eBayer’s didn’t appear to believe the necklace was genuine and she was determined ‘not to give it away’. She said ‘I don’t wanna wear it anymore, I don’t want to think of him around my neck, touching my body’. One person who was interested on eBay wanted to see a copy of the receipt for evidence it was a valuable item. She didn’t have it because the necklace had been a gift from her boyfriend and she wasn’t going to ask him for it ‘now that he’s with that slag’ and so it went on. I have no idea whether she ever did manage to sell the necklace, for what she wanted but I was almost quite ready to vouch its genuineness after I got off at my stop. Of course, one of the advantages of wearing hearing aids, is you can take them out at will and remain in complete silence and go back to peace and beautiful memories.

Next week, I’m going to be in the gorgeous city of Paris for most of the week at a press event. I’ll report back, wishing you all a beautiful week too.

Tricia Dewey, TheiPhoneArtGirl – Meri Walker, Sheriannnne, deanwgd608, Kat McClelland, jilllian2 – Jill Lian, Jun Yamaguchi, Susan Maxwell Schmidt, Bobby Chin, Rita Colantonio, Klaudia Cechini, Isabel Afonso, Candice Railton, Peter Wilkin, Lorenka Campos, Hanni K, Gina Costa, Sara Augenbraun, borisbschulz2009, Deborah McMillion, Clint Cline, Gianluca Ricoveri, p.a. hamel, Kate Zari Roberts, Susan Rennie, Manfred Majer, Barbara Braman, Catherine Caddigan, Fleur Schim.