Most of you know I was born and raised in Kentucky. I have a deep love for my home state and am more than a little proud of the bluegrass area. I have traveled all over the world in my thirty some years but I still think Kentucky is one of the most lovely places to be on any given day. The last year has really seen a rise in Kentuckians using social sharing platforms and while going from one username to the next I stumbled upon the Kentucky Project. What I love about this project is that it couples the beauty of an area with the issues that are affecting Kentuckians. I hope you enjoy this quick look into my home state and take the time to explore the Kentucky Project- Anna
A: First things first Chris, tell us a little about you away from social platforms
C:I am 30 years old. I was born and raised in Kentucky. I‘ve lived here my entire life, except during a failed month-long pilgrimage during which I lived in Florida. I am the oldest of eight brothers and sisters. I married the love of my life this past May and couldn’t be happier. I am somewhat of a serial hobbyist but I usually focus on playing guitar, exploring the outdoors, and photography. I camp whenever I can. I try to play guitar every day. And photography usually fits somewhere in between. I do also have a day job dispatching trucks at a moving company. It is less than fulfilling.
A: What spawned the idea to do the Kentucky Project?
C: The Kentucky Project came about somewhat by accident. First I started the Kentuckygram Instagram account, which had a pretty simple premise: to share pretty pictures of Kentucky. That got such a great response that I started thinking, hmm, what else can I do with this? I soon realized that this was an opportunity to do something good for my home state. There were issues in the state that I had heard about through unconventional sources. For example, I learned about mountaintop removal, a method of coal mining that is literally destroying mountains and causing health problems in Appalachia, at a folk music festival. I had heard of the heroin problem through word of mouth; from friends that it had affected both directly and indirectly. But I wasn’t seeing these topics prevalent in the local media. So, I decided to create a website based off the idea of sharing Kentucky’s beauty and culture through photography but also raise awareness of important Kentucky issues that may be falling through the cracks. I have a friend from high school , Amanda Joering, that used to write for the Cincinnati Enquirer. I asked her if she would write a series for the projectcovering the heroin problem in Northern Kentucky, which is unfortunately spreading to other parts of the state. She was excited to write the series and has been a really big help not only with her articles but her ideas for the project.
A: What do you hope to accomplish?
C: I hope that the Kentucky Project can be truly helpful in both raising awareness and helping to create positive change. Right now, the plan is to continue publishing articles and taking photographs that show all the great things aboutKentucky while shining a spotlight on issues that could benefit from some more attention. This includes the countless natural wonders throughout the state and great businesses and organizations that are helping their communities. I am active every day on social media, making phone calls, writing, planning, and sending emails in an effort to build an online community around the Kentucky Project. The more people that I can get to “like” our facebook page, follow the blog, and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest, the more people will hear the messages of the organizations that we are trying to help and learn about the issues on which we are reporting. It’s really all about creating a community of people that care about Kentucky.
A: What are some of the issues you would like to highlight?
C: I already mentioned our series covering the heroin epidemic, and we have more articles in that series planned. But, that series could turn into coverage on other drug problems in the state. Meth is another problem in parts of the state and that doesn’t seem to be getting any better, so I am sure we will address that issue. I am working on research to do a series on the obesity problem in our state, and really our nation. Kentucky is one of the most obese states in the country! We are in the top 10. Now, I recognize that there is debate on the legitimacy of using BMI to measure/define obesity, but when one looks at the upward trend in the statistics, and the correlation between an increase in obesity and an increase in diabetes and other diet related diseases, the data becomes hard to ignore. A related issue that will be addressed is hunger in our state, which will include people that don’t have access to quality whole foods (food deserts), and also people that don’t get enough food at all. Other issues that we plan to cover include the complex problems in Eastern Kentucky, which we have already touched on with our article on the recent SOAR (Shaping Our Appalachian Region) Summit, and education and youth development. Investing in the youth of Kentucky is essential and is how, I believe, we can make a greater and sustained impact on the future of our state.
A: How do you think photography will enrich your project?
C: Photography is really the cornerstone of the project. The whole idea was based on photography and I intend to continue to use it to emphasize the mood behind each issue or topic. You’ll never see an article posted without a photo to accompany it. I also post a photo taken somewhere in Kentucky at least once a day Monday through Friday to the Instagram account. It enriches the project by amplifying the impact. The written word is powerful, but when paired with a striking photo, I believe, it is even stronger. Right now I take all the photos for the Kentucky Project, but I’m finding it difficult to keep up. I would love to continue to be the sole photographer simply because I enjoy it so much. I love travelling to other parts of the state to capture the sights, but if it gets to the point where I need some help I’ll consider finding one or two other photographers who share the values of the Kentucky Project to help me out. I live in Northern Kentucky so I’d probably look for someone in the far eastern part of the state and someone in the far west to balance out the coverage.
A: Do you have any existing partnerships with existing groups in Kentucky?
C: While there haven’t been any formal partnerships made at this point, we have worked with Drug Free NKYto raise awareness for their fight against heroin. People can get involved by donating money to them, which can be done directly from their website or by spreading their message by word of mouth or through social media. Sharing links to their site or facebook page, or sharing our articles about their cause, which includes links to their website and page, really helps spread the word. Social media is an amazing tool for spreading this type of message. In the future we hope to partner with more organizations to raise continued awareness to a number of different causes. We have been contacted by several organizations that would like the added exposure and are currently discussing ideas, doing interviews, and writing for the website.
A: How do you think stereotypes from media, like the show Justified, have impacted our state? I have definitely been asked by some of my West Coast friends if I own a tractor.
C: I’ve never seen the show Justified, but yeah the stereotypes for Kentucky in general are often inaccurate, and sometimes even insulting. I’m from Northern Kentucky so my upbringing may have been different from people in other parts of the state. I lived in a subdivision; not out in the sticks but certainly not in a big city either. My parents never owned a tractor like your friend thinks all Kentuckians do, but I worked on my cousin’s farm occasionally growing up so, I was often around farm life. In my opinion, people seem to have a difficult time separating fact from fiction, and they tend to believe what they want to believe. So, if a fictional TV show makes KY, or any other place for that matter, look or feel a certain way, then people’s opinions on that place are almost certainly influenced. Honestly, It’s hard to comment on this because I am on the inside looking out. I’m not entirely sure what people in different parts of the country think of Kentucky. So, we are not setting out to break down the stereotypes. I don’t think the people that believe the stereotypes will have much of an interest in the Kentucky Project. For all I know, the Kentucky Project may even strengthen some of those stereotypes. That’s because while, sharing the beauty and culture, we are also spotlighting some of the problems in Kentucky. But, everyone in KY isn’t on heroin, everyone in KY isn’t obese, everyone in Eastern KY isn’t unemployed, but the fact is that too many are and that’s what we are aiming to break down; the problems, not the stereotypes.
A:Do you have any specific stories to share with our readers?
C: I don’t have a specific story to tell as The Kentucky Project is young and with our launch in November 2013 and development in December we have laid the groundwork for 2014, which will be our first full year in existence. People can expect to see lots more Kentucky photos, more Kentucky culture, and most importantly information on the Kentuckyissues that we will address so we can all work together to make Kentucky, which is already great, even better. If anyone knows of an issue that is affecting Kentuckians that could benefit from greater awareness, please let us know about it.
Leah is one of the very first people that I started following on Instagram. I was instantly drawn to her photography and then came to realize what an amazing, genuine person she is. I feel instantly at peace when I see her beautiful landscapes. It is like I am riding my bike right alongside her. It seems the goal of many artists is to reveal some sense of feeling to their audience. If Leah is anything like her photos, I am hooked.
N:Natalie L: Leah
N:Hi Leah! Lets start off with a few formalities. Where do you live? What do you do? Who is Leah really?
L: I live in eastern Pennsylvania, in a rural area called Bucks County. I’m married and have a 13-year-old daughter. I’m an editor at Bicycling Magazine, which is pretty much my dream job since I love to ride bikes and I love to make magazines.
N: When I first found your feed on Instagram, what feels like ages ago, I felt that you possessed a really special talent for capturing the beauty of nature in a way that nobody else can really duplicate. What do you think has contributed to that special ability?
L: I live in typical mid-Atlantic countryside. It’s very lush with lots of woods and farmland. I’m surrounded by forest and fields and sky, so that’s mostly what I have the opportunity to photograph. And it’s what I see as I’m riding my bike, which is when I do a lot of shooting. I’ve also been influenced by other Instagramers who do nature (and other stuff) really well, including @gregsweney @janske @tazcal @lachlanpayne @sulu1 @kerewin @benjaminhole @beardofbeez @skwii @darrenerbe and many others.
N: Do you edit your photos or do they just come out of the lens looking that way? If yes, what are your favorite tools?
L: I try to do as little to the photo as possible. My goal is to always get a good composition straight from the lens and to make it work with minimal filtering. But that’s not always possible… plus, I like to play. When I have time, I like to make subtle tweaks to brightness, tones, contrast, white balance, etc. using Snapseed. Or convert to black and white. I really like the bw filter options on Snapseed. I also use Snapseed’s Center Focus feature quite a lot to darken or lighten the inner and outer brightness of a shot. It can add that last little kick of depth and drama to a photo. I’m partial to the Amaro, Rise, and Valencia filters on IG. Or no filter at all.
N: What is with your draw to trees? When and how did this happen?
L: Trees are the most ever-present subjects at my disposal—more so than people or structures—so it’s easy for me to shoot them. When I first started using Instagram in earnest in January 2012, there were several tree tags including one started by @kerewin called #ilovebaretrees and another started by @x80sgrl called #treeveins. I tagged my pictures to these galleries and got exposed to lots of other people’s work that way, and started developing my own style. The funny thing is, I love to shoot structures and people, too. I’ve taken some of my favorite pictures in New York City, Paris, airports—no trees involved!
N: Tell me about your #solo_tree project. How did it get started? What significance does it have to you?
L: I have always been charmed by the lone-tree image. It reminds me of the first artwork we make when we are children. The lone tree is iconic in children’s art, and so imbued with potential meaning. Is it a symbol of the self? A statement of independence? A manifestation of loneliness? Anyway, it took me a while to figure out how to get a really good #solo_tree shot, and once I did, I got a little obsessed with them! I started the project on a whim with another IGer, @mungodog. I posted a picture of a lone tree and she casually mentioned I should start a tag. I’d been thinking about starting something, and asked her if she’d want to do it with me. So we started it together.
N: I noticed that you have participated in some “Insta Meet.” How was that experience? Have you been involved in any other community photoshoots or projects?
L: It’s a lot of fun to meet up with like-minded people you’ve met on Instagram. It’s a great way to expand your social circle with other people for whom iPhone photography and IG are common denominators. This summer, I traveled to Paris for work and met up with someone I knew from IG. It was a fun way to connect and see the city from an insider’s perspective.
N: Is there a particular photo that you are most prod of? Can you tell us why it is your favorite?
L: This is hard, but I really like some of the black and white photos I’ve done. They aren’t as well received on my feed, but I feel like they’re some of the best examples of how I see things. This is one of my favorites. It’s a field on a farm about a mile from my house. I pass it every day on the way to work. The way it looks seems to change all the time. It doesn’t look quite like this now.
N: Can you show us a few more that you love and the significance or them or what you particularly love about them?
L: This was one of my first solo trees, and people seemed to like it. I love that it looks so serene and sophisticated, yet it “lives” at a local shopping mall. Ha!
As I mentioned, I love taking pictures of people and structures, and I love to shoot in urban settings. This one was taken in Grand Central Station in New York City. There’s something very Sopranos about it.
I was in Spain earlier this year for work and saw this tree while I was riding my bike up a long climb in the Spanish Pyrenees. I passed this tree, then doubled back so I could take the picture. I love the sea in the background. It’s the Bay of Biscay.
This last one was taken over the summer in Paris along the Siene, where the city sets up a faux beach called Paris Plage. I love the composition of this shot, the juxtaposition of the pedestrians and the umbrella, and the moment when they notice the little girl building a sand castle.
N: Do you have any plans of pursuing photography further?
L: I sometimes imagine that! But for now, I really enjoy taking pictures with my iPhone and encouraging my daughter to make art.
N: Can your work be found anywhere else that we should know about?
Never has photography been more questioned and debated as an art form, or as a continuously changing form of technology than it is today—Mobile phone photography. As another tool at our disposal as visual storytellers it is continuously morphing. One thing is for certain it’s here to stay.
As individuals and media outlets embrace the mobile phone camera as a serious storytelling tool the role we play in today’s media landscape as consumers and producers of content remains in a constant state of flux—that is sometimes a cause for people to quickly take sides over what we should call this tool, which type of camera is the better tool, and why.
Now that the honeymoon is over—technically photography is still photography. Now what?
Over the last few months I have interviewed pro photographers who are out in the real world utilizing mobile phone cameras to tell the world’s stories. We’ve heard from Ed Kashi and Michael Christopher Brown, two well-established photographers utilizing the tool (Rob Hart was also interviewed by We Are Juxt). Feeling the need to explore another perspective on the mobile phone camera tool, I recently took the opportunity to speak with the Director of Photography at one of the most prestigious news publications in the world. TIME magazine.
A little over a year ago Kira Pollack and her team made a crack decision to cover Super Storm Sandy through the eyes of five photojournalists, covering five different regions affected by the storm using their mobile phone cameras. This was by no means a revolutionary moment in photography, as much as it was an evolutionary shift in how content is produced and consumed. So gather around and hear Ms. Pollack’s thoughts on mobile phone photography—present and future, and what led up to the decision to embrace this tool at TIME Magazine.
How has the mobile phone changed photography and storytelling as we know it? How has it changed the way we consume media?
I think that the answer is, from my perspective, certainly the mobile phone has allowed anyone that’s in the right place at the right time to make a picture, whether that is by a professional photographer, or, by a normal citizen that is potentially in the midst of a breaking news story. That changes things quite a bit. The other part is speed. We can receive those pictures much quicker that we could, coming from a camera, just by the way they’re transmitted and emailed. So I think it changes the speed in which we can publish things, and that an audience can see them, and, Instagram has also enabled that to happen very quickly. That is just one form of technology. I think that Instagram has enabled us to send things straight from the field to an audience. That is really revolutionary. We used Instagram when we worked with Michael Christopher Brown and Ed Kashi for the hurricane—the Super Storm Sandy last October. That was the means in which we worked with them. They work on their cell phones often, and we commissioned them to cover that event. We haven’t done that very often. I think it really lends itself to certain, very specific kinds of stories that are breaking. But we have tried it, and successfully, I think.
Let me ask you this then, do you feel that now with the mass acceptance of the mobile phone cameras, and especially with the growing popularity of Instagram do you think journalism in it’s traditional form is more or less important?
Yes absolutely. I think journalism is more important than ever. And I think that these are new tools for journalists as much as they are for regular people. But journalism has never been as important as it is now because the journalists have the back ground to be telling these stories and these are just more tools to enable people to do that.
What was your opinion of mobile before Sandy? Was Sandy the first instance that TIME utilized mobile phone imagery?
During the campaign Brooks Kraft made photos in New Hampshire of Romney that we ran in the magazine. And they were great and he used his camera, and he used his camera phone. We just looked at both of them and that was sort of an interesting way to show that story. I think it really depends on what we’re covering. We have done it very infrequently to be honest. It’s not like we’ve changed the way we are covering things to mobile phone photography. But some photographers prefer to photograph on mobile phones. And I think that sort of dictates the people that we’re using to photograph that way. Its not like we’re asking people to photograph on their mobile phones, but sometimes, like in terms of Super Storm Sandy, that was what happened. We went to five photographers in three regions where the storm was scheduled to hit. Three of them were very, very familiar with their camera phones and two of them also had dabbled with it. They were all great photographers and journalists that we had worked with in the past. We commissioned them to shoot on their mobile phones. And because of Instagram we were able to see those photographs right away. They also photographed with their camera. And so we used some of the pictures as double truck spreads in the magazine. Those were taken with their cameras so it wasn’t just mobile phone it was both. And I think photographers are often shooting with both, and sometimes they’re liking the mobile phone pictures more than others.
Also during the campaign Brooks Kraft photographed Obama and Christopher Morris photographed Romney leading up to the final month in the campaign. They also used their cell phone for that as well. But I do just think that some photographers are interested in exploring that tool and some photographers are not. We just published our top ten photos of the year, our picks for the top 10 photos of the year. One of
those was a picture taken by a citizen in Australia during the forest fires last January. It was an incredibly compelling, emotional picture that he made. It was him, taking a picture of his five grand children and his wife under a dock escaping this fire. It’s an incredibly newsworthy photograph that a photographer wasn’t there to photograph. And this was the grand father that took this with his cell phone. The purpose of this picture was to send to his daughter so his daughter knew those children were OK. But it became a news picture. And I think that happens sometimes. That’s what cell phones have allowed to happen. There are, in some cases, newsworthy events being made by normal citizens because of the camera phone.
Andre: And I think that’s a really interesting point because there are a lot of purists out there who only believe in shooting film, and/or the DSLRs. And some people really look down on mobile phone photography as being a curse from the Devil himself, you know, and I think with an image like that one from the citizen in Australia, when I saw that image, I thought more of the emotion that’s created from the moment, the way it makes me feel rather than “Oh, that was shot with a phone.”
Kira: Right. And, it was shot by a regular guy. So it’s two things: It’s the shooting by a phone and its also citizens becoming journalist. I think they’re becoming witnesses more than journalists, and that is the distinction. I don’t think citizens want to be journalists but I think that there’s an engagement with photography that is just—the mobile phone has allowed us to communicate through pictures in a much more frequent way. It’s just like between all the things that you can have on your phone, and a younger generation that’s use to communicating through Snapchat, where photographs are actually disappearing. But that’s how they’re communicating quickly, there’s just a whole other way that pictures are moving. And it’s exciting. I think you have to use it in the right way at the right time. And some photographers are. Michael Christopher Brown is doing incredible work with his camera phone. Ben Lowy, also Ed Kashi. These guys are all great journalists. Most of them dabble in all different kinds of tools.
So back to Ben Lowy and the TIME cover, I understand you commissioned five different photographers from five various regions that were hit by the storm, so, why that particular image? If you can, share your decision making process that led to that cover.
It was the best picture. That’s why it made the cover. There was something emotional about it. It also had a painterly quality to it. It sort of transcended the news in a way, and it was about this huge wave washing in. There was just something, sort of a timeless feeling about it, and, it was an image that could hold type, which it needed to do.
Covers are tricky. There are a lot of decisions that go into it. Its easier if I could show you all the different covers that we tried that day. It was actually a decision that was made that morning that we closed within hours. We obviously had five very talented photographers on assignment for that story so we wanted to use one of our pictures. But we also always look at a wide range of pictures that were made. So that picture, it just worked on the cover. It wasn’t about saying it was a cell phone picture. It was just the best picture. And that distinction is really important because we got a lot of attention for that assignment and we were thinking that it really was the best way to cover the story because of the speed in which people could file. The fact that a lot of the power was going to be out, which it was, so you know, photographers were waste deep in the East Village wading through water, and they would have to go back into their computer to file the pictures to us. When Michael Christopher Brown was making those pictures in the East Village in the middle of the night, in the darkness, he was making them on his phone and he was uploading them to our Instagram feed, and TIME readers saw those pictures as they were being made. We were cut out of the process in some ways. We had those photographers file directly to our audience—really made it a very unique experiment. You can’t do that with every photographer. You need to very much trust the people you’re assigning, basically, the keys to the car, which is uploading right to the feed. And I think that worked because they were coming in from all different regions. It was Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Brooklyn and Queens. And I think they were all, kind of delivering, all of these different dispatches, you know, as they were happening in real time. So that was exciting. Ben’s picture just made the cover because it was the best. I know that’s not the most articulate answer, but it really was, it worked. There was an emotional quality to the way that picture felt, and it really worked. So I think it proves a picture that’s made with a mobile phone can work in a publication, or on a cover. It’s not every week that we’re doing that. It’s the first real cover that we made out of one photograph from a mobile phone but if that’s what it is, you know, it can work, and I think that to me the mobile phone is more of a tool, it really is just another tool to make pictures.
What kind of backlash did time get from the journalism community or other publications for running an image created with that type of tool?
I think generally the response was, was positive, because we were breaking through something, and we were trying something new. And the pictures were good, and, they-were-made-by-great-photographers. So I felt very confident in that assignment because we were going to true journalists to be working with their camera phones. I think that the backlash is exactly what you’re saying: purists that don’t think that journalism should be made with mobile phones. People always question the sort of toning that goes with those pictures, which we felt confident was within our standards, because it was very, very minimal. Every photographer has to make a final image. We’re not publishing raw files in our magazine. So we watched that very closely. We have great, great news editors here and that’s what we’re doing. So I think generally, it was positive and people were excited by it.
Now that the honeymoon is over, and mobile phone photography has established itself as a serious tool, rather than a passing fad, please share your thoughts on the future of mobile phone photography? How will mobile phone photography continue to redefine how we experience, interpret and consume content?
I don’t think it’s a fad but I don’t think it’s taking over photojournalism at all. I think it is another tool, like I said, and I think its worth utilizing that tool at the right time in the right situation when it’s necessary. Whether it is a picture that’s made in a breaking news situation that we need up on our homepage really quickly—that might be a situation that we would tap into the mobile phone photograph. But, really we haven’t done it very often. I think we got a lot of attention for covering that storm that way. We did it very specifically for that particular story because of all of the things I mentioned. And that was over a year ago. The campaign we covered journalistically with photographers using SLRs, and they also uploaded to our Instagram feed, you know, some pictures, but generally we are not asking photographers to shoot things on their mobile phone. But some photographers like Michael Christopher Brown we might want to go to him for that kind of picture because that’s what he’s doing. I think that the idea of the mobile phone and the technology that the mobile phone is providing in terms of distribution and how quickly we are seeing things are one aspect. The other aspect is the mobile phone photograph made by— you can take out the camera phone and the picture’s done and it can be transmitted right from the phone— it’s the technology around it rather than the actual mobile phone picture which I think is interesting. That’s going to dictate a lot in the future, how quickly we see things.
Any other thoughts you’d like to share in regards to mobile phone photography or the images that are created from the tool?
I think that it’s an interesting moment journalistically. There’s a conversation around citizen journalism. There’s a conversation around mobile phone photography. But, the journalists are the ones that have the experience in the field. They have the chops, the background, and the ethics in storytelling. The value of that is so crucial. If a great photojournalist picks up a camera phone and takes pictures, or an SLR, I think we’re going to be in a place soon where they’re both possibilities for different reasons.
Louise Fryer is a wonderful photographer, I have admired her work for awhile now. Mainly for her versatility with how she delivers an impressive portfolio of work. Ranging from poetic self-portraits, to dreamscape views of her hometown. I know most of those within the mobile community, will have come across her work being showcased on various Mobile Photography blogs. Likewise she has her own blog that delivers to those that follow her a direct insight into her beautiful world. What has fascinated me the most about her work, is the simplicity of it. To look at her self portraits, at first glance technically there is a lot of work put into each one. However the beauty of it is quite simple, she doesn’t try to overload the viewer with too much…. Instead you find yourself falling in love with the romantic disposition she portrays. Whilst subtly seducing your thoughts to want to know more of this person within the image. Luckily for me she’s had some time away from her busy schedule to answer a few questions. Also below are some of my favorites from her Flickr gallery.
P: Paula L: Louise Fryer
P: Tell us about yourself and your life as a photographer. What inspired you to become a photographer.
L: I first got into photography in 2009, I was fascinated in street photography, bought my first DSLR and spent a couple of years just concentrating on that. One day, I decided to just take my iPhone to shoot, it was difficult! But I got used to the challenge of thinking about how I’d get the shot. From that moment I was hooked!
P: Your style of photography is both beautiful and simple yet very personal plus intimate. How would you describe your work.
L: I have a feeling that in every creative person what is inside their heart usually comes out in some form, whether it be poetry, photography or some other medium. You have to feel it, otherwise what’s the point?
P: I’ve noticed you have a very dream collection of photographic equipment, ranging from a large DSLR to mobile devices. How do you choose what to use and why.
L: Usually when I go out somewhere to shoot, I take my Nikon and iPhone, I take some shots on both, to see what works…others I decide previously. My heart is with mobile photography, so primarily I usually try to use iPhone.
P: What advice would you give someone like myself who’s trying to embark on street photography. The do’s and don’t.
L: Really, just get out there and find the kind of thing that interests you, with me it is the people, and it’s quite difficult to take candid portraits with a mobile device. You do get bolder in time and I believe your success is a lot down to personality…the first time someone notices that you’ve shot them, you do think ‘Oh Shit’ but to be honest, I’ve never had a really bad experience…sometimes it works just to say ‘Hi, thank you, can I email you a copy?’ Never ask to take someones photo, by that time it’s too late.
‘Maurice’
Maurice runs an antique/second hand shop in St James Road, Brighton…I asked if I could take his photo, after a chat he showed me around his shop, he had a brilliant original Biba fashion head that I had my eye on, I couldn’t knock him down so I left empty handed!
P: What would you say triggers your creative process when out taking pictures. Do you have a preset idea of what you want to capture on any given day.
L: Sometimes it’s an ideal day to go shooting but if I don’t have the right mindset I don’t see anything. My photos or artwork are very dependent on my mood. Right now I’m really not into street photography, I just don’t feel like being out there…I’m very much into creativity, introspectively.
P: I love your work especially your self portraits, what is the emotional force behind your portraits. How would like the viewer to interpret your work.
L: There is a strong emotional influence behind my self portraits, people often think ‘Well that looks nothing like you’…it doesn’t have to as far as I’m concerned, they are an expression, an emotion…some look exactly like me, others don’t. I have a deep fascination with making myself look very different to how I feel about myself.
I still hear your voice at night
When I turn out the light
Trying to settle down
But there is nothing I can do
‘Cause I can’t live without you
Any way at all
I first came across the work of Paul Brown earlier this year. For me, Paul (also known as Skip from skipology.com) stood out from the crowd thanks to his artistic signature style combined with his choice of still life and street photography subject matter. This was also re-enforced by the detailed tutorial guides he often publishes on his blog which take readers through the creative step by step process he follows to produce his work.
Paul is a UK mobile photographer with quite a few credits to his name. As well as being an active member of the iPhoneography community, he is also a founding member of groups such as the ‘New Era Museum’ and the UK Lincolnshire based group ‘Instachimps’ and has had his work exhibited several times at ‘mObilepixatiOn’, ‘Pixel This’ and ‘My World Shared’.
I find Paul’s work fascinating as his approach not only showcases a finished piece of work but also tells the story behind its production. For me, this adds a third dimension to what could otherwise be viewed as a 2D image. My aim here is to find out more about Paul, his work, how he goes about creating such eye catching pieces and the inspirations that drive him.
AB: Andy Butler PB: Paul Brown
AB: Describe your introduction to iPhone photography
PB: iPhone photography was something I’d never really heard of 2 ½ years ago. I know now that there is a thriving community but when my wife bought me an iPhone all I really knew was it came with a camera. I’d never had a phone with a camera and my old analogue Olympus OM10 had been gathering dust somewhere in my man cave for years. Terms like iPhoneography and communities like JUXT, AMPt, etc and all the specialist Facebook and Google groups were waiting for me to discover.
As soon as I took my iPhone out it became an iCamera. My joy and passion for photography was reignited in the blink of an eye because I had this small gadget in my pocket. Every single day I’d take photographs. On the back of it I bought myself a DSLR but all that did was emphasise why I enjoy iPhoneography so much and indeed why my old Olympus had been gathering dust. Portability – both in terms of the capture and the edit. It revolutionised my coffee shop experience, tapping away editing images! I sold my DSLR and bought a Fujifilm X-E1 a wise decision for me but still my iPhone is my main camera.
It was a steep learning curve. Apps I take for granted today like Instagram, EyeEm, Hipstamatic, Snapseed, Camera+ (and a whole host of camera replacement apps), Filterstorm, etc (basically all the ‘original’ apps that were around back then and are still popular today) were all just names to me and each one needed to be learned and understood. It’s the same for everyone just starting out who gets bitten by the bug.
AB: Your work has a distinctive artistic style to it. How did this style evolve from one of taking straight photographic images to developing them into something more painterly that would be at home in an art gallery?
PB: Thank you, those are very kind words. Like most people I suspect I regard myself as a work in progress. Therefore, when my work gets described as a certain style, whilst that is true it is also only the case at this point in time. As I have said before I personally would describe my style as eclectic and inconsistent. One thing that is very consistent though is that in general I like to try to capture or create an atmosphere rather than a scene. I’m not saying I always succeed!
In terms of style evolution, I guess there are a whole host of influences. iPhoneography led me to social media and it’s amazing how much of a gravitational pull the iPhoneography community has. You find people and people find you and gradually learning and influences from within the community creep in. Some styles appeal at a point in time and you head off down that path.
On a more practical level though I looked at some of the expensive faux ‘canvas’ still life images in some chain stores and started thinking why would I want to buy that when hundreds or thousands of other people also have it. I loved the style and some of it was beautiful but I hated the consumer aspects associated with it so I played away trying to create and adopt that style for my own taste. That is why if you read through any of my workflows you will always see my first stage is to sort out the resolution in case at some point I decide to get it printed (or someone else does).
AB: Where do you draw your inspiration from?
PB: As I say I get my inspiration from a whole host of different places but I would add that I’m unashamedly introverted. I spend a lot of time thinking and really living in my own world. My mind is always ticking away. I don’t doubt that my thoughts are heavily influenced by the world around me but in the end a lot of inspiration comes from within.
The fuel for that though comes in the main from the amazing iPhoneography and wider mobile photography community. With a few exceptions it is such an open community and I firmly believe we all knowingly or otherwise draw inspiration from each other. You never know where or who it’s going to come from.
AB: Your work is a mixture of street photography and painterly still life portraits. Do you find your mood dictates your subject choice or that you gravitate more naturally towards one subject more than the other?
PB: I can feel the psychologist coming out in you now Andy! I think this gets to the core of me as a person and my motivations as an iPhoneographer.
First and foremost I love the results of street photography but I don’t always enjoy the process of capturing. The risk of conflict and confrontation however unrealistic is always in my mind. There are also many elements you can only partially control and others that are completely out of my hands. Not great for a control freak like me! However, the rush I get when I capture a shot that I love is always rewarding. It’s like scoring a goal in football, an adrenalin rush that you only get from combining what skill you’ve developed over the years with the luck of being in the right place at the right time and everything clicking into place.
I guess my still lifes are the opposite, very safe, controlled and predictable. I think of them as my fall back. I love the process of creation and converting the initial capture in to something different. I am very much in my comfort zone. There’s no buzz that comes with street photography but it’s a style I enjoy and the process is less stressful and more in keeping with my introverted personality.
Why choose one over the other? You are exactly right Andy. Street photography doesn’t come naturally to me. I have to work at it or really be in a confident frame of mind. If I can’t get there then I’ll tend to switch to still life work. It’s great to have found such opposite styles that between them give me a whole range of emotional responses. There are few days that I’m not inclined to work with one or the other.
AB: You are an active member of several iPhone photography groups including being a founding member of the New Era Museum and the Facebook group ‘Instachimps’. How has being a part of such communities helped you in your development as a mobile photographer?
PB: Combined with social media they’ve influenced me massively. It was these communities along with the work and teachings of their members that convinced me that painterly or textured work was entirely possible with an iPhone and its apps. They are a constant source of inspiration. There is absolutely no doubt that they have helped me mould my style. They’ve also influenced my app purchases and clearly having the right tools is a big part of translating the vision in your mind to the screen. Most of all they give me support and confidence.
AB: You are well-known for your workflow tutorial guides. Could you talk us through the process you follow to create one of your images?
PB: I will admit to be being a little uncertain on the type of image to share, especially as I tend to think of JUXT as very pure photographical images and my eclectic style contains a bit of everything. In the end I will share an image that many would probably recognise as my style even though possibly not a traditional JUXT style. I think perhaps that is what this question is really all about.
Stage 1: The initial capture
My aim in general is to try to get good light and a clean background. I don’t have any specialist equipment to play with so depending on the subject and light I will either use a plain wall or a translucent window as background. In this case, the delicate nature of the subject meant that the diffused light from the translucent window was ideal. This is especially effective with any subject with a translucent quality such as leaves and petals as the backlight really enhances the colours. The problem of course is silhouetting because the backlight is much stronger than the lighting of the subject. ProCamera (along with many other camera replacement apps) provides for independent and lockable focus and exposure points. I therefore lock exposure in an area away from the subject to over-expose the background as much as possible and expose the subject as accurately as I can. The subject itself is too small to set exposure accurately.
Stage 2: Filterstorm
Crop and resize if necessary. This iPhoneography image was captured with an iPhone4. The maximum resolution on the shortest side is below the minimum 2,000px that I always aim for. Although the only crop is to change to an aspect ratio of 1:1, I also increase the image size to 2,000px square. I always do this as the first stage of the edit process so that future edits are applied at the final resolution. This is beneficial because filters and textures will be applied to each individual pixel and as such any possible quality issues caused by the resize will be rubbed away to some degree by future edits. I aim for a minimum of 2,000px on the shortest side to allow for printing at a reasonable size. I now have an iPhone5 and resizing is not really an issue as I only tend to crop for aspect changes and the minimum resolution is within my target.
Stage 3: Snapseed – Drama Filter (Bright preset and adjust saturation back to normal levels – Drama filters reduce saturation).
My target now is to create my base image. This is the cleanest version of the image and will be used as the basis for all future edits. Very often I will introduce selective adjustment spots to adjust brightness, contrast and saturation at various points to completely clean the background area. In this case the Drama filter alone was used. It will initially be used to create a texture which may well result in almost total destruction. It will also be used where necessary to reintroduce detail using layers and blending and masking techniques.
Stage 4: Snapseed – Grunge Filter (The initial stage in the texturing process)
Normally I will randomly flick through Grunge settings until something approaching what I’m looking for appears. Then if necessary I will fine-tune the effect by manually adjusting individual settings and textures.
Stages 1 – 4 are a very standard part of my still life texture blending work flow. From this point it becomes a bit more of a bespoke process depending on the image and the look I want to achieve. For this image I opted for the following processes:
Stage 5: Snapseed – Retrolux Filter (applied to further enhance the texture)
Stage 6: Mextures
I have created a small number of predefined textures made up of a number of layers of textures and light effects available within the app. It can be seen that this texture was applied with minimal transparency and resulted in almost total destruction of the image.
Stage 7: Superimpose
The detail of the image is reintroduced by importing version 6 as the background and version 3 as the foreground. The two layers are combined using ‘Multiply’. This reintroduces the detail of the image and at the same time allows the underlying texture to show through. Playing around with blending methods at varying transparency levels is useful at this stage.
Stage 8: Modern Grunge
The image is almost totally destroyed again with the introduction of a strong Modern Grunge preset with some manual adjustment of specific elements. The idea here was to make the image look like it has been splattered with paint.
Stage 9: Superimpose
The paint splash effect can be controlled and detail reintroduced by blending version 6 with 8. Version 6 is imported as the background and version 8 is imported as the foreground. The two layers are combined using lighten with zero transparency (standard setting). Although not required in this case, the blend can be manually adjusted by applying a mask if any of the Modern Grunge texture needs removing from important areas (think of this as partially restoring a painting). I find that a brush set to maximum size and smoothness with the ‘soft’ box selected gives excellent results.
AB: Finally, where can people connect with you online?
PB: I am Skipology – My blog links to most of my networks at http://skipology.com I can also be looked up via my about me page at http://skipology.me. If anyone wants to connect as a result of reading this feature please drop me a note with a tag on whichever network. I don’t want to miss connecting with fellow mobile photographers but sometimes I do miss things. I won’t miss a direct communication / tag though.
I did not go to Glacier National Park to see the park. This seems strange to me knowing that people travel thousands of miles to witness the parks beauty. I am at the park to spend time with my daughter in a place as far away from the world as I can imagine. Even though it’s Montana, we are still surrounded by Targets and Wal-Mart’s. I only have 2 days with E and I haven’t seen her in more than 12 weeks. The last time I saw her were the 3 days I spent transporting her from her therapeutic wilderness program in North Carolina to the therapeutic boarding school in Montana, where we now find ourselves. During the transport she was quiet and removed. She had just spent 78 days in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains coming to grips with the concept that her life needed to change. During those 78 days we communicated only once a week and only through letters going through the hands of the therapist first. Everything was directed. Afraid to make yet another mistake I allowed the therapist to guide me. How we got here is a long story; and at this point, all I can say is that her life became more than she, or I, was able to cope with.
This was the second and last day I would have her on this visit. She had only a two-day pass and this was day two. I woke up in my rented condo with her in the bed next to me. I stared at her with her eyes closed. She has the most beautiful face. Stoic, yet kind and soft with dreamy movie-star eyes, with a blackness so deep you could lose yourself. In times of anger, she pinches her face and tries to stare you down though squinted eyes. This always makes me smile inside. She can’t look angry by squinting her face in hate but she can stare straight into your heart without even knowing it. When she was a baby strangers would say she looked like an old soul, bald with huge black eyes that seemed to know exactly who you were. Sometimes her stare unnerved me and later it scared me. Her eyes with her beautiful long matching brows reflected my own sadness back to me.
That morning after making her pancakes, on the drive to the park, she was quiet. I pondered the same question I had now been asking myself for the last several months. For most of her childhood, I believed that I saw the depression gene lurking in her dark eyes. She was quiet and internal and I took this as sadness. I tried hard to protect her in a way in which I wish I had been protected. After watching my father suffer, I carried my depression as quietly and gracefully as I could but sometimes it was so huge its weight crushed me. Having children helped bring structure and routine to my life but life itself is unpredictable and constantly changing. Change and unpredictability became the poison to my well-being. I thought that I had married a predictable, loyal and routine man, who fairly early in our marriage turned out not to be those things. He craved change and chaos and had a Jekyll and Hyde like personality after drinking. I had my daughters and sunk even further into darkness. For years the abyss gnawed at my skull, trying to pull me in deeper. I refused to go, if only for my girls, I armed myself with drugs and carved what stability I could into my life. But E still seemed to see the darkness inside of me no matter how hard I tried to hide it from her. Did I cause her sadness? Or was she just wired up that way? I do not know the answer to this question and in many ways now, as we drive through the scenic roads near the park, the answer doesn’t matter. We are here together and neither of us has answers. It is my hope for a few hours we can leave the sadness and all the therapy behind. I’ve enjoyed every second with her thus far, both good and bad. Now at the park, I want the earth to really put us in our place.The park was so much more than I could have hoped. I wasn’t looking for peace or Zen or anything more than some hours to just “be” with my daughter. Away from the material world things look different, priorities clearer. Everything seems more manageable, without all the static in the way.
The day before we had been shopping, had coffee and dinner. We’d managed to be quietly together. We had tasks to accomplish and a list of items she needed for school. I wanted her to eat foods she would enjoy and see things she had been missing in the last 3 months. She spoke with her siblings and grandmother on the phone but even calls were to be limited. I wasn’t to have her out of my sight even for a minute. These were the rules of the school, handed to me on a piece of paper I signed upon picking her up. She was, after all, my child. I had cared for her well for the last 17 years but now I was given a list of rules. I vacillated between wanting to run away with her and knowing in my heart that she was in the right place . Even now, 2 months later, as I write, I miss her more than I thought possible. I want to wave a magic wand and have our lives return to normal. Really our lives were never normal, whatever constitutes normal and I know now that I don’t have the power to fix things for her.
There is a way that being in nature makes you feel both very small and part of something so huge at the same time. I want E to have this feeling today. I want her to feel outside of her self as part of a bigger universe, whatever that means to her. I want her to know that she matters as this tiny little piece of nothingness. It’s a paradox, but it’s what many adults understand about being human and what hardly any 17-year-old does.
I have arranged for us to take a tour on a jammer. At Glacier National Park they offer tours of parts of the park in old-fashioned red jammers. The jammers were manufactured as the Model 706 by the White Motor Company from 1936-1939. The bus has a roll-back canvas convertible top, which the driver has opened today. Cool and sunny, it could not have been more perfect. Glacier National Park runs 33 of the original buses on the Going-to-the-Sun Road which is the road our bus will take for the next 4 hours all the way to the continental divide at Logan’s Pass and back. I have decided on this tour as a way we can both see the park without either of us having to be the driver.
As soon as we pull into the parking lot, I know I have made the right choice. The Jammer is quaint and the driver is charming and engaging without being intrusive. With the top rolled back, the view as we head up the mountains is breathtaking. E is quiet but content or contemplative, I’m not sure which, but I’m determined not to spend my time with her trying to read her emotions every second. I’m practically giddy with how beautiful it is.
My children, all of them, are incredibly tolerant of me. I take pictures with my phone everywhere and all of the time. Nothing is sacred and no one is immune to its prying eye. I’ve shot them playing and joyful at their very best and also tearful or failing at their very worst. I do not fully understand this need to both record and make art from all of my witnessed moments but its been what I have done since I’ve carried an iphone. Today was not any different. I wanted to capture the amazing pristine perfection of the park but I also needed to remember this day. Although at this moment in our lives, I am into some pretty heavy and serious stuff with my kid, I know this will not always be the case. In a few months she will be 18. She is beginning to bridge from childhood to young adulthood and I want to remember how hard she worked and how capable she is. Like a letter from an old lover, I want to have the record to remember how much I loved these days with her.
Mostly, we didn’t talk along the ride. We ate salt and vinegar chips and drank diet cokes. I held her hand and she leaned into me. As we climbed the mountain, I smiled at her whenever she caught my eye. The driver filled our head with interesting facts about the park and the bus and everyone on the jammer got to know each other a little bit. We made a couple of stops along the way to get great views and to stretch our legs. We arrived at Logan’s Pass, located along the Continental Divide. At an elevation of 6,646 ft., it provides and excellent vantage point to view wildlife. It was upon arrival that the driver located a large group of rams. Perched precariously along the edge of the mountain, they clash horns for dominance in the group. I think maybe we learn something about ourselves and our way of being in the world from these animals, from this space.
On the way back down the mountain I start to feel the sadness overcoming me. I forced myself to stay in the moments I have left with her but it’s so hard. I know that I will not see her again for 6 weeks. The park has invigorated me but it’s also helping me to feel lost. I’m at once peaceful and at the same time dreading what comes next. I know tomorrow I will go home to my mostly empty nest. For 18 years I have lived almost everyday as a satellite around my children. I know that I will have to learn to navigate my own new space. This is becoming a story of separation and growth for both E and me.
The following morning I wake up in my condo knowing that I have to go home and what waits for me there is just as terrifying as not going back. My empty house, my new relationship, my unknown future and my uncertainty about my daughter. My immediate instinct is to go back to the park. I have time and also I don’t, but I know the solace of nature will quiet my anxiety about what lies ahead. For the second time in 2 days, I find myself inside the arms of Glacier National Park. This time I’m alone and I can go and do whatever I choose. This is a totally new concept for me at 45 years of age. I head to a trail that was suggested as a beautiful hike by the driver yesterday. Passing hikers, families, everyone acknowledges each other. Even the children seem to know this is a magical place. I’m walking, trying to find the peace in my head. I look around and begin to weep. The trees are enormous. They have been here for hundreds of years. I’m insignificant. I will come and go and the boulders and trees will remain. I cannot change the past. I know that E is beautiful and smart and kind. She is politely rebellious and amazingly strong. She doesn’t yet know these things about herself but I hope that in the months and years ahead she will learn them. I look towards my future and breathe deeply.
Last July I visited my daughter in Montana, where she now attends a therapeutic boarding school. This is a brief segment of our continuing story. I used the Hipstmatic app only to document our journey though Glacier National Park. I would like to thank WeAreJuxt for giving me the opportunity to continue to tell this story…to be continued.
I first met Audra during the Neptuneexhibit held here in Seattle this past September. She was one of the many photographers whose photo was featured. Besides having a personal account on Instagram [@poodleheart ] she also manages her Rooted In The Valley account [@rootedinthevalley] where she shows us the finest produce grown here in Washington State and gives us a behind the scenes look at the local farmers markets.
Just last month we organized an Instagramers Seattle meet-up over at Oxbow Farmfor their HoeDown and Pumpkin Patch Party – a celebration of fall harvest. It was a wonderful event for all ages and both families near and far came together to welcome the season.
My son and I spent a few hours on the farm. We went on the hayride, participated in the arts and crafts and even ate some Molly Moon ice-cream – a BIG hit for all the kiddos. Despite the rain, everyone was enjoying themselves and the children were splashing along with their rain gear, covered in mud.
It wasn’t until I got home and looked at my pictures that I realized that without even thinking about it, I had made a new friend. And, even though we didn’t get a chance to talk much I was still appreciative of her warm welcome and her ability to make me feel at home. It was then that I was thankful to have met Audra and so grateful to be here in Washington. The people and the land are what make our home special and if it weren’t for this mobile community none of this would be a reality.
So, for this season I am thankful for all the people I have met and for their kindness. Photography has opened up a whole new world to me and quite frankly, this is what speaks to me. People. Relationships. Community. A genuine, heartfelt feeling amongst the people that I have met.
– Bridgette
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I have always loved photography for its ability to permanently capture the beauty that exists, sometimes fleetingly, in the world around us. The first farmers market picture I took was of the gorgeous Easter Egg radishes that grace the cover of my book, Rooted In The Valley – The Art and Color of the Snoqualmie Valley Farmers Markets. It was in that moment that I realized that the farmers market was an art gallery all of its own – with sights, sounds, and smells, that tantalize the senses.
While spending time with the people who come to the farmers market, my experience has grown deeper. I met the first woman organic farmer in the Snoqualmie Valley and learned about her struggles and her commitment. I talked with the Hmong farmers whose sense of pride is derived from the beautiful flowers and vegetables they produce. I drank cider with a fifth generation apple grower who measures the seasons by the turn of a leaf and the shape of a flower. I bought honey from the artisan beekeeper who describes her hives with such care and love, if you didn’t know any better, you would think she was talking about her children. As I heard the stories, I began to discover a circle of community and gratitude that is unique to our everyday lives of hustle and bustle.
The lives of the farmers and their interns become intertwined during the growing season; working long hours and long days together. Their community and shared gratitude for the earth is palpable. When you see them, you want to throw on a pair of boots, grab a shovel, and join in on the fun.
Produce is harvested and then taken to market where smiling customers connect with the farmers who have grown their food, and the farmers are valued for the hard work they do. Vendors barter with other vendors in trade – vegetables for bread, jam for soap. All of them connecting over their shared love of fresh, nutritious food, and creating a vibrant meeting place. The happy customers then take the farmers’ bounty home to prepare it for their family and friends—extended the circle of community to those at their table. As my friend and Oxbow farmer, Sarah, says, “Markets are a panacea for our modern diet of junk food and isolations – doctors should prescribe them!”
So perhaps without knowing it, the farmers are doing more than just growing vegetables, they are building a culture of gratitude and of community. Gratitude that extends beyond the holiday season—a community experience that begins at the farmers market and becomes a way of life in our neighborhoods. Or, maybe, that has been their intention all along.
Since that day last summer, I have continued to take pictures at the market; at farms and farm stands along country roads. I have tried to find new ways to help tell the stories about our local farmers and the abundance they provide. This year, I partnered with Oxbow Farm & Education Center to create several educational and community events, the Spring SowDown and the Fall HoeDown. These events were designed to bookend the season; to mark the first seeds going into the soil and their culmination of their lifecycle in a celebration of harvest. I also designed an online project that helps promote CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) cooking by connecting farms with local food bloggers and chefs.
So in this season of Thanksgiving, I am full of gratitude for those farmers and artisans who bring their ‘art’ for me to feast upon with my eyes, to permanently capture their beauty, and then to take home that beauty and bounty to feed my family—completing the circling of community.
– Audra
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Delicata Squash stuffed with Lacinato Kale and Sausage by Audra
My intention was to use as many ingredients as possible from the market. I tried to create a true market-to-table meal. Thank you to Oxbow Farm, Sea Breeze Farm & La Boucherie and Calf & Kid for providing the gorgeous ingredients
Ingredients:
1 Medium Delicata Squash, halved and seeded (seeds reserved)
Olive Oil
2 Cloves of Garlic sliced in half
2 links or ½ lb of Apple Sausage – any sausage can be used.
1 Med Leek halved and sliced
1 bunch of Lacinato kale – pulled from stem and chopped
Salt to taste
Rosemary {from my garden}
¼ cup grated mild cheese {optional}
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 375F degrees. Use parchment paper or aluminum foil on baking sheet to make for a quicker clean up. Place halved and seeded squash on a baking sheet and drizzle with a touch of olive oil and season with salt and rosemary. Slice the garlic in half and place in the cavity.
{Tip} I also put the seeds, with the squash ‘guts’ drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, right on the pan and roast it along side the squash. There is no need to wash and dry your squash seeds. The squashy goodness makes those seeds super tasty.
Roast in a preheated oven for 25 – 30 minutes. While squash is roasting, prepare filling. In a medium sauté pan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add chopped leeks and sausage, cooking until sausage is no longer pink and cooked through and leeks are soft about 10 minutes.
Add the chopped kale, give a good stir and then cover pan with a lid for 3-5 minutes. Stir a few times, until kale is starting to wilt and most of the moisture has evaporated. Remove filling from the stove and let cool 10 minutes.
Your squash should be just starting to brown. At this point your seeds may be toasty brown, but I really like them to be so caramelized that they are almost black. So I removed the squash from the baking sheet and put the seeds back in for a few minutes. Remove the garlic and discard if you like. If you opt to use the cheese in the filling, stir it in now. Adjust seasoning if necessary and spoon into the squash.
Bake at 375 for 20 minutes until filling is heated through and squash is completely cooked. Remove from oven and enjoy as a meal or hearty side dish. And use your squash seeds as a snack or toss them in your salad. Feel free to take creative license with this recipe, add rice to the mixture, or top with Parmesan and breadcrumbs, add a sautéed apple in the filling. Enjoy the process of cooking and making the recipe your own!
Purchase Audra’s book, Rooted in the Valley, via Blurb. Please note that a portion of the proceeds go to benefit the Duvall and Carnation Farmers Markets.
FiLMiC Pro – The Gold Standard of Mobile Videography by Rachel S
FiLMiC Pro is one of the most popular and feature rich iPhone videography apps out there right now. Winner of a ‘Best App Ever’ award, it’s the go-to app for serious iPhone filmmakers and as luck would have it… the FiLMiC team is based right here in Seattle. I sat down with Neill Barham, Founder & CEO of Cinegenix, LLC to learn more about the app, his partners in crime and the landscape of mobile videography.
L: A small part of (!) the extensive FiLMiC Pro Settings Menu. R: Our beloved FiLMiC UI in the midst of a TimeLapse somewhere in northern Europe.
R: Why did you start your company in Seattle and why do you stay? Is there something special about Seattle that makes it a great place to be a software startup entrepreneur?
N: This wasn’t so much a conscious decision, as “Here’s where we are”. We definitely recognized that Seattle had all the elements to successfully launch a tech business. But we weren’t focused on the startup environment as we were about product, and I think that’s largely why we’ve succeeded as well as we have. Now, a few years on, we recognize the depth of talent and the benefits of a smaller, tight knit tech community.
The FiLMiC Pro Content Team putting the FiLMiC Pro beta through its passes off the coast of Flensberg, Germany with an iProLens kit atop a repurposed Joby Gorilla Pod.
R: Tell us about yourself and the FiLMiC team. What brought you all together?
N: Film. And now further on photography. I’m a frustrated filmmaker and film school brat in a former life, Jonathan and Sam are both filmmakers. It was Jonathan’s rather successful storyboard app Storyboard Composer that inspired me to get into app development and we had been friends for forever. Later, I met Sam when he was running NFFTY (the National Film Festival for Talented Youth) and I had been invited to speak. We hit it off famously and I got that he “Got It”, the democratizing power of mobile video, and I invited him to join the team the next time I saw him at SIFF. And now with the addition of Susan and her highly visible interconnected role with the world of photography at creativeLIVE we are having our minds challenged by the needs of some of the best and brightest in the photography world.
L: A canal ride in Copenhangen is about to turn tragic, when Neill nearly loses his arm when the operator puts the boat in reverse. Neill keeps his arm, the iPhone and the mCAM Lite but watches as Koerbel;’s Joby Gorilla Pod splinters into pieces. R: Majek Film Director Michael Koerbel suspends his iPhone from back top of a tour bus in Stockholm. With the versatile mCAM Lite, some C-Clamps and some wide angle glass with a lens hood.
R: Does your team develop solely on your own filmmaking and design experience or do you bring in other experts to develop the UI and features? If you brought in outside contributors, who and why?
N: We were filmmakers first and foremost so we designed the app that we wanted to use. None of us were programmers so the first two iterations of FiLMiC Pro were developed with some of Seattle’s great boutique development shops, such as General UI. But developing a product as complex as FiLMiC Pro with outside labor proved insanely expensive and fraught with schedule overruns so we knew we needed to hire our own. Through that process we’ve found that we needed to hire serious semi pro photographers as programmers to retain our edge in the space. One expert who deserves special mention is Jack Davis, or as I and most other people like to call him Jack “Wow” Davis. We knew we wanted to get into filters and color grading as the processor speed of mobile devices improved, but we also knew we didn’t want to cash in by simply offering the same one touch Core Image sepia filters as everybody else. That led us by fate or chance to Jack Wow Davis, one of the original designers of Photoshop, the author of the Photoshop “Wow” Book and a traveling member of the Adobe Dream Team. Bringing Jack on board was a perfect example of a target team member to bring a measurable level of expertise the rest of us did not have. And it has been wonderful being a part of what he does best. And now the upcoming batch of Pro Series Video Filters aren’t simply going to be competitive they are going to be exceptional, world class! And that is very satisfying.
R: What’s so special about this app, and why has FiLMiC Pro been topping the list of must have video apps since 2012?
N: We build the apps we want to use. Simple as that. We spare no expense and don’t remove or avoid building features because they might meet analytic use thresholds. We think if someone’s going to be able to put this feature to creative and expressive use, we should try our best to build it for them. We’re very proud of that and immensely grateful that the creative community has responded as favorably as they have. We don’t want to take out a feature like the 35mm image flip even though maybe only a few hundred people are crazy enough to use an adapter to enable them to use their 35mm glass, just because it hinders “the margins”. Those couple hundred people create stuff of crazy beauty with those lenses and for us, that is so rewarding!
The FiLMiC Pro iPad interface and a beautiful beach scene in Positano, Italy.
N: The community. To be plugged into a creative ecosystem of hundreds of thousands of people in over 130 some odd countries, all making amazing stuff and contributing wonderful ideas, it’s the most satisfying thing in the world. So in that respect it’s very easy to get out of bed every morning. I think of the job as listening to the people and trying to give them what they need to tell a good story.
R: How has the universe of mobile photography and video accessories evolved since you first started developing FiLMiC Pro, and how have you adapted? How are you leading the pack?
N: FiLMiC Pro was ahead of its time in taking mobile video seriously. I had a very distinct vision after the iPhone 4 of the mobile camera either killing or complimenting all levels of image capture. Not just for photo but for video. I think at the time there were a couple super 8 type apps out there for admittedly very fun low res graphics and we just approached it from a whole other angle, as a serious broadcast tool and the people just responded. Now the BBC and the Wall Street Journal are all using mobile video as a way of empowering staff and with the advent of Vine and Instagram video you’re beginning to see a tidal shift as the mobile photo world gets their feet wet with video. Presently we’re leveraging our years of experience in the field and broad feature set to work with partners in news, education, medical and audio to deliver a whole range of new tools that will continue to blow minds.
Neill and UI Design Lead Jonathan Houser, saddle up Michael Koerbel on the streets of Stockholm with a Kessler Pocket Dolly atop a Carbon Fiber Manfrotto Tripod with an mCAM Lite and a wide angle lens.
R: I saw a photo, I think on your Kickstarter page, of that crazy awesome camera rig of Michael’s… can you tell us about some of your favorite accessories for filmmaking with your iPhones?
N: I love MK’s hydra headed dual FiLMiC Pro/GoPro Hero 3 all in one interview tool. It’s built on a framework of Action Life Media Magic Arms and then from there you can mount anything you want, mCAM Lite, Fostex AR-4i. There’s a lot of good gear coming out now. Second gen Olloclips are pretty good, the iProLens kit both gen 1 and gen 2 are outstanding and my favorite mobile lenses by far. The Fostex AR-101 is an interesting successor to the AR-4i and I recently received a shipment of microphones geared toward the iOS market from a high end broadcast manufacturer and they should have the competition nervous by the early looks of things. Cinevate and Kessler produce extremely well made back pack sliders. Good audio, stabilization however you get it, they are the essentials. A few more that are certainly worth a mention, the Galileo and the Kick Light open up crazy new opportunities for mobile videographers.
R: Being a team of creatives, I suspect you have a number of personal projects swimming around in your heads. Who are you excited to collaborate with this year and why?
N: We’re excited about two new products and collaborations that will soon be on Kickstarter and I encourage people to support those when they see the light of day. Presently we’re under NDAs with two manufacturers but I am certain they will further legitimize the space. Our personal projects are centered around our ongoing relationship with the Star Clippers and our annual working vacation where we sail around some beautiful part of the world aboard a huge 360-440 foot sailboat and spend day and night shooting mobile photo/video, trying out new features in beta with a hand selected team of photo and video experts, learning from each other while having the time of our lives. This year we’ve invited some of our most enthusiastic supporters to come along.
Testing out the enCinema adapter with a Canon 35mm 1.4 lens on the beaches of Punta Cana, DR.
R: Recently, director/photographer Dutch Doscher told Juxter Jen Pollack Bianco that his go-to app for film making on iPhone is none other than FiLMiC Pro. It has to feel good when some of the best “big camera” shooters turn to your app when they shoot Mobile. How do you balance developing for the pros with developing an app for the average iPhone user?
N: We haven’t balanced it out successfully yet and still build for the pros. And yeah, we never get tired of hearing that successful professionals appreciate what we try to do. There will be a pivot soon, to try and bring some of our feature set to a broader audience with a different user experience. We’ve had a hard time dealing with the influx of non filmmakers who are attracted to the app due to its visibility and critical success but don’t understand the concepts of undercranking a camera, something we foolishly took as a given for our audience until our audience started to be broader than the niche we envisioned for ourselves.
R: Who are your favorite filmmakers shooting with FiLMic Pro?
N: Conrad Mess is world class and I think he just took home another trunk full of awards for his mobile work. His work may be a little dark for some taste but nothing can hide his sense of style, authoritative tone and controlled pacing. Conrad would be a success no matter what he shot on, but that’s kind of the point. Put a quality, affordable tool in anyones hands who has talent and let him or her show the world what he can do. Obviously, Michael Koerbel is another favorite of mine and I never cease to learn new things when I go traveling with him. But equally important are the unsung heroes, the quiet people trying something out on their own with their family or friends, discovering the full range of their creativity. The following are just a few samples that highlight some of my favorite random bits of greatness:
The Other Side” Phonetastic-Sitges Best Film Winner (iPhone Short Film)
R: When WeAreJuxt produced the first Darkroom Series back in January 2012, we knew the documentary team for a mobile photography art opening would be shooting with mobile devices. Every one of the filmmakers used FiLMic Pro. It was the first time I’d heard of it, and I bought it immediately. Admittedly, it was pretty intimidating to me at the time. Can you give some advice for mobile artists who are just getting into shooting video and want to try FiLMiC Pro?
N: Stability is key. Whether you use the image stabilization from within the app or a mini tripod or stabilizer, the weight of the phones is so slight that something as incidental as your breathing is going to greatly affect your shots. Secondly, think through your shots; where’s your light source, what’s my starting frame or composition, where do I want to end up. Third be judicious in your pans, especially with regard to speed, the scan rate of the camera reads of the sensor incrementally so if you move too fast the image isn’t fully recorded to disc before the image is no longer there and that is why you’ll sometimes see the earthquake effect where the image destabilizes and breaks into layers. Expose more for the highlights and let the balance of the image be a shade under exposed if need be. You can recover shadow detail just fine with our new post imaging tools in the version 3.4 update. And any NLE of course will do a stellar job with that as well.
Know your intended broadcast medium and that will help you make selections with your frame rates, 30 for US broadcast, 25 for EU/ROW markets, 24 for achieving a cinematic look. We base all our motion fx defaults of 24 fps playback as that’s what we’re partial too, but the app makes it possible to overwrite all those fx for the playback frame rate of your choice. Balance your need for resolution versus your need for speed, bandwidth and storage availability. We’re truly leaders in the world with more frame rates, resolutions and variable bit encoding rates than any other app.
The indented Camera UI with Zoom Speed indicator.
Know your device, if you have a 16 gig iPhone you probably don’t want to be shooting 1080p at 30 fps at FiLMiC Extreme 50 bit rate encoding. You’ll be out of hard drive space in ten minutes. On the other hand you could conceivably shoot 540p at a custom 15 fps at Economy Bitrate and have hours of space available. So it isn’t always as simple as select these settings and your footage will come out great. And that’s why broadcast professionals take so well to the app, as they know what they want or need in a particular setting and by and large the app offers it.
Let’s see a few other helpful tidbits, always lock white balance, always lock focus, and then lock exposure or, if you are in the right variable light setting, say driving in and out of a canopy of trees or a tunnel trying riding the exposure unlocked and see how good it is at oscillating back and forth between the varying exposure zones.
R: The We Are Juxt community started out iPhone centric, however we’ve grown into a community with Android, Windows Phone and many other mobile devices that have stepped up their game to compete in the mobile photography realm. What have you got in the mix for platforms outside of iOS?
N: We’re testing out the market demand for FiLMiC Pro on both Android and Windows with avenues such as Kickstarter campaigns because we are attracted by some new compelling features on the hardware side. The 41megapixel Lumia 1020, the 120 fps capture rate of the Samsung Galaxy 4 and even Google Glass. I think its safe to say that the Windows campaign is DOA and that’s a shame because the hardware is impressive buts its still an uphill battle and a small market share that we weren’t able to successfully engage. Android is more promising but has the notorious fragmentation issues which for an app as complex as FiLMiC Pro is a big deal. We ran a couple Kickstarter campaigns recently and while neither was funded, they were great learning experiences and we’ll definitely be continuing our foray into the Android world. Here in the words of T.E. Lawrence, the future is unwritten.
L: With locking focus and exposure, FiLMiC Pro makes gorgeous work of these waves off the coast of Lipari and the sun light sales of the 439′ Royal Clipper sailboat. R: High atop the crow’s nest on the 366′ ft Star Flyer sailboat on the Baltic Sea.
All told, this has been a wonderful time for us. We’re pleased to make new friends on new platforms and to further relationships with creatives like the We Are Juxt community. We’re excited about a new batch of products and features that we’re going to be launching on iOS7 imminently, and we’re thrilled to be contributing a series of video tutorials for We Are Juxt readers over the next few weeks. We definitely have some fun things to share.
Cinegenix Founder and CEO Neill Barham on the backstreets of Trestevere, Rome.
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Thanks to Neill for sharing the FiLMiC Pro story and inspiring us to shoot more video! Also, thanks to pro photographer and creativeLIVE host Susan Roderick for sparking this relationship.
Look for our FiLMiC Pro video tutorial series coming up on Fridays in December on the 6th, 13th & 20th.
Wattsoflove! How to use Mobile-Photography and the Social Medias for the Greater Good! by Dilshad Corleone
There is very little presentation required when we talk about Kevin Kuster. He is the main man and right hand to Josh Johnson’s @Joshjohnson #JJ feed. A great photographer with a fascinating background, Kevin, is truly an inspirational man and an amazing friend! I was considering interviewing Kevin for a long time, and now it truly seems the most appropriate moment as he is involved with the non-profit charity organisation www.wattsoflove.org. They have distributed 1000 solar LED lights to Ilin Island, in the Philippines, last February to the poorest of the poor and the effects were life changing. Ilin Island has never had any electricity, running water or medical assistance. The 35,000 islanders have been all but forgotten and struggle to survive every day. while I am writing this, Kevin is on his way back to Ilin Island as he has received word that much of the island and its neighbouring islands have been crushed by typhoon #hayian and #yolanda. To me this is one of the most enriching way to use all the social medias and mobile photography at its best, so please do read this and if you can help just do it!
DC: Dilshad Corelone KK: Kevin Kuster.
DC: So what is Wattsoflove? And how did you get involved with them?
KK:Watts of Love is an international nonprofit that specializes in providing solar lights to people who live in darkness once the sun goes down. The organization was founded by my sister Nancy and my brother-in-law, John, in July of last year. I got involved with their mission to illuminate lives when I found out that they needed a photographer to document their first-ever light drop on Ilin Island in the Philippines.
DC: It is truly sad what has happened in the recent days! Do you have any news of what is going on there now?
KK: We don’t have all details yet, we do know that almost every bamboo hut on Ilin has been completely destroyed! Thousands of families are completely without shelter and most are trying to take refuge in a local church. It is our goal to provide 10,000 solar LED lights to devastated families in three locations (Ilin, Seminara and Ambulong Islands – Occidental Mindoro, Philippines) . These lights provide safety, the ability charge to cell phones and radios for emergency communication, and most importantly to continue rebuilding their homes and community after the sun goes down.
DC: This is you second time that you are going there you already went on a field trip for Wattsoflove, can you tell me more about what you found out in the Philippines?
KK: When we disembarked for Ilin Island, I witnessed the tremendous need for solar light in action. I had no idea that light could ever have such a massive impact on a family, many of whom were forced to sit idle at night prior to receiving their solar lanterns. We found that light is actually the fastest and most effective way out of poverty, as it eliminates dependence on expensive kerosene and it enables people to be productive at night, whether by working or studying. We found that light equals HOPE, which stands for health, opportunity, power and education. While on Ilin Island, I also had the opportunity to photograph 40 couples who could not afford the expenses traditionally involved in getting married. Each was provided with a framed print of their photo, and for many of them, it was the first photo they’d ever owned or even viewed of themselves.
DC: How can Wattsoflove and photography help the people that have been affected by this tragedy?
KK: Photography and videos are the number one way to effectively tell a compelling story, and this is one that must be shared. Most people don’t know how much light actually affects our lives, and in using more visually-inspired mediums of expression, we create an atmosphere that better engages people because they can connect with the message on a more personal level.
DC: How can mobile photography combined together with charity be part of all this? And how Wattsoflove can benefit from this?
KK: Mobile photography affords us the chance to shoot images and immediately post them for others to view and begin to assemble a response. Our last trip to the Philippines was an unparalleled experience, and so many people on Instagram were following our entire adventure from beginning to end. Their enthusiasm was tangible and the support we received really helped us get through some difficult days on Ilin Island. I’m getting ready to leave for the Philippines on Thursday with a suitcase full of lights, and I’ll be taking photos of the aftermath of Super Typhoon Haiyan. I’m hoping to visit some of the people we brought lights to on Ilin Island and that people will follow us on Instagram @Watts_of_Love and our Facebook page www.facebook.com/wattsofloveinc for additional content as we deliver our emergency disaster relief solar lights. I will also be posting on my personal account @kevinkuster. Although I am unsure if I will be able to keep up my daily duties with the #jj community (@joshjohnson) I will also keep that amazing community informed of my experiences and travels as well.
DC: Indeed, you are well involved with social medias so, can instagram or other social network be part or be a means of divulging the message? How important are these social networks and how can people help or even be part of the amazing work that you have started?
KK: Instagram and mobile photography have really given us a perfect method of disseminating our message to concerned and compassionate people all around the world. The number of international donations we have received has been phenomenal. When we send thank-you letters to our donors who are supporting our Philippines relief effort from places like Russia, Hong Kong, the UK and Australia, it reminds us all that there’s a lot of good in the world, and every little bit matters. Prior to our social media campaign, I didn’t know that you could go on Instagram and ask people for financial assistance, emotional support and encouragement. I have honestly and sincerely we’ve been overwhelmed by the support Watts of Love received and how much the support effected me personally.
DC: How can we take part or help?
KK: Those who are interested in helping can do so by donating, starting their own campaign and/or telling their family and friends about our mission to empower the poorest of the poor in the darkest regions of the world. Please consider donating anything you wish to fund a disaster relief solar light and power kit today. This is a huge goal, but I believe our community can help initiate the BIGGEST charity giving program on ever! Go to www.wattsoflove.org.
DC: Where can we find you? and is there anything else that you would like to add?
KK: We’re always open for new ideas and we’re interested in knowing how potential volunteers would like to help based on what they enjoy doing. We also have a policy that any images posted on our @Watts_of_Love instagram feed may be reposted to share with friends and followers, but we ask that they please properly identify where the content came from. The more people are talking and communicating about the Watts of Love mission the better.
I want to thank you Dilshad and WeAreJuxt for allowing me this opportunity to share my experiences with your great community and hopefully shed some light on a solvable global problem. Yes, it is a big task but, if we all do our part I know we can help bring light into the darkest parts of the world and change lives forever.
For more additional information you can visit www.wattsoflove.org. Please consider reposting this image and all of info on ANY of your social media channels to help Watts of Love spread the word. Thank you.
In my groggy, sleep deprived delirium I see more clearly than ever. Time is precious. Emotions are fleeting.
I don’t have the time to spend hours editing the emotion into my images. I can’t take hundreds of photos and mash together the ones that I like. I have to get it right the first time.
Preparation for going out to take photos no longer includes my three or four step checklist or a weekend whimsy. I have to plan weeks in advance.
My mind moves quite a bit more slowly than it did a few months ago. It’s like my brain was once a pinball machine with constant action, lights, and colors. I have been forced to slow down. I can lay for hours just studying the fine fuzz that covers the skin of my tiny little person. Each toe takes special consideration. I need to study and memorize every expression, every sound. I have noticed that all aspects of my life have taken on new meaning. I am in awe of the small things that I once never took the time to realize. I was in such a hurry to move on to the next shiny thing that could distract me for a minute. Finally, I can see clearly. I can appreciate the simplicity in life; the simplicity in an image. I can appreciate a photo for face value without having to add distraction.
Everyday is a new opportunity, a new challenge to seek out something fascinating. Some days that means exploring the unexplored. Some days that means just taking a second look to really see.
I am one of the folks who run the We Are Juxt Twitter account. I see a lot of the photos that are tagged as well as shared for us to see. There are many great images and because of the shear volume it’s almost hard to find an artist on Twitter to feature on our site. Until recently! Linda had tagged a few of her photos one week and they were great. Then I realized that she was using Google’s Glass and was intrigued to learn more about her, her process with Glass, and of course her images.
Folks meet Linda, Linda meet the folks! – BP
I grew up in Texas and Oklahoma, and carry with me a great love of open space, with an unobstructed view of the sky. When I was 21, I went to graduate school in Fine Art at UC Berkeley and ended up staying in California for years, working in animation and special effects for the movie and tv industries. I directed commercials, music videos, fake TV commercials for SNL, and special FX for Sci-Fi movies . It was great fun, and I got to work with many of the best in the business. I came back to Oklahoma and the Chickasaw Nation for a family emergency, and realized I was ‘home’.
As a life-long artist, I love to draw, especially from life, Sometimes I teach college classes in life drawing, design or Art History, but mostly I just do my Art. I show my work regularly in Dallas, and the southwest, but the ‘gallery system’ feels like a dying breed.. Social media online is a great way to share what I’m working on, and I’m pleased to have over 45,000 followers. Currently I’m looking at ways to bring my mobile photography into the 3rd dimension, and thinking about how this habit could be monetized. The show I’m in right now, I shot the piece with glass, and worked back into a print with drawing.
Music is part of my life and I enjoy listening to world music that has a Native feel to it when I’m editing. Though I love oldies/ nineties music, hip-hop and reggae. I had the pleasure of spending time in Guatemala learning Spanish, and Austin, Texas for ASL, and I bagged a California Community College teaching credential, along the way.
Like most artists, I like perspective changes, and changes in perception. I meditate daily, and have been actively seeking to use my obsession with mobile photography as an exercise in pure seeing, or seeing ‘that which is ’ I see the sunrise every morning, and watch it set every evening. I spend much time watching the sky, looking at trees, plants and fellow creatures.
According to Kahlil Gibran, “When you reach the heart of life you shall find beauty in all things, even in the eyes that are blind to beauty.”
When I glimpse what I feel to be a distillation of beauty, I try to capture it from time, and drag it back to the construct, for display. I rely on my eye, and faint visceral tugs to know when to shoot, if I remember …and go into a place where external reality barely intrudes.( Once I’m finished shooting, I realize there are thorns sticking into me and I’m freezing.) Naturally I am addicted to this feeling, and hope to keep doing it for years.
When I was taking care of my mother while she died, a couple of years back, I longed for an instant mode of creative expression, that didn’t require lots of equipment or supplies. I’d had a show of new drawings in 2011, and participated in several gallery shows, but wasn’t interested in getting back into being bound to the desk or easel. Pretty soon I discovered the perfect tool was my phone, and began my experiment of trying to see and distill the beauty of now. My phone cams, and their attending editing apps eased my creative anxiety, and another rabidly obsessed Mobile Photographer came into being,
Last summer I went out to Google in Mountain View, Ca, and got setup with glass. (I got picked because a photo I put in their online contest February 2013 got thousands of hits and reshares.) The color and clarity of the Glass device shots are similar to my Samsung Galaxy S3. but it shoots hands free, by voice command and is a wider angle . The technology is a wild ride, fraught with instant elation when it works right and you get the shot , and abject misery when it screws up… there are so many layers to keep together. I have my Samsung GalaxyS3, iPhone, iPad, and Glass to keep charged and functioning smoothly, and then, there is the never ending task of staying on top of the seemingly constant updates, where once again, your favorite apps appear unfamiliar, and have new bugs.
One photo usually isn’t enough to work through a concept, so I tend to work in series. When I saw a wonderful Mack truck by the side of the highway, I felt that its ominous qualities could be better appreciated if my legs, in red heels, were in the foreground. Juxtaposed so to speak. This began my “Heel Overhead” series, which includes my legs in front of various presenting pieces of large equipment. I did one with a big Android statue at Google HQ as my first shot through glass. A lot of jaws dropped, but I just HAD to.
I like driving around looking at things, and love using my car in my work, whether shooting through the windshield or getting out and shooting the car in a cool spot. I love shooting rain through the windshield, and shooting with Glass is hands free, easier while driving. I try to catch those places in the road where you can’t see where the road ahead goes, or if its even there.
I’m back living in the middle of nowhere, with vast expanses of earth and sky, and the wonder of new love. My partner and I are exploring our own construct of what life and love can entail, in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma. We are on some acreage, with no city services, no TV, a wood stove for heat, and its awesome!
My favorite Inspirational Hero has always been Che Guevara, whose very spirit embodies the idea that one person taking actions from the heart can change things. When I was young, I got to meet and hang out with numerous artists and writers who were true to their own instincts, notably Andy Warhol, Williams Burroughs and Peter Voulkos. People who take action inspire me, and the Occupy movement, and Anonymous are heartening. In my own family, my Granny inspired me with her ability to do whatever needed to be done, with what she had on hand. She grew vegetables, milked goats, made butter, sewed clothes without a pattern, and could handle a huge chainsaw into her seventies.. Throughout her life, she continued doing things she’d never done before, like finally getting her driver’s license at an advanced age.
Most of my shots are through glass, at least partially. I wear it when I drive, and when out shooting. It works pretty well inside the car, if you keep your tunes dialed down. It has voice activation, so you don’t have to touch it to shoot, as long as it can hear you.. It doesn’t understand well in high wind, and I’ve had to manually shoot it in storms, which is cumbersome.
There is no viewfinder in the glass, and you don’t see anything when you are shooting. You just look, and when you see a shot, you say “Okay Glass, take a picture” The device is above your right eye, held up with a nose piece on a metal band, like wearing glasses. There are other commands, for shooting video, sharing to your Google+ circles, and adding captions. You can check your email, message people, use your phone, see what’s happening on your Google+, Facebook or Twitter streams, check the news, get maps and directions, find public transportation and see how long it will take you to get somewhere. Its tethered to your phone as a bluetooth device.
That’s all pretty cool, but the best thing is shooting hands free. Around here, I’ve been asked if it is a medical device.
My photos all auto-upload to a Picasa web album on Google+..thats android, iphone, ipad and glass. If I want, they can be edited with the Google+ editor, which is really Snapseed. Or, I edit them on the phone, and my first choice is Snapseed. This works great for shots that just need a little tweaking.
My editing style is intuitive, and begins when I’m shooting. Like a lot of people, I enjoy combining my favorite images. I shot the tractor, screen left , through glass, with the intent of pairing a perfect cloud in the blank area above. The cloud appeared later, and I framed it until it looked like it would rock with the tractor, and snapped it with my iphone. I took both images through Snapseed ‘Tune Image’, and then to an image blending app on my ipad.,
PhotoBlender, and Image Blend are useful. There, I blended them in an old school DX, and took the composited photo back into Snapseed for texture and a little drama.
Other apps I like are Photo fx Ultra, for its neutral density grad, and color grads, that can really add subtle color to landscapes. I also enjoy LensLight for popping lights in night shots. On android I like Pixlr Express, and several filter apps… ( they were wiped off my phone when I had to get it reset to factory settings last week. Now I need to reinstall those…never a dull minute!) I told the Glass Developers last summer they needed to have editing apps, at least Snapseed in the glass, after all Google owns it, too. I’m betting in a few months when my glass updates, it will appear. The thing that makes my editing a pain is Android vs Apple. I use them both but they don’t make it easy.
Nature always inspire me, and so do other mobile photographers, with the different ways they glimpse their worlds. It totally rocks to be able to see work from all over the world on photo social sites. I believe this is Fine Art of now. Its new, and unsullied by rules or tradition. Its instant, and as available as the creative spirit in us all.
The Moment of Goodness: The Art of Stickrust by Anna Cox
Like many of us, my interest in art goes past photography. In fact, in college I studied oil painting and still to this day paint on a regular basis. I guess you could say that painting is my first love and all of my other ventures stem from that love. When I stumbled upon Stickrust a couple weeks ago I was instantly moved and dug into his work. His work is guttural and raw and each one spoke to a soft part of me. As I moved through his feed, I was drawn to how open and friendly he was with all of the people who commented on his feed. When I approached him for an interview I had planned to play up the sharing side of his work to help it fit into We Are Juxt but I found out quickly that the creating and instagram are married within his process. He wouldn’t do one without the other, so really, as far as mobile photography goes for Stickrust it is a tool, an enabler, and source of encouragement. – Anna
Stickrust: I really only started painting two years ago. My undergraduate degree was in art and illustration, but I stopped making any artwork for fifteen years. So really, I guess I took a fifteen year break.
A:Was it hard to come back or did you know exactly what you were going to do?
Stickrust: Starting again was a total accident.
There wasn’t a plan that I was going to start. Truthfully, it was one of those moments in life where everything falls apart and changes. I was left asking myself, “What is left?” The answer was painting. It is hard to explain, I just knew it was time to start painting again.
A:I totally understand what you mean. I feel like art is very cyclical creatively and there are just times you slide into a new genre or medium because that is where you are supposed to be at the moment.
Stickrust: I hadn’t painted in so long that the beginning was really a process of remembering. My whole goal in the beginning was to get back to where I was fifteen years ago. Day after day, I practiced. I truly wasn’t planning on showing anyone.
The sharing on Instagram was a total accident. I thought instagram was just for people sharing photos of kids, food, and pets. I really just started posting because I was bored. Amazingly, sharing on instagram turned into this incredibly great thing.
A: I agree! I was blown away with the community on IG and other sharing sites once I got into it.
Stickrust: I never have had an online experience that is as positive as IG. This was the first time I actually feel connected to people online. In the beginning, when a few people would “like” a painting I posted – it was so encouraging to me.
The pattern of how I work is quantity.
In one sitting I will make 5-7 paintings. After a few months on IG, I began posting the images live as I was making them. The instant feedback I received was simply amazing for me. It is such a rush to have people responding to a work I just finished. Having this open channel of communication has been especially motivating to create a habit of working, creating, and sharing.
In the truest sense, I am practicing. I am doing it and doing it and every so often something small changes within the process. There have been these waves of growth week after week over the past two years.
A:So we know you work by quantity, could you share your process with us if possible? I think that is what caught me in the beginning.
Stickrust: The process itself is simple.
I have a piece of plexiglass and black acrylic ink. I put my hand in the ink and draw on the plexiglass and then transfer it to a piece of paper. All my work begins in this way as a monoprint. I cannot imagine doing it any other way.
I do not have a lot of control over how the end product looks. I like that. I want to be surprised. When everything is working as it should, it feels like the process is not entirely under my control. At the heart of it, for me, is the balance of control and uncontrolled expression.
Once I pull the paper off the plexiglass, I start deciding whether I like it. If I like it, I leave it as is. Other times I go back in and add color or small line work. I usually do this with my hands. But I also drag color on top using things like a clipboard. I also will use pastels for the small line work.
When I am not painting I am an acupuncturist and massage therapist I use my hands all day. The directness of using my hands when painting feels so natural to me. Brushes will too distant, like an abstraction. I like the pigments on my hands.
I mean really, if I had a superpower, I would want to pigments to come directly out of my hands.
A: So from what I gather your style is free flowing and gestural and changes from time to time. Do you have anything to add to that?
Stickrust: I think the better ones are the ones that are more actualized, more “real”.
To me that “realness” is what is interesting. Not visual realness. Not a rendered realness. But a “real” quality of spirit. I want faces to hold a degree of spirit and light.
The faces I like best are hovering in a moment of transformation – an internal moment of change, insight and power.
I really hope I capture that and that it comes across.
There are definitely bad days where I am just grumpy, and they look angry or sad but when it is working well within the strokes there is something bigger.
A: The day I found you I looked through a ton of your work and the one thing that struck me and seemed to be a reoccurring theme with your portraits is the exploding eyeball. Can you explain the symbolism behind that?
Stickrust: To me, it really is a kind of spirit – a manifestation of personal power. I think about it as a light or a glowingness. The eyes in my paintings are an expression of power and wonder and change.
I am really interested in the moment when people see themselves in a bigger, more wonderful, more powerful way.
That moment, when it is happening is a difficult moment to embrace.
It can be hard and scary and painful. But that moment is also beautiful and full of power. I think that is the experience being expressed in the eyes… and really, in all of my work.
Peoples eyes are so super expressive. In Chinese medicine, there is this thing called “the shen”. It is the person’s spirit and emotional state. You can see it in the eyes and face. We all have this. We all have that light coming out.
A: Are you drawn to one thing more than other?
Stickrust: The faces are the main thing and then everything else has grown out of that. I did flowers for a while and now the birds. I did an elephant recently. Now I am working on more four legged creatures. I feel like the faces will always be the foundation from which everything else builds.
A: Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Stickrust: Truthfully, the work. The work is what is what inspires me.
Without sounding all Buddhist/meditative, if i can get out of the way of my brain… I feel like if i can just get out of the way, the work will create itself. That is why I work in quantity. If I make a bunch of images my brain gets bored and then the good ones happen.
What’s exciting to me is when I get done and I have no idea how I created the piece. There are four or five pieces that I don’t even know how I made it. I look at them I do not see my hand in them at all. Those are the ones that I am inspired by. That is what inspires me.
A:Tell me how instagram and sharing across sites has changed the way you work
Stickrust: Out of all the questions, this one is the most important to me to explain. This was never something I planned. There is no separation between sharing on IG and my artwork. It wasn’t like I was painting first and then I started sharing it. I started painting and sharing at the same time. The work was born on IG.
I wouldn’t be painting without the community I have on instagram. None of this work would exist. It is a symbiotic relationship. The sharing and my work are not separate. Posting is more like the DNA of the whole thing. I don’t think I would be painting the way I am or at all without instagram.
People have been so nice to me. They were the motivating fuel to the engine. I am incredibly grateful and thankful to anyone who has ever followed me. I never thought people would follow me and my work. It is such a gift. I really wish I could buy them all dinner.
I share everything, good or bad, on IG and let people follow my process of growth and change. I try not to be precious about the work. I try to show the warts, the growth, the dead ends, shifts, and changes.
A:Thats fantastic! I love the way you described the relationship between your work and IG. It is really interesting to see how one is dependant on the other. I don’t think I have come across an artist that shares in the way you do.
Stickrust: The paintings evolved with my Instagram friends. Not just my paintings, my whole identity as an artist has grown because of the people encouraging me on Instagram.
I try to say it as often as I can. I am truly thankful to all the people who look at my work. For the longest time, I didn’t do anything. It is just astounding to me pay attention.
A: I think it is always astounding when people respond to something that means a lot to you. But it seems for you, that this goes hand in hand. You paint because they respond, and they respond because you paint.
Stickrust: I don’t know that I have the right words… so much of the fuel for me working and painting has been the sharing on Instagram.
One of the aspects I hope that comes across is a bigger story about work and growth.
It isn’t like I woke up making these paintings. It was night after night. I am not magical, this is work. I do this, and I do this, and I do this. I try to show that part.
I try not to censor that process. I will post images I like and images I truly dislike. I do not only want to post the “good” ones. I post all of them.
The “bad” ones are the ones I learn from. I have posted images I hate and then if people respond positively I have to ask myself, “Ok. What am not seeing?” It is interesting. It gives me whispers of directions to explore.
That feedback is crazy amazing.
My life is entirely different because of the kindness of my IG friends. I am tremendously grateful.
the right place at the right time to make a picture, whether that is by a professional photographer, or, by a normal citizen that is potentially in the midst of a breaking news story. That changes things quite a bit. The other part is speed. We can receive those pictures much quicker that we could, coming from a camera, just by the way they’re transmitted and emailed. So I think it changes the speed in which we can publish things, and that an audience can see them, and, Instagram has also enabled that to happen very quickly. That is just one form of technology. I think that Instagram has enabled us to send things straight from the field to an audience. That is really revolutionary. We used Instagram when we worked with Michael Christopher Brown and Ed Kashi for the hurricane—the Super Storm Sandy last October. That was the means in which we worked with them. They work on their cell phones often, and we commissioned them to cover that event. We haven’t done that very often. I think it really lends itself to certain, very specific kinds of stories that are breaking. But we have tried it, and successfully, I think.
the middle of the night, in the darkness, he was making them on his phone and he was uploading them to our Instagram feed, and TIME readers saw those pictures as they were being made. We were cut out of the process in some ways. We had those photographers file directly to our audience—really made it a very unique experiment. You can’t do that with every photographer. You need to very much trust the people you’re assigning, basically, the keys to the car, which is uploading right to the feed. And I think that worked because they were coming in from all different regions. It was Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Brooklyn and Queens. And I think they were all, kind of delivering, all of these different dispatches, you know, as they were happening in real time. So that was exciting. Ben’s picture just made the cover because it was the best. I know that’s not the most articulate answer, but it really was, it worked. There was an emotional quality to the way that picture felt, and it really worked. So I think it proves a picture that’s made with a mobile phone can work in a publication, or on a cover. It’s not every week that we’re doing that. It’s the first real cover that we made out of one photograph from a mobile phone but if that’s what it is, you know, it can work, and I think that to me the mobile phone is more of a tool, it really is just another tool to make pictures.
What kind of backlash did time get from the journalism community or other publications for running an image created with that type of tool?
Any other thoughts you’d like to share in regards to mobile phone photography or the images that are created from the tool?
I have arranged for us to take a tour on a jammer. At Glacier National Park they offer tours of parts of the park in old-fashioned red jammers. The jammers were manufactured as the Model 706 by the 
Mostly, we didn’t talk along the ride. We ate salt and vinegar chips and drank diet cokes. I held her hand and she leaned into me. As we climbed the mountain, I smiled at her whenever she caught my eye. The driver filled our head with interesting facts about the park and the bus and everyone on the jammer got to know each other a little bit. We made a couple of stops along the way to get great views and to stretch our legs. We arrived at Logan’s Pass, located along the Continental Divide. At an elevation of 6,646 ft., it provides and excellent vantage point to view wildlife. It was upon arrival that the driver located a large group of rams. Perched precariously along the edge of the mountain, they clash horns for dominance in the group. I think maybe we learn something about ourselves and our way of being in the world from these animals, from this space.
