by Giulia Macario | May 28, 2015 | 1000 Words, Featured Articles, Giulia Macario, Showcases, Stories, You Are Grryo
Grryo believes that mobile photographers/artists tell stories through the photographs/images and art that represents their families, their environment, themselves. This is important because of the level of communication that is portrayed in imaging today. We want to support the mobile arts community having a place for artists to share, discuss, and critique (if requested by individual). These dialogues help the individuals and the community to grow. We look forward to you and your art. We thank you for your contribution to the mobile photography/arts community. Join us by tagging your images #wearegrryo or #grryo. We hope to see you there!
Roki’s zen
My dog is always in the water, since he was a pup. For almost a year he’s been hypnotized with the fishes in the water. Mesmerized, always staring at the water and trying to catch them (he caught one a month ago). He is the primary subject in many of my shots. In my images I try to catch him and the nature that surrounds him. I took this shot standing a few meters above him. My goal was to create color contrast between him and the water, and to add a little mood into the image. Shot was taken in the northern part of Croatia, where the river (Mur) borders with Slovenia.
instagram | eyeem
Eastern Glow
This piece titled Eastern Glow was named after a song from the band Album Leaf. I was on a big Album Leaf kick at the time, and I was creating that piece when that song came on and I remembered it being titled Eastern Glow, and I felt it was perfectly fitting to the theme of my piece. Generally, you’d find jelly fish on the Eastern coasts of Canada and New England, so I thought it was pretty amazing how well the two complimented each other. So I went with that title for the piece. I had also recently watched American Beauty for the first time in a while, and there’s this one scene where Ricky Fitts is talking about a bag and how it effects him; how there’s so much beauty in the world that he feels like he can’t take it. And this bag is just floating around blissfully with no agenda. With this image, the jellyfish are the bag. They’re just being. It helps me remind myself that sometimes you just have to look beyond what you first see because there’s always beauty to be discovered.
instagram | website
Give me five!
This is Max, my oldest son, he’s six years old. In this picture you can see the most authentic smile of him, I think that Max was really happy in that moment showing how dirty his hands were after an afternoon playing with his brother Teo making somersaults on the floor.
I only used the drama effect in snapseed to increase the contrast of the color in his hands and some mellow tone in vsco… I love the mellow tone!
instagram | facebook
Friday in the City
A story doesn’t always need to have multiple elements, nor it needs to come from the same common eye level angle. Stories can be told with few related elements, and by making the viewer engage always in different ways with the image. I was walking by midtown in New York and saw this lovely lady try grab a taxi. Chaos of humans and traffic was creating too much noise around what was really happening there and then… She was dressed up to conquer the city… her city.
instagram | website
I felt you like the cool rain in a vast dry desert
This image is part of a series called The Enigma Series on Flickr. I’ve often been told that my art is somewhat dark and at times evokes deeper emotions. I just begin a process of editing sometimes and the photo takes on a life of its own. I’m often inspired by the most unlikely things. I’m intrigued by how light contributes to the feeling or how color changes a mood.
The Enigma Series was just an idea that came to me from comments about my work and the deeper sometimes hidden meaning in words and art. I find inspiration from people, places, past experiences and also from photographers such as
Lori Vrba and her
Piano Farm series,
Sally Mann’s At Twelve series and
Jack Spencer. There is an endless plethora of artists and photographers who inspire me endlessly on Instagram and Flickr.
I used hipstamatic for the original shot and edited in Icolorama. I don’t get too complicated with my editing these days as I have limited time. I’ve found that having a general idea in mind and less complicated editing gives me better direction with my art. Some people hate being called artists, others prefer the label photographer. I consider myself more an artist than photographer.
I feel my work starts in a photograph and ends with an unfinished story.
Thanks so much Giulia Macario for asking and allowing me to share my ideas on my work and thanks We Are Grryo for sharing my story.
by Tommy Wallace | May 4, 2015 | Stories, You Are Grryo
Every Monday we ask our audience to share their stories with us on Instagram. We would love for you to join us and share what each photo says to you.
Photo Credit: Bobbie Prosser
Story Credit: Stephanie LePape
The estate thieves collected all items they deemed a suitable profit. The house, now abandoned hosted squatters. Beneath a pile of rubbish Daisy noticed something shiny. The morning light seemed to intentionally bring her attention to it. At first she met disappointment. Once more she’d go hungry. Yet gazing at this nameless portrait she found her thought drifting far beyond her destitute state. “Who was this man? What was his life? Why are we here? To live a short life only to find any memory of us buried amongst unwanted material. A forgotten remnant of a life lived -full of history that dies with the last surviving witness to it.” She felt motivated to pick herself up and out of this space. She was determined to make sense of this life -short lived and full of agitation. The weight of her travels proved light. A gold framed life of one who ignited her thoughts with purpose.
Photo Credit: Daniel Berman
Story Credit: Ness & Pam
Ness and Pam offered two wonderful stories. Ness had the idea of combining the two. Below find their individual tales followed by both blended together.
Ness’ Story
Never wear a T Shirt with a logo, or a pair of shoes that someone would remember; be in the background and remain inconspicuous. A successful undercover meeting requires not only a sense of timing, but also the understanding that even the smallest out of place gesture could blow their cover. Jake would stay sitting there for a while longer; the pass had been successful and he was fairly confident their activity was undetected – all the old boy had to do now was to make it to the hotel and the operation would be complete.
Pam’s Story
It’s easy to look out on the world when you’re young… inviting into your vision anything fate might throw at you. But after you’ve taken enough trips around the sun, and exited enough cemetery gates, you find yourself seeking a narrower focus. I don’t look too far ahead because I really don’t want to see what’s coming.
The Blended Story edited by Pam
The exchange was executed flawlessly even if the agents just seemed to get younger and younger, the old man thought. But this one was smooth, not over-eager as so many others that lacked years of experience often were. He imagined the kid behind him quietly observing the oblivious people around them enjoying the park. It’s easy to look out on the world when you’re young… inviting into your vision anything fate might throw at you. But after you’ve taken enough trips around the sun, and exited enough cemetery gates you find yourself seeking a narrower focus. I don’t look too far ahead because I really don’t want to see what’s coming. And what’s coming- well, no need to contemplate that. These feet know their way well enough.
Photo Credit: Natsuhiko Kakutani
Story Credit: Susan Peck
Zelda smoked her morning cig as she gazed down into her human terrarium. Looks like there’d been some trouble overnight. “Hmmph”, grumped Zelda to herself. Another hunting party to plan.
Photo Credit: Koichi
Story Credit: Anna Cox
She felt she had almost perfected the art of being a wallflower until Susan walked in. That boot wearing, burn your bra sass mouth could always out lean her.
by Rebecca Cornwell | Feb 2, 2015 | Featured Articles, Rebecca Cornwell, Stories, You Are Grryo
Every week we ask our community to continue a story based on a photo. We have been surprised and overwhelmed by the response. Join us every Monday on Instagram to lend your words to story.
Story written by Tommy Wallace
Photo credit: Kurt
Al watched the third letter from the city drop through his mail slot. He let this one lie in the pile with the others because tomorrow . . . he was leaving this place. Oh yeah, he had told himself he was going to leave before but there was the sudden return his daughter made after running from him two years before. There was also that new opportunity handed down to him from the top of the company that made him think, “maybe there was hope after all.” No, he couldn’t think of leaving then.
That all changed when just as suddenly as she had returned, his daughter was gone . . . again. The company that had become his savior had folded. He felt trapped by life. The chair that he had become a part of, and that had become a part of him, was what he detested the most. It seemed to have this power that kept him there, eating at him from the outside in. The city’s letters would continue to pile up and if he stayed the big boys would come and get him if the chair didn’t get him first. So now was the time. He was going to unglue himself from this chair and leave the peeling wallpaper and cesspool of an apartment that he wallowed in for these awful seven months. The city would no longer taunt him, the chair would release him, and he would find the freedom he longed for because there would always be tomorrow.
by Anna Cox | Oct 7, 2014 | Stories, You Are Grryo
As a filmmaker, I’m always looking for new projects, developing short film ideas and collaborating with creative individuals. I found Nicholai’s work online and liked his style as an artist straight away. His photos of abandoned houses stood out to me and I thought it would make an interesting film. I contacted him, discussed some ideas and a few days later we were shooting.
The premise was pretty simple – drive around Minnesota for a few hours and look for abandoned houses. I interviewed him the day before and wanted to get some shots that captured the abandoned vibes found in his work. When I started this project, I set out to document him exploring these places without interfering with his creative process. When he would find a cool looking place, I followed him with my camera while he searched for the right shot. He would look for a spot with an interesting background or good light and I would just sit back and film his natural workflow.
The houses we found looked untouched. There was a calendar from the early 90’s tacked on the wall, toothbrushes by the sink, floral couches and old televisions… It was surreal. Definitely makes you think about the house’s history, who lived there before and why they left. Going somewhere unknown and being a little out of your comfort zone is my idea of an adventure, even if it did get pretty sketchy at times. You never know what you might find in those places when you turn a corner. But from a cinematography standpoint, every direction I pointed my lens at looked interesting because it was an environment I had never seen before.
The purpose behind his work is to capture the feel of places that rarely get noticed. It’s a brilliant example of what you can find if you explore and look for things that normally get passed up. I’m glad I got to go along for the ride and document everything. Nicholai just moved out to LA so be sure to keep an eye on him and his upcoming projects.
For more about Caleb and his films.
by Grryo Community | Jul 25, 2014 | You Are Grryo
a Beginning, a Middle, & an End by Miranda Kelton
My name is Marie.
I thought about not mentioning it, because at first I imagined that my choosing to remain nameless would help add to the overall sense of anonymity that appears to have become my role in this book. Maybe it’d leave more creative room for those attempting to interpret my character, I thought. But then, as I considered the idea more, I decided that perhaps knowing what I’m called could help someone feel like I’m personable. More relatable, I suppose. Maybe they’d connect with the material more.
This is my story, and I don’t know why I’ve written it down.
Torrance, Los Angeles, CA.
Summer, 2012
Chapter One
I stared at my right hand and watched it shake uncontrollably.
Completely neurotic.
I held my fingers up to the window and watched the sunlight reflect off of the vibrating tendons underneath my skin. I’d always been sickeningly fascinated with myself in these moments of mental/physical disconnect where I had no control over my own mind or body. I felt guilty for that sometimes, but it had never stopped me from reacting any differently.
I could tell my muscles were tensing, preparing to cramp at any given moment. I took my left hand and mashed the heel of it over my right down onto the windowsill. The smothered hand twitched, resisting, but I could feel the spasms releasing and after a few moments, the quivers stopped. Cautiously, I removed my left hand and bent down to watch my right, anticipating the moment when it would start again.
My hand looked smushed and dead, like an air – drowned fish. It even acted like a drowned fish. Well, a fish in the process of drowning. Except that it never completely died. It always came back to life when you least expected it to, right when you thought the fight was won and over and it was safe to leave it alone on the river bank. That’s when it would start to flop again, desperately trying to fling itself down into the river before you could notice that it hadn’t died yet, regardless of the fact that you’d beat it over the head with a rock more than just a few times.
Fish. I used to have a fish. It was blue and it sparkled and I used to sit and watch it just as I sat watching my hand now, waiting for it to speak to me or attack or do something drastic. The difference here was that I had trusted my fish, it never did anything unexpected, only swam in circles and tread water behind the fake green water plants.
I picked up my index finger, bent it, then slowly moved my wrist up and down until I felt relatively confident that my hand had stopped shaking for the moment.
I clenched that hand into a fist, flexed, and clenched again. Pressure.
I took a deep breath, and moved both of my hands out of the sunlight.
TBD SCENE: (Chapter Number Yet Unknown)
I vaugely wondered what the world would be like if people’s ceilings were all painted a greenish – blue color. You’d always feel as if you were underwater, safe from being pummeled by waves and ships and wind and everything that goes on above the surface. Yet, at the same time, it might make you feel like you were suffocating, that you would never be able to twist upwards enough to escape the constant canopy of silent color.
“Tell me something, will you?”
I blinked, and my imaginary ocean was absorbed by the swirling cloud of smoke that now slid over my head.
“Why aren’t you up on a gallery wall, or getting your illustrations published in books? How come you’re not traveling the world, and using your artwork as a way to advance your life?”
Momentarily, I wished I was deaf. I inhaled slowly, and the airborne smoke was drawn downward in a funnel, even closer to my face. I liked to see how close I could pull it without breathing any in. I looked for my sea-ling again, but it hadn’t come back yet.
Exhaling reluctantly, I propped myself up on my left elbow in bed, pulling the covers over my bare shoulders. I didn’t feel cold, I just felt uncomfortably vulnerable, especially with the question i’d just been asked.
He blew another cloud of smoke into the air, and i watched him reach his fingers out towards my face through the haze. I smiled, just because I felt like I should.
There it was. Deep, blue-green and constant. Denny’s eyes looked up at me with a trusting, curious expression. I knew I must have looked distant as I stared back, but I tried to hide it by laughing nervously and burying my face down into the surface of the bed.
Black. Black, dark, and suffocating. Yet somehow, safe.
I felt Denny’s fingers on the top of my head, and he slowly trailed them down the back of my neck and back up again. I felt chills running across my stiffened shoulders, and I did my best to swallow the slight uneasiness that automatically rose up in me. I usually hate to be touched.
But this wasn’t really happening, no one would ever know. So it was okay to let someone in for just a little bit. Just this once. It wouldn’t hurt.
“Really, why? You’re more than good enough. You know you’ve got more talent than anyone, than all of the halfrate, egotistical, self-proclaimed artists you see everywhere, all trying so hard. Why are you spending your life being someone so normal, when you’re clearly miles above everything you do for a living now?”
He didn’t say it in an accusatory tone, but I still felt accused. I came out of my cave and flipped over on my back. I tried not to look at the ceiling, or think about drowning, or swimming, or anything but this moment.
I stayed silent for another few seconds, trying to think of something to say that would make sense. I felt trapped, like I couldn’t move. Everything but my head was underneath the blankets, and I wasn’t touching anything but the bed I was lying on. Detached, as always.
I pulled together my scattered thoughts and rolled over to look him straight in the face. “Den,” i ventured – “Are you going to tell anyone?”
Denny bit the end of his cigarette and dropped it in the stale waterglass that sat on the windowsill. He looked serious, concerned. Too involved, really. “What, about this? About us?”
He reached out and brushed the hair back from my face. Why are men so obsessed with touching things? I nodded my assent and he pulled his hand back. “Do you not want me to? Tell anyone, that is? I don’t have to if you’d rather I not.”
I couldn’t tell if he felt hurt, confused, or both. “It’s not like that,” I said, in what I hoped was a reassuring tone. “Besides, I’d never want you to feel like I was asking you to hide anything, or that I was ashamed of you.”
His fingers began tracing the folds in the sheets as he broke our eye contact. Den was definitely unsure of what I was asking him. I had lost sight of the ocean again and realized I was probably saying all the wrong things.
I just wanted him to kiss me as if he wanted me. “It’s all complicated,”, I responded. “And I’ll never want to talk you out of me, so I’ll never want to talk about it.”
This wasn’t supposed to be a love story, after all.
———
Miranda Kelton
Website // Instagram // Flickr // Facebook // Twitter
I’m Kelton. I make things and I like carrot cupcakes and Frank Sinatra and photographing jungles. I am an Artographist, which basically means that I try and do it all.
Visit my website – www.keltonkat.com – to learn more about the types of work I do, read an extended artist statement, and find out all about every project that i’m currently working on.
by Grryo Community | Jul 18, 2014 | You Are Grryo
Transversing Trails and Frontiers by Star Rush
A little more than 2 years ago, I started splitting my time between Seattle and rural Pacific County, about 150 miles southwest of the city. The county is one of Washington state’s oldest, having been founded by the government of Oregon Territory in 1851. The geography is marked dramatically by the Columbia River as it empties into the Pacific Ocean.
The landscape is characterized by expansive natural resources, historic drama and layers of memory. Here, Lewis & Clark Expedition cited the Pacific Ocean for the first time in 1805 and found what they sought when they left St. Louis the year before. The party had been hunkered down along the Columbia River for weeks in what is now named “Dismal Nitch.” These days, it is ironically a rest stop along Highway 4 with a heritage marker and picturesque views of Astoria, Oregon, and Megler Bridge. A mile west is Middle Village Station Camp, ancestral home of the Chinook people, who have lived and traded along the Columbia for thousands of years. When the Expedition arrived, Clark used the area as his survey station, mapping the river’s mouth. More than 20,000 people live in Pacific County today. Throughout the county are communities preserving the cultural and ethnic heritages of emigrants from Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway, and Finland as well as the ancestors of the Chinook people, who live in the towns of Bay Center, Chinook, and Ilwalco.
Military forts remain as ruins, remnants of a former purpose: to guard the strategic mouth of the Columbia from the late 1800s to their closing after World War II. The forts are now state parks, popular with visitors camping, site seeing, and enjoying the outdoor recreation. Gun stations stand still. All that’s left of bunkers are concrete outlines of their foundations, lookouts giving expansive views of the Columbia and what are now suburban shopping centers, open fields, and campgrounds.
Towns in this county include its largest, Raymond, its county seat, South Bend, and a number of smaller ones whose economies had thrived upon the natural resources of timber and fisheries at one time-and now-tourism and recreation. Their historic downtowns are weathered, the old Sears & Roebuck sign on a brick building slowly disappearing. Willapa Bay, an estuary separated from the Pacific Ocean by the Long Beach Peninsula, is known for its biodiversity and is a working bay, supporting a local oyster and seafood industry. Here, oyster men and women grow nearly 9% of all oysters in the U.S. The estuary and rivers are habit to a diverse ecosystem of woodland, grassland, and coastal plants and animals.
Photographing in this geographic and cultural landscape has me navigating new terrain, not just in terms of land- and seascapes, but those of my imagination. I’m interested in memory as performative flux and renewal. I’m curious about the juxtaposition of civc history markers of Manifest Destiny and its products of economic prosperity and growth, cultural appropriation and annexation, territorial occupancy, and annihilation of indigenous peoples. Remnants remain of a time when robust commerce and industry fostered thriving economies and also environmental exploitation across this expansive-and still present-ecological grandeur. The “thens” and “nows” blur among artifacts of natural and built landscapes, of found and constructed objects that leak both an imagined and real cultural and social legacy. These are disjunctive narratives that transpose cultural tropes against a complex socio-historic landscape.
Hills roll above the Willapa River. They can look haggard and depleted as timber sales lay them bare. Clear cuts regularly scar the route on Highway 101 from Olympia toward the Pacific Ocean. Along any stretch of the highway, my car window frames gothic Sitka Spruces and Bald Eagles. Around the bend, trees have been amputated to splintered stumps and strewn limbs, the land ravaged as hawks circle above. In summer, a stream of campers, motor homes with names like, “Prowler”, “Bullet”, “Elite”, or “Expedition” and trucks pulling boats make their way west to the Pacific Ocean. They’ll drive by Middle Village, Dismal Nitch and Cape Disappointment to beachfront boardwalks, salt water taffy, ice-cream and bright windsocks all along the sunny holiday shore.
Photos captured with iPhone 5 between 2012 – 2014
Star Rush is a photographer, writer, and educator, whose background is in journalism, marketing, composition and rhetoric, and poetry.
Her mobile photography has been exhibited in the United States, London, and Europe and published in magazines Actual Colors May Vary, Askar Magazine, Camerapixo, dodho.com, as well as Resource Magazine, wiete.it, and Volksrant. Her writing about connected mobile photography has appeared in iPhoneography.com, wearejuxt.com, dprConnect, EyeEm.com, iPhoneogenic.com, and others.
She has been faculty and educational administer in higher education, teaching and writing, and currently serves as Special Assistant for Teaching & Learning at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle.
Work and contact information: starrush.net.
by Grryo Community | Jun 18, 2014 | You Are Grryo
Valle Nevado Horror Series 1/3
It was an easy job.
The hotel would be empty, just an old guard watching these works of art underground.
The most valuable of the Third Reich waiting to be transformed into a dance of millions.
It was the wind, the unusual east wind , had the perfect plan to transform horror
(Samsung SGH-F-480L + Silver Efex Pro 2)
Valle Nevado Horror Series 2/3
His hands were worn, snow and wind had burned parts of skin.
Two meters high he’s not as intimidated like those fat and gross hands.
It’s able to easily break a bone, a skull.
(Samsung SGH-.. F-480L + Silver Efex Pro 2 Mac in April 2010 Valle Nevado, Chile)
Terror in Valle Nevado Series 3/3
He looked horrified at the slow death of his companions, but could only think of the strangeness of his own end.
He raised in the air for such crude solid hands and then was crossed by water.
(Samsung SGH -F-480L + Silver Efex Pro 2 Mac in April 2010 Valle Nevado, Chile)
