This week’s showcase of mobile photography from the Mobiography Flickr Group looks at portraits. From Rob Pearson-Wright’s fantastic portrait of a market seller with an amazing moustache to Brendan O Se’s blurred out, Olloclip inspired image. I think all of this weeks photos show how, when you can photographically make a connection with your subject, you are on target to create something special.
Featured photographers this week include Rob Pearson-Wright, Marco Lamberto, Alan Kastner, David DeNagel, TinFoilHelmet, GaryA101, Brendan O Se, Shel Serkin, Darrell Jesonis and Alex Visage.
Do you have a favourite photo from this week’s showcase? Let us know which in the comments section at the bottom of the page.
The Connoisseur
‘The Connoisseur‘ by Rob Pearson-Wright – “London’s Borough food market is a wonderful but dangerous place. Dangerous for the wallet. There are always fantastic stalls filled with great artisan foodstuffs. One section of the market is a wine merchants run by a lady and the man in this photo with a distinctive and well maintained moustache. I’d been collecting pictures of men with elaborate facial hair in the past few weeks so I asking him if I could take his portrait. Which he was fine with. It helped that I had bought two glasses of prosecco from him.
Apps used: Snapseed for a fine tune of saturation, contrast and brightness. VSCO to add a little warmth and colour pop and finally Mextures to add a tiny bit of texture and vignette to the image.”
Maybe
‘Maybe‘ by Marco Lamberto – “We went for a trip in Como, a town in the northern area of Italy, with some friends and we stopped for a bit of dining and rest. While sitting there I spotted Claudia thinking about something and I just snapped her thoughtful (and lovely) expression.
The edit was quite quick, Adobe Photoshop Express for clarity, sharpen, denoise and minor color adjustments. Then I’ve added vignette with Snapseed and final touches using VSCO Cam.”
Reflector
‘Reflector‘ by Alan Kastner – “Tokyo is a city of many layers that is somewhat likened to an onion. Hopefully I exposed a few of those layers in this shot.
After attending a morning meeting, I hit the streets in a part of town that I rarely find an opportunity to visit. It was a clear, bright day, so I decided to walk in the direction of home with the intention of capturing whatever caught my eye before boarding the subway a couple of stations down the line. It was on this walk that the facade of the building you see here and the shadow of the tree in the glass first attracted me. After snapping one or two frames from different angles to see how it photographed, I then decided to do a one-shot challenge and see if I could capture somebody in front of it who would satisfy my eye. Stubborn or lazy and impatient as it may seem, I like the challenge of snapping only one frame to try and get what I’m after. In that moment, I caught the cyclist approaching at speed out the corner of my eye. This upped the ante, as he was a faster moving target than would be a pedestrian. I was delighted to see how the shot turned out the instant I peeked at it on my camera roll.
I captured the shot using Apple’s default Camera app. The processing was quite simple. I rotated the frame slightly to straighten things up, (likely in Snapseed), and then ran the photo through CrossProcess, an app that hasn’t been updated for years but does continue to function under iOS 9.2.1. I liked how it came out, though it left the bottom a little too dark. This I adjusted by partially blending back the original lower section in Superimpose and then called it done.”
Virginia 96 years old
‘Virginia 96 years old‘ by David DeNagel – “A neighbor of mine, Virginia, was recently incapacitated . She called me and asked if I would retrieve her mail for her. While visiting her, with her mail in hand, I believed she had a face and demeanor that could make for a fine portrait study. So I asked her, as she stood in her doorway, if I might take a photograph of her.
Virginia later told me she was 96 years old and I wanted my portrait of her not only to show what she looked like, but who she was; the woman who had survived almost a century of life.
I used the basic camera app on an iPhone 6s plus to take the photo. I then imported the image into Instagram and cropped it to square; I further processed it within Instagram using the filter “Willow” and made basic tonal adjustments within Instagram. I followed this with a few finishing touches to local contrast and the highlights in Snapseed.”
Snowday – Lunchtime rescue mission
‘Snowday – Lunchtime rescue mission‘ by TinFoilHelmet – “After the weather took a turn for the worse last week I slipped about avoiding snow blind motorists to get my boy from his rural school, inconveniently situated half way up a steep hill. I was trying to get a snowy picture all morning for my 366 project but this was by far the most successful. The photo was initially processed with VSCOcam app and tweaked the brightness a bit after I`d uploaded it with the Flickr app.”
Untitled
‘Untitled‘ by GaryA101 – “I was in the process of getting off my bus when a shaft of sunlight lit up this fellow passenger. I had seen his long beard and cool sunglasses a few minutes before and wondered about taking a picture of him. As the bus turned to enter my workplace the light was perfect and I took a shot trying to expose for the highlights on his face. It was a grabbed shot and I was pleased how it turned out. If you look carefully you can see my baseball capped silhouette figure to the right of the picture. The picture was processed in Snapseed.”
Yulia
‘Yulia‘ by Alex Visage – “I Shot on the iPhone 6s. I used the Snapseed, TouchRetouch and Formulas app whitewashed filter.”
Portrait
‘Portrait‘ by Brendan O Se – “This is from a series of iPhone 6s portraits using the Olloclip macro lens. The portrait is of my colleague Seamus, who loves to wear these extravagant hats. You can see the full series of portraits on my website.”
Snowy Sunday
‘Snowy Sunday‘ by Darrell Jesonis – “It had just started snowing my daughter and I were in our back yard. I was taking pictures with my iPhone of trees and snow, my daughter was playing. After a while my paternal instinct kicked in and I thought “where is that little elf?” I found her hiding behind a small tree. The sweet smile you see is how she looks right before a snowball launch at point blank range… (Don’t worry my camera/phone was fine)”
Rockwell
‘Rockwell‘ by Shel Serkin
Which was your favourite?
Do you have a favourite from this weeks showcase? Let us know your thoughts on the featured photos in the comments below.
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Snowy Sunday is my favorite! Beautiful shot. Beautiful little girl.
I loved Untitled by GaryA101. Such beauty in such a ravaged face.