Foto MP

Sandra Gaspar iphone

Sandra Gaspar / Photo: Mário Pires

Having left my Lumix in the closet, and relaying almost exclusively on the iPhone for all my photo needs, i wanted to put myself and the iPhone to the test. Thinking about possible challenges, i remembered that i never did a portrait session.
Portraits are a bit vague, how could i make a series that makes some sense and it’s within my reach ?
I also wanted to draw some attention to it, so it would need a element of defiance. I remembered some talks i had with fellow photographers about wonderful portraits of women smoking. Smoking has gained a rather negative aura in recent times, and because of it the defiance element would be smoke.
Having established portraits of people smoking as the main theme, i needed to narrow it down a bit in order to establish some logistics that i could master for some time.

  • Where to find people to photograph ?
  • How to ask them ?
  • Which gender and age ?

Those questions will be answered in the next post

{ 3 comments }

coimbra c

Photo: Mário Pires

A good example of a series all done in a few hours using just the iPhone, is Coimbra C in Lomoville, an online platform, curated by Susana Paiva, for all photography projects created with plastic lenses or toy cameras and mobile phone cameras

{ 0 comments }

ghost

The Ghost of elections past.. (Hipstamatic; iPhone4)

Hipstamatic is a popular photo application for the iPhone, even photojournalist are using it, so i bought it to see what all the fuss was about.
After a very short time i found that this application doesn’t really suits my shooting habits. I take pictures with the iPhone just like any other camera i use, saving the “original” unprossessed picture first. I only run it trough the photo apps if i find it can give the photo a different meaning.
Hipstamatic just saves the processed photo, preventing me from trying other approaches without it’s mark.
But i can see why photojournalists like it though. The UI is build to make us think we are using a classic rangefinder 35mm camera, and if we stick with a lens/film effects combination in the app, we know how the result will be (just like real lens/film/developer in the analog world).

{ 1 comment }

4am Project – 2010 Edition

by Mário Pires 20.04.2010 Foto MP

And it was that time of year again, 04-04-2010 at 4a.m. Once again, Karen Stunks, put together the global gathering of heroic insomniacs, eager to go out and photograph when there is no one else on the street (except other photo manics like ourselves). This time we went to the pleasant Sintra, and clicked away [...]

Read more →

The Chiado Project – The tools

by Mário Pires 08.02.2010 Art

In the first post of the series i talked about the theme and the final output of the project. But what tools should i use to photograph it? Should i use a DSLR like the Nikon D2x and a varied assortment of lenses ? This is the set up that could give the more flexibility [...]

Read more →

Photo projects for 2010

by Mário Pires 31.01.2010 Art

For some time now that i try to organize the bulk of my photo activity around projects, i still photograph on a loose base when i’m in that mood, but i find it more fulfilling to structure my work this way. For 2010, these are the photo related project i wish to work on. Chiado [...]

Read more →

The Chiado project

by Mário Pires 27.01.2010 Art

I was invited to premiere a new art space in Lisbon The exhibition has a tight schedule, and i am going to be build it from scratch, i thought it could be a good idea to document the whle project. The venue will be LiberOffice in the Chiado district of Lisbon, and the theme will [...]

Read more →