Making photographic images look like paintings.
May 13, 2014 11:10 AM   Subscribe

Sarah Jarrett won the 2012 / 2013 Mobile photographer of the year award.
She lives in Norfolk, England and her landscapes and seascapes are well worth a look.
Here she discusses the technique behind some of her works.
Otherwise just go straight to her frequently updated blog.
posted by adamvasco (17 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
I grew up in Norfolk! It's a really beautiful part of the world. The bluebell woods at the top of her blog must be in Blickling, only a couple of miles from my house, and though I can't pin down any of her seascapes, they look very familiar.
posted by Ned G at 11:22 AM on May 13, 2014


How lovely.

When I was a kid, we had friends outside Oxford who had a bluebell woods like that behind their house, and I thought it was the most magical place.
posted by rtha at 12:14 PM on May 13, 2014


I like these a lot, but it seems inaccurate to call them "photographs" with the massive amount of manipulation involved.
posted by starvingartist at 12:28 PM on May 13, 2014


I like these a lot, but it seems inaccurate to call them "photographs" with the massive amount of manipulation involved.

Nah
posted by shakespeherian at 12:36 PM on May 13, 2014


I came here to echo StarvingArtist's comment.
When I think of Mobile Photographer, I think of Ansel Adams hauling around his big format camera.
These are definitely works of art, and I guess if she's doing everything on her iPad or iPhone, then she is a Mobile ARTIST, but I think photographer is a bit of a misnomer.

But god, the work she does truly IS beautiful.

/off porch, OFF
posted by John Kennedy Toole Box at 12:53 PM on May 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


A manipulated photograph is still a photograph, no? I guess some of what she does might better be call photocollage, though. I find the landscapes and seascapes evocative but a bit generic.
posted by yoink at 1:22 PM on May 13, 2014


No opinion on whether they are photographs/mobile photographs or photocollages but I really like them. Yes, evocative and I would be delighted to own a few
posted by rmhsinc at 3:23 PM on May 13, 2014


When I think of Mobile Photographer, I think of Ansel Adams hauling around his big format camera.

Interestingly, Ansel Adams formed Group f/64 specifically in reaction to Pictorialism, a photographic aesthetic described (in the aforelinked wiki article) as

"a style in which the photographer has somehow manipulated what would otherwise be a straightforward photograph as a means of "creating" an image rather than simply recording it."

So it seems to me that Jarrett's photographs are rather striking invocations of a photographic movement that predates Adams...take that as you will. Personally I'll take both for what they are. Isn't it nice that we can like different kinds of photographic art for often completely different reasons?

Thank you for sharing the gallery, by the way. Jarrett makes some truly inspired photos.
posted by Doleful Creature at 3:58 PM on May 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


Reminds me of this Corot (not great reproduction but you can see it at the Frick).
posted by grobstein at 4:09 PM on May 13, 2014


These are not photographs.
posted by brenton at 6:08 PM on May 13, 2014


I like these photographs.
posted by maxwelton at 7:11 PM on May 13, 2014


Eh. The landscapes look like they were all done with the same filter. (Some nice compositions, sure.)

The portraits all look like Neil Gaiman book covers.
posted by gottabefunky at 8:19 PM on May 13, 2014 [1 favorite]


If you take the original photograph awsy then there is nothing. Ergo this is a photograph and Jarrett is a photographer.
A comment such as these are not photographs is wrong and dismissive and unhelpful because you provide no argument for your statement. That descriptive language fails to keep up with the creative uses of technology is something we should be attempting to rectify and not dissmiss.
posted by adamvasco at 2:48 AM on May 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


It's amazing how some people (present company excluded, I'm sure) who argue for the broadest possible interpretation of concepts like "family" and "marriage" will insist on the most conservative definitions possible of "photography", "photograph", and even "art".
posted by Pararrayos at 3:53 AM on May 14, 2014


None of Adams' landscapes are even green for god's sake.
posted by Pre-Taped Call In Show at 4:14 AM on May 14, 2014 [1 favorite]


Well thank goodness I've seen the error of my ways.
posted by John Kennedy Toole Box at 8:54 AM on May 14, 2014


I don't know. I'm a photographer. I've posted a project here that was then posted on the blue. I have a show up right now. I use Photoshop every day, I use my iPhone camera everyday. But I take issue with slapping some prepackaged filter onto photos and calling it a day.

Why? Because when I or other photographers I know do it, we spend hours creating filters out of things we shoot ourselves. Or we tweak and re-tweak existing filters, adding to and subtracting from and altering them so they're unique. And then we make sure the photo isn't about just the filter.

I've always said that photography to me is a grey area when it comes to "art." I can't pick up a pen or brush and crank out amazing drawings or paintings. I can use a tool to pick out a scene or build one myself. I've been told that somewhere in that process photographers become artists. But shit, just downloading an app and slapping one of their filters onto your stuff? That's depressing. She takes a nice photo. But when you layer all that typical gack on top of it, it just looks like every other amateur hour hack out there using HDR and thinking they're Ansel Adams.
posted by nevercalm at 8:43 AM on May 15, 2014


« Older I don't care who started it.   |   a living hell has become hopeful under Raúl... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments