We are looking for people whose photographic message is powerful and original.

We are looking for interesting stories.

We are looking for mobile photographers with a vision.

We want to put the spotlight on four mobile photographers who have something to say with their images.

In other words, this open call is not a best photo contest.

eyephoneography is now accepting submissions for its third series of exhibitions. Like its predecessors, eyephoneography #3 focuses on the iPhoneographer’s body of work, rather than each individual image. Only a handful of iPhoneographers are selected — four will be selected for this edition. The exhibit always generates a lot of publicity in Spain and Europe. This is a very prestigious exhibition.

Previous iPhoneographers showcased in the eyephoneography exhibitions are Sion Fullana, Marco La Civita, Jordi V. Pou, Matt Burrows, ©arlein, Greg Schmigel, Isabelle “MissPixels” Gagne, and Stefano Giogli.

One of the facets of the eyephoneography events is that the selection committees are typically mostly from outside the iPhoneography community (Disclosure: I was on the selection committee for eyephoneography #2). Edition #3′s very international selection committee includes Terry Smith, Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory, University of Pittsburgh; Montse Cuesta, Director, Architectural Digest (AD España); Natasha Egan, Director, Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP), Chicago; Ercole Egizi, Founder & Creative Director, Kennedy+Castro advertising agency; iPhoneographer Attilio Lauria, Director, Photo Library of the Province of Cosenza (Italy); Giuseppe Veneziano, Painter and Visual Artist; and eyephoneography Founder Rocio Nogales.

Submissions are free and will be accepted through February 3rd, 2012 at 23:29 (GMT+1) — that’s 5:30 PM Eastern Standard Time in New York City.

More information can be found on eyephoneography’s website, including more details, submission instructions, and some indications of what the selection committee is looking for.

The eyephoneography #3 exhibition will open this April 2012 in the gallery of the recently inaugurated Castellana FNAC flagship store in the heart of Madrid.

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eyephoneography #2 opens in Madrid today, April 15th and runs through May 29th, 2011.

The work of Matt Burrows, ©arlein, Stefano Giogli and Jordi V. Pou will be featured in this second edition and will inspire off- and on-line debates culminating in an in-person series of talks during the opening weekend.

Among the events are an online community-fed slideshow that all mobile photographers are invited to participate in. Read past the jump for more info.

The show takes place at the Sala EFTI, one of the two galleries of Spain’s leading photography school, EFTI, and it includes the work of four creators who have chosen mobile photography to convey their message in stunning ways.

The Opening Reception is tonight from 18:00 – 22:00 local time. If you’re planning to attend, here’s the address:

Sala EFTI
Calle Fuenterrabía 4-6
Madrid, Spain

The goals of eyephoneography are to link the digital world back to the physical one and to support mobile photography by offering various interaction opportunities for photographers and their audiences and by promoting its artistic and social potential. In this context, eyephoneography #2 will have two components: on the one hand, an exhibit featuring the work of four international mobile photographers, and on the other hand, a series of talks and discussions about fields related to mobile photography, namely photography and the arts, communication and technology, and social action.

Participate in the community-fed eyephoneography #2 slideshow

A mobile-photography community-fed instantly-curated slideshow accompanies the printed images of Carlein van der Beek, Matt Burrows, Stefano Giogli, and Jordi V Pou.

Submissions for the slideshow will open on Friday, April 15th, 2011 at 18:00 (GMT+1) until 15 minutes before the end of the event at 21:45 GMT+1. [That's 12:00 noon - 3:45 pm local time in New York, 9:00 am - 12:45 pm local time in Los Angeles]

The slideshow will be displayed on a screen in the EFTI gallery and will be curated on the fly by Paola Grilli and Laura Baffari of fotogriPhone.

To have a chance to be selected for the slideshow, you will need to submit your images to the eyephoneography’s Facebook page. The page will accept photos starting on Friday at 18:00 GMT+1. Please submit ONLY your own pictures and preferably no older that 2011.

If your image is selected and it is being shown in the gallery, fotogriPhone will post a comment on your photo to let you know.

(For those of you that worry about photography rights on Facebook, they aren’t very different from those of Tumblr or Posterous. For your peace of mind, you can always remove your photos from the page once the event finishes.)

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“This is sad.”

We are using the past tense, because the eyephoneography #1 show has now been suspended. It was supposed to last until October 1st, but the 48 exhibited images that had attracted so much interest in the past days were torn down by some people of the HUB-Madrid. It was a raptus of inexplicable madness that we are still digesting and thinking how to deal with.

This actually sickens me that people associated with an artistic hub would consider or allow such disrespect for the art displayed.

In a comment on their original post, the curators of the exhibit further explained:

We can’t say much due to the legal consequences of the act, which are being studied by our attorney. We cannot provide you with an explanation either since we weren’t the originators.

Here are some facts. We knew that in the two weeks of the exhibit (17/9-1/10) some events would have taken place during the evenings (when the HUB is closed to the public) . The photos could stay if the organizers of the other events agreed and we were to take them down if they didn’t. We also had the option of re-installing them once the evening event was over. We had already obtained agreements for the Monday 20/9 and Thurs 23/9 events but those organizing the event on Wed 22/9 wanted them down. We had until 7:00 pm of 21/9 to take down the show. For the morning we had arranged some important meetings with the director of PhotoEspana, the curator of photography of the FNAC Spain, and a curator of the Reina Sofia Museum. We would say that considering also the exposure on the cultural pages of “El Mundo” and “La Repubblica” two of the most read newspapers in Spain and Italy, and all the other agencies and art magazines that you can see in the right column of this blog, mobile photography never had that kind of exposure before in the art world.

Anyway we had already arranged to take down the images after the meetings to re-install them the day after.

However, all the photos were torn off in the morning and we had to cancel the meetings. No calls, no emails, no messages. The images had been mounted naked full bleed on 3mm dibond. Imagine how delicate they were. We found them piled up on a table like trash. Smudges, scratches, some attached with double-face tape one on top of other. A real tragedy. And believe it or not, we haven’t received an explanation.

Click here for the entire post on the eyephoneography website.

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We’d recently posted links to interviews with others in the exhibit’s selection committee. As we get closer to the opening of the exhibit, here is a link to a recent interview with selection committee member Cayetana de la Quadra-Salcedo.

Like the other members of the selection committee, her thoughts on her favorite images are insightful. Overall, the selection committee’s insights have been for me an interesting look into what the mindset is when curating an artistic event with a global reach like this one.

“[Mobile photography] is a new form of communication, supported by a new technology, and it is when the technique is mastered, that the artistic distillation appears. I think this movement should retain its freshness as a trait, accepting imperfection as a possible language so as to differentiate itself from other photographic disciplines.”

Read her entire interview here on eyephonography.com.

The agenda for eyephonography’s opening weekend, September 17-18, 2010, is here.

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We recently posted a link to the interview of Darren Milligan, one of the show’s selection committee. In the lead-up to the Madrid show, the eyephoneography blog has posted an interview with Sally Gutierrez Dewar, another member of the show’s selection committee. In particular, I found her views on smart phones and how they are effecting our everyday lives interesting. She also discusses her favorite images of each photographer in the exhibit — they are four excellent and visually powerful images. Sion’s is one of my favorites from his catalog and the image she selected by by Marco is powerful, stark and moving.

Other technologies have had an impact on what could be called our modes of seeing, but smartphones and social networks are radically mutating the whole sphere of visual thinking, shifting it from the individualistic gaze to communities of vision.

The entire interview is here on the eyephoneography blog.

eyephoneography #1 opens September 17, 2010 at The Hub in Madrid, Spain. Visit eyephoneography.com for more information.

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Darren Milligan is one of the judges of the show and was recently interviewed on the eyephoneography blog. He is a designer and director of digital media projects at the Center for Education and Museum Studies at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and he’s been creating mobile phone photography for years prior to his iPhone. He has a strong visual background and it’s very interesting to read his insights on iPhone photography, mobile phone photography, and his thoughts on several of the pieces in the Madrid exhibit.

Photography, for me, has always been deeply involved in my own process of memory-making. An image of a moment or place from my past is a tool: a key to unlock the rich replay of that experience. I became aware of the power of mobile photography several years ago when I moved to Washington and looked for a method to document my explorations of a new city and to witness the ways that city would inevitably change me.

The entire interview is here on the eyephoneography blog.

eyephoneography #1 opens September 17, 2010 at The Hub in Madrid, Spain. You can visit eyephoneography.com for more information, or read our previous announcement on Life In LoFi here.

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Sion Fullana, Greg Schmigel, MissPixels and Marco La Civita, invited photographers to the inaugural eyephoneography show

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Linking the digital world back to the physical one and supporting an emerging way of taking and sharing pictures that tell unique stories: this is the goal of eyephoneography. The first exhibit of this initiative will be launched next September in Spain aiming to promote mobile photography by offering various interaction opportunities for photographers and their audiences.

This initial show features the work of four international iPhoneographers: Greg Schmigel, Marco La Civita, Miss Pixels, and Sion Fullana.

eyephonography #1 opens September 17, 2010 at The Hub in Madrid, Spain. You can visit eyephoneography.com and follow us via RSS, the project’s Facebook page or Twitter @eyephoneography.

I’ve reprinted the most recent press release in it’s entirety below. It’s a long but interesting read with good history and insights from the four selected iPhoneographers.

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From reality to the Web and back: Mobile photography takes (physical) form in Spain

The art of mobile photography arrives to Spain next September thanks to an initiative that seeks to promote this way of photographing with the final goal of establishing lasting connectionsbetween the community of mobile photographers, virtual until now, and its Spanish audience.

Linking the digital world back to the physical one and supporting an emerging way of taking and sharing pictures that tell unique stories: this is the goal of eyephoneography. The first exhibit ofthis initiative will be launched next September in Spain aiming to promote mobile photography by offering various interaction opportunities for photographers and their audiences.

What began a few years ago as an innovative way of capturing and sharing images via mobile telephones continues to attract people and it has even been featured in specialized magazines such as American Photo Magazine (see article in the November 2009 issue). Until now, these photographers have gathered in a virtual community characterized by an impressively strong commitment toward this new photographic vision and beautiful images. “I was captivated by how fast these photographers create and share their work as well as by the power of the images captured by such a “rudimentary” shooting tool”, states Rocío Nogales-Muriel, the person incharge of the first show of this kind in Spain.

Some critical voices have already pointed out the limited quality of the images produced by mobile telephones (the highest resolution allowed by the most popular tool among mobile photographers, the iPhone, goes between 2 and 3.2 megapixels). Despite this criticism, this type of photography offers a fresh example of contemporary modes of artistic creation, reception and interaction due to the presence of innovative elements such as the portability of the all-in-one shooting, processing and communication tool present in a mobile telephone, the existence of a highly involved virtual community on the reception side or the immediacy of sharing the results with this community.

Four professionals from various backgrounds and profiles connected to the photography world but independent from it joined the organizer when making the final image selection for eyephoneography #1. Michel Bricteux, diplomat and photographer experienced in cultural programming; Cayetana de la Quadra Salcedo, architect from a well-respected Madrid-based firm with extensive experience in architectural renovation and cultural cooperation; Sally GutiérrezDewar, video-artist and director of creative documentaries; and Darren Milligan, web and interactive designer at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC (USA). This juried selection process will be extended for upcoming eyephoneography shows to the mobile photographers’ community.

Based on the number of blogs, pages and groups appearing daily on the Web devoted to this topic, we will witness a boom in this type of photographic creation. Why the move to the off-line world then? Eyephoneography’s bet is to strengthen the connection between the on- and off-line realities, offering the possibility of enjoying these images in a print format, which continues to offer an unmatched aesthetic experience. By so doing, new audiences are developed while the on-line links are reinforced via off-line interactions. “The incorporation of the physical aspect into the experience of mobile photography – evoked by the eye in eyephoneography – reconnects this photographic content originally conceived for the digital world with the physical one”, explains Nogales-Muriel.

However, the objective of the project is not to enter into the discussion of what constitutes the “real” or whether this type of photography can be considered as “art”. According to Gutiérrez Dewar, “an exceptional aspect of this community is how amateur and professional photographers live in the same virtual space without prejudices as long as they can experiment, share and learn from each other. If your images are good, then you will attract a group, most of them photographers as well, who will send its constructive feedback. It does not matter who is the most selling or shown photographer, just the images that s/he can create and their potential to be engaging”. This “leveling effect” could be considered as one of the major innovations of mobile photography and it offers a refreshing alternative to the institutionalized artistic creation.

Indeed, notions such as accessibility and community are at the heart of eyephoneography, which opens up the door to collaborations with interested individuals and community groups. “The project was born with the general objective of sharing, learning and multiplying the stories told,the aesthetic experiences offered via the pictures, and the activities that put forward the potential of art and photography in general to contribute to the sustainable development of individuals and cities”, adds de la Quadra Salcedo.

Four representatives of mobile photographers have been invited to participate in this inaugural eyephoneography show. The only native Spanish and professional photographer included in the exhibit, Sion Fullana, lives in New York and can be considered together with another invited artist,Greg Schmigel, pioneer in this type of photography. They do “street photography” and were two of the four mobile photographers included in the above mentioned American Photo Magazine article. Fullana focuses his peculiar look on the urban reality of New York City, which acquires a powerful halo of mystery and admiration. Out of this unique stage emerge familiar but unrepeatable topics and subjects surrounded by a delicate chromatic selection. In Fullana’s words, “one of my biggest assets is how passionate I am with what I do, and I recommend some of that to everyone! It’s not about snapping shots of everything that looks cute. It’s about putting effort, patience and love into developing an eye for subjects or situations that will make a compelling picture, one that has something to say or can express a feeling. His homonymous page was one of the first to show mobile photography next to his traditional production and it quickly became an influential platform from where he inspired hundred of followers worldwide.

The other mobile photography pioneer, Greg Schmigel, offers to those passionate about American cities and photography the chance to enjoy the heart beat of these urban jungles through his black and white images in his blog “Just what I see”. These images evoke frozen frames from noir films or comic strips that form our visual memory while inviting us to observe without being observed; to live a moment captured and exposed before our eyes thank to the expertise of someone who describes his photographic creation as a personal therapy. “I don’t set out to produce art, per se. There’s something special and unique about shooting street. It’s real. It’s true. It’s slices of life as we see it … and many times, slices of life as the rest of us miss it”, whispers Schmigel.

Behind the nickname MissPixels hides Isabelle Gagné, the third photographer included in eyephoneography #1. This Canadian graphic designer builds images with impossible topics,angles and compositions taken out of a fairy tale dream, all of them wrapped in textures so plastic that they evoke the materiality of painting. “Be it for my illustrations, my paintings or my iphoneographies, I choose consciously to modify, to alter the regular order of colors by making them explode. I make the basic colors vibrate, contrast and burst. In my iphoneographies, the images are captured spontaneously; I look openly for a pictorial accident. I then amplify this circumstance as if it were developed chemically. Only my chemical substances are the apps, explains MissPixels about her work.

The work of Marco La Civita, the fourth eyephoneography #1 photographer, has been featured in off-line shows devoted to mobile photography. Italian-born and based in Madrid, he is an aeronautics scientist who has been taking pictures for many years. The difference is that now he dares to share his images with other mobile photographers and the rest of the world thanks to his iPhone. In his iPhoneblography blog, La Civita posts only “photos shot, processed, and uploaded with an iPhone”. “Someone said that my photography is a ‘chromatic and compositional research’. Touching the chromatic and compositional sensibility of other people is my aim”, muses La Civita about his work. His pictures are the result of a curiosity for the objects and textures that inhabit our streets, whose aesthetic and symbolism he captures. Against this special backdrop, La Civita poses his eye upon revealing details, unthinkable angles and secret relationships among our everyday objects.

The impacting and yet personal work of these talented creators will be shown for the first time in Spain at the Hub Madrid. This new space was born a few months ago in a renovated garage with the goal of inspiring, connecting and supporting professionals working for a better world, also known as social innovators. This exceptional ecosystem, where inspiration,passion and solidarity create community, represents the ideal setting to open eyephoneography#1 next September 17th . Additional information about the selected pictures and activities planned for the opening weekend will be published during the next months. In the meantime, interviews to the artists and members of the selection committee as well as other information will be regularly posted on the eyephoneography blog ,Facebook page (facebook/eyephoneography) and Twitter (twitter/@eyephoneography).

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