Tales of Several Cities

TALES OF CITIES
MOBILE PHOTOGRAPHY

Photography exhibitions comparing several cities with 25 sets of photographs taken with & edited on a mobile phone.

Tales of 2, 3, & possibly 4 Cities

The inspiration came during a holiday in the United States when a new mobile phone (Samsung S9) showed me how much mobile photography had advanced – not as good as an SLR but pretty good! The result was a pairing of photographs, 25 pairs taken with and edited on the mobile phone, comparing Manchester and Malta’s Grand Harbour and that became a set of exhibitions, in Malta and in Manchester and a book called a Tale of Two Cities - Manchester and Malta's Grand Harbour.

The second project commenced with an exhibition comprised of 25 pairs of photographs this time comparing Manhattan with Valletta, another Tale of 2 Cities, at Auberge de Castille, sponsored by the Office of the Prime Minister. The photographs were printed professionally on aluminium dibond and sales were in aid of the NGO Beating Hearts Malta.

In addition to the paired images of Manhattan and Valletta, another 25 images of Oslo have also been matched making this A Tale of 3 Cities. The plan was to hold an exhibition A Tale of 3 Cities in March 2020 in Manhattan at the EC English Language School near Bryant Park, hosted by another old friend Andrew Mangion and opened by yet another friend, our famous Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja. But COVID … and the best laid plans of mice and men … However, we might hold A Tale of 3 Cities exhibition in Manhattan early next year – we shall see.

After A Tale of 3 Cities, we might cross the border to Toronto to shoot 25 photos to match with the Manhattan, Valletta and Oslo images: A Tale of 4 Cities with international exhibition locations yet to be decided. That will be the second book in this series. I hope to involve Samsung in this endeavour as the phones themselves, as well as the Samsung native image editing apps, are amazing in their potential. This photography project is partly informed by the work of the famous international photographer William Klein, who created photo-books about individual cities: New York, Moscow, Rome, Tokyo and Paris. However, to my knowledge, this is the first attempt to thematically link several cities with sets of matched images.

A TALE OF 3 CITIES

The Manhattan exhibition (if held, COVID permitting) will feature matched photographs of Valletta, Manhattan & Oslo. The draft layout is shown in the image below. The complete 25 matched sets are also shown. With sincere thanks to OUTLOOK.COOP & DECO & many, many sponsors.