What I love about mobile photography is the ability to create artistic edits using sophisticated apps that are normally priced for around $1-2. To get the same effect on a computer would require expensive programs like Photoshop or Corel Painter (I do have both but haven’t touched them since I began my mobile art journey).Susan Libby uses apps expertly to create her beautiful mobile art which features everything from people to landscapes to whimsical fantasy pieces. Below is my conversation with this app master - @susetoo as she’s known on Instagram and EyeEm. (Captions for images taken from Susan’s Instagram gallery)
Across the street (above)
Geri: Where do you live?
Susan: Southwestern United States
Susan: Southwestern United States
Another Chicago shot (above)
Geri: How long have you been on Instagram?
Susan: Since March 2012
Susan: Since March 2012
Geri: Do you have an art background?
Susan: No, but have been playing with digital photography and editing for the past 7 years and am fascinated with art journaling.
Susan: No, but have been playing with digital photography and editing for the past 7 years and am fascinated with art journaling.
Geri: When you take your photos, do you have a particular edit in mind, or do you do get inspired when you see your camera roll?
Susan: Not really... Occasionally I'll do an intentional shoot, lately it's been birds and trees. Once I start editing it all just takes on a life of its own.
And then there was none (above)
Geri: There are various types of images in your Instagram gallery, from landscapes to fantasy composites - is there a style you prefer? If so, why?
Susan: I've always wanted to paint so I love the painterly apps and style. Also love surreal, blurry b&w ,and am drawn to abstract as well. I'm an Aries and we like to change it up LOL. I'm currently very open to new directions and am exploring right now.
Another foggy morning shot in Warren, PA (above)
Geri: What are your favorite apps?
Susan: PS Express, Glaze, Autopainter 3 (all the auto paint apps), Decim8, Superimpose, Laminar, Magic Hour, and my go to app is Iris Photo Suite. But I'm an app addict and an app stacker, so there are a lot of apps I might use for even one layer and incorporate that into a long edit process.
Geri: Please share a bit about your process.
Susan: I do my initial crop in PS Express and I also use it for noise reduction when I want to flatten the texture. Then I pump up the color just a bit in Dynamic Light and always create an Orton image here as well. Next is Iris Photo Suite to play with most of their filters. From there I'll use any one of a 6 - 10 apps. I save all Images created in this process and use them for layering and blending in dozens of combinations. I frequently end up with 60 - 80 images before I *see* the final one that can be posted.
At the Friday morning song fest the choir sang a folksinger medley to the utter delight of the audience of one (above)
Geri: Have you ever exhibited your work? If not, any plans to do so in the future?
Susan: I was fortunate and thrilled to have one of my applifam edits selected for a show in Honfleur, France as part of their ESA community. They have a very active Electronic Social Art community there that quite a few Instagrammers are involved in. And I'm working with another IG artist, Eric Dijkstra, and hopefully a few others, to show our IG work here in Tucson sometime this winter/spring.
Such grace…(above)
Geri: If you could give advice to any new mobile artists, what would it be?
Susan: Not to get caught up in the numbers games but to play, play, play. Try it all until you find what you love. Also search out and follow those IG artists you can learn from - there are a lot of them!
Neither here nor there (above) Geri: Anything else you'd like to add?
Susan: I keep asking where the Instagram book is?! Social networking through art is so much more than any other form of networking. For many of us we get to know and connect with each other through our art which allows us to already know something about one another. And it also encourages us to call each other and ourselves artists - something many of us would never have imagined.
Thank you Susan for allowing me to share your work. Good luck with your exhibition in 2013!
To purchase Susan’s work view her galleries at
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