Bridging the divide between city and country through mobile photography

A photographer and drone pilot is encouraging people living in rural areas to use their mobile phones to help bridge the divide between city and country.

Fiona Lake is a professional photographer based in Townsville who delivers workshops in rural and regional parts of Australia to help empower Australians to share their stories through photography.

She said the accessibility of mobile phones was putting the power in everyday people's hands.

"We've got this amazing piece of technology and virtually everybody now has a smartphone, so everyone has the ability to tell their own story," she said.

Her body of work has a strong focus on remote cattle stations because the industry is largely under-represented in photography.

"What I try to aim for is photographs that tell a story, that will make a difference and will prompt people into thinking," Ms Lake said.

Sharing stories from agriculture industry

With an estimated 90 per cent of all photos taken in 2016 being snapped on a smartphone, Ms Lake believes the rise of mobile technology could also help bridge the divide between Australia's city dwellers and their country cousins.

"In agriculture there are relatively few sharing their story. There's a much stronger message if there's a much greater diversity of people telling their stories," she said.

"It really helps break down stereotypes of 'Oh, there's only one type of person that lives in the bush', which is still a fairly prevalent stereotype in some areas.

"So I love challenging stereotypes and I encourage others to do likewise."

The dangers of sharing online

Top tips for better mobile photography: 1. Experiment with HDR (high dynamic range)High dynamic range is a new setting available on most smart phones, designed to balance the exposure (the brightness of the image) in high contrast scenes. It is ideal to use in dim light (without a flash) to help balance the range of light.It is easily accessed by tapping the HDR setting to "on" within the camera app on most smart phones."So if you've got someone having smoko under a tree in the middle of the day, if you use HDR you'll get a little bit of detail in the background as well as a bit of detail on the people in the photo," Ms Lake says.2. Use focus to your advantageOn mobile phones, to focus on a subject or object, you can tap where you want to focus on the screen."Always make sure what's most important in your scene is in focus," Ms Lake advises.3. Compose your imageMs Lake recommends thinking about what message you want to send with the photo and what story it can tell, when deciding how much of a subject or scene to include." Always be mindful of what you want that photo to do, because that helps you decide the angle you take, what you include and what you crop out," she says.

But Ms Lake said with the vast sharing capabilities of the internet, there was a risk of photos of the agriculture industry put online being taken out of context and misconstrued.

"Always try to think like somebody who doesn't know anything about the topic, and make sure what you put online can't be misinterpreted or be used by someone who is looking to find fault within agriculture," she said.

Her concern was that the images may be taken intentionally by people who wished to use the photos to promote messages that were intentionally incorrect and harmful.

"If you put photos online of dead trees, there are people who will presume the landholder has killed them, when in actual fact they've been killed in a flood or been burnt or could have died due to prolonged drought," Ms Lake said.

"That attitude is quite prevalent because they've only heard one side of the story and not the other, so be really mindful of what you put online."

Source: Bridging the divide between city and country through mobile photography