The Arkansas mobile phone photography group @ArkMoPhs recently held an opening reception for its Fifth Annual EXPLORE ARKANSAS exhibit, housed at the Batesville Area Arts Council through Saturday, July 28. The show features 30 photos divided evenly between the categories of People, Places and Things of Arkansas.

The top photographer in each category received a Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphone from Arkansas AT&T. This year’s winners were Maria Broughton from Ash Flat in the People Division, Derrick Rose from Maumelle for the Places Division and Cindy Hopper from Little Rock who won the Things Division. All photographers took their photos in Arkansas. They were only allowed to use their smartphones to capture and edit their photos.

With the emergence of premium camera capabilities on mobile phones and tablets, the art form of phoneography continues to develop. “Phoneography” is the art of photography using only a mobile device (smartphone, pad or tablet) for shooting and editing photos.

The first of its kind, ArkMoPhs (Arkansas Mobile Phoneographers) is an Arkansas-only social media community for mobile phoneographers to share artistic images of people, places and things in the Natural State.

ArkMoPhs was founded by Conway resident Tommy Wallace, who picked up an Android mobile phone in 2012 and has been hooked on the new art form ever since. Wallace immersed himself in learning as much as he could from people engaging in the global mobile photography community and pursued building a phoneography community for his home state of Arkansas.

“We began a little over four years ago with this idea of creating a virtual community of Arkansas-only smartphone photographers and it has really taken off,” Wallace said. “We now have four talented moderators leading our group and Arkansans have logged about 45,000 images to the #ArkMoPhs hashtag.”

“You don’t have to be a professional photographer. In fact, anyone who has a knack for snapping beautiful photos with their smartphone in Arkansas can participate in the group and enter the EXPLORE ARKANSAS competition,” said Wallace.

The ArkMoPhs group finds its primary home as an Instagram community (@ArkMoPhs). The group also uses Twitter (@ArkMoPhs) and Facebook (facebook.com/groups/arkmophs) for photo sharing and promoting events and online training opportunities. In addition to Wallace, ArkMoPhs is moderated by Keith Melton of North Little Rock, Crystal Nordin of Pottsville and Lana Yates of Plainview.

EXPLORE ARKANSAS photo entries are accepted for three categories: People, Places and Things of Arkansas. All photos must be taken within the borders of Arkansas and shot and edited only with the aid of mobile devices. A panel of four jurors has selected 30 out of 225 images submitted for the exhibit. This year’s judges are University of Central Arkansas Art Education Professor Dr. Deborah Kuster; Lyon College Assistant Professor of Art Ian Campbell; University of Central Arkansas Downtown Gallery Curator Kristen Spickard; and KARK 4 and FOX 16 News Reporter Chanley Painter.

The exhibit will be on display at the BAAC gallery during regular hours until July 28.

“We are thrilled to display this year’s photo exhibit at the Batesville Area Arts Council,” said Wallace. “I graduated from Batesville High School and I’m excited to be back now to share Arkansas’ best smartphone photos in a great gallery like BAAC. It’s wonderful to know that two Batesville photographers are included in this year’s show. Julie Graves and Damian DeLoach, both of Batesville, have had photos selected in the past and I’m excited that theirs will join 28 others from around our state.”

For more information, contact ArkMoPhs at [email protected].