iPhoneMeanderings

RAW files

2012-02-11T11:12:00.000-08:00

Most of my imagery is iPhone captured. If I do use one of my DSLRs I will usually do much, or at least some image processing on the iPad. It's funny then that I still wonder about RAW files. I suspect it's one of the mental exercises used to occupy the time spent alone in freezing early morning fog or some such, waiting to see how the lighting changes. We all know that place.

The accepted "truth" has been that RAW is the only good way to shoot. After all, keep as much control as possible. In-camera processing uses someone else's opinions about what's important. JPEG shooting relinquishes creative decision making.

Experiences with RAW capable cameras over the last year or so have caused me to dispute that "Truth" however. I'm thinking that in-camera processing is the way to go. Providing of course that some attention is paid to White Balance.

I know from experience that technology producers have their own proprietary systems. Some of this is for competitive reasons but some is because they really do understand their equipment best. This is very much true of chip manufacturers and camera manufacturers.

Software attempts to "crack the code" and does so quite well, ACR, Aperture, and others. It's interesting though that different types of software will interpret the same RAW file differently. This makes me wonder just how much of the "goodness" is a 3rd party software vendor capable of delivering. 90% ? More/less?

Over the last few iterations camera manufacturers have quietly and significantly improved their internal software "engines." They are more than likely getting more of the "goodness" from their proprietary files than other's are getting...and they are doing it very very quickly and for free. (I believe that new camera decisions are made for many reasons but that a new engine isn't on the list.) Oh. The file sizes are smaller also making management easier and less expensive.

There's always the argument that future advances in software will allow re works of RAW files. While true I do wonder about the practicality. How many of the (tens?) of thousands of images you took last year, or the year before, or in 1995 will you rework with the newest iteration of Photoshop? Assuming that new software still reads the old files, and of course that your DAM system allows you to find the file. I'm guessing the number will rhyme with Nero.

"Sometimes we Differ"

2012-02-11T10:04:00.000-08:00

Mike Johnston writes TOP The Online Photographer an excellent blog I'm certain many of us are familiar with. (yes I know but "with which many of us are familiar" sounds pretentious now doesn't it.)

Discussing the subject of photography as art, or different from art, he touches on an area I know I've wrestled with, do words enhance photographs? If a picture is worth a thousand words then how many more could it need? Yet, how many of us appreciate a caption? I know personally I like having a bit of the photographer's personal voice added to an image...I always look for a caption. Or is the mystery worth something more?

It would be interesting to hear other's opinions.

Speaking of opinions, I have followed TOP for years and enjoy it very much. I do recognize that some of my "life" opinions are rather different from Mike's. Comments in the past have started a stream of personal e-mails between us voicing that disagreement. Regardless I value his opinions and expect that if we ever did meet I would like him very much.

...but do you love it?

2012-01-16T17:09:00.000-08:00

A friend and fellow blogger posted about his recent experience with a smartphone here. Now many things are interesting in this post as evidenced by the responses he continues to receive, but I think the bottom line is: " ...but do you love it?".

For me, with the majority of my working life spend designing and selling very large voice / data systems to very large customers the advent of the cell phone was a way to help break the tether. I could be almost anywhere and still be in communication. Whooo Hooo!! My first cell phone (and every subsequent one) was Nokia. Their command of the electro-mechanical made them perfect for me. I would burn through one in about 14 months.

At the same time I had a great camera which I loved. A Nikon F purchased new in late 1970 and used 'till my grand daughter was born 9 years ago. In the last 9 years I have owned a series of very good digital cameras which were proficient way beyond my abilities. I used them but never loved them...disliked most of them.

My daughter talked me into trying an iPhone (giant 2 MP camera) which I expected to discard as quickly as possible without hurting her feelings. Turns out I disliked the phone even more than I expected to (c'mon folks,,,it's a pain in the ass voice communication tool). However I absolutely love the camera / App combination it offers. Along with what I came to think of as a camera it also gave me quite sophisticated access to the internet and a whole bunch of "social" networks. As telephone voice communication has become a minuscule part of my life, and textual / visual communication fills the void the iPhone becomes even more indispensable.

I now have dozens of cameras, mostly film, ranging in formats from 35mm to 4x5. I also have 2 very good digital imagers with similar sized sensors, Sigma DP1 and Panasonic G2. With any of these cameras I make images I like...some are even quite good I think but I work hard to do it. They're a chore. With the iPhone I do the same but love it.

I often find myself switching the iPhone into Airplane Mode which disables all but the camera. It's been suggested that I buy another cheap cell phone for voice but why? For the few voice calls I make this iCamera works well enough.

I'm thinking the reduction in voice calling is societal. If that's true then although we may continue to call them cell phones the phone part of the device will become of minor importance...it certainly has for me.

Bottom line...if you have the choice, use what you love, your results (and you) will be better for it.

ps I use the term smartphone as I understand there are other devices beside the iPhone...and for those of you using them I think you couldn't be cuter if you were in lederhosen and a bow tie. ;-)

Image Backup

2011-11-29T20:26:00.000-08:00

As the iPhone represents an ever increasing part of my photography I am interested in alternative ways to backup images while on the road. Carrying a laptop for image backup is cumbersome. I have a connector which allows wired (fast) backup to the iPad and I use it but I'm always a bit nervous and as I manipulate some of the images on the iPad keeping them straight becomes a chore.

I was initially excited about the Photo Stream feature of Apple's new iCloud service. Built into iOS 5 (and the 4S iPhone) this service automatically uploads images to "The Cloud." This works as a behind the scenes automatic image backup, which is giant. The "Devil in the Details" is that it works perfectly for 1,000 images in each 30 day period, after that it's full 'till the 30 day timer expires and then we get another 1,000 image capability. It's really quite easy to fill this buffer on any decent shoot. So now I'm once again looking for a practical backup workflow for images when I'm on the road. If Apple allows us access to our image section of iCloud this will be true best solution I think.

It appears that there are presently some solutions. I've found 4 - 2 are hardware based and 2 are cloud based. Each have advantages and disadvantages.

HARDWARE SOLUTION:

Although there are a handful of hard drives presently available which are iOS compliant most of these are designed to download TO the iPhone or iPad but not upload FROM the iDevice. The advertising is catchy and exciting but reading carefully shows that they spend a lot of ink mentioning all of the types of information that can be transferred to the iPhone (movies, music, games), but are silent on uploads from the iDevice. I have e-mailed or called each manufacturer I found and all but 2 confirm that their product will not meet my needs.

Hitachi G-Connect hard drive. 500 GB, $200, needs to be plugged in for power. I have been assured 3 times by a Hitachi rep that this product is a good solution but I find myself waiting 'till a company with an iron clad no questions asked return policy decides to sell it (like Amazon or Costco). The connection is wireless and it can serve up to 5 devices. It's a smallish box with a power cord. This evidently also works as a wireless router or hot spot for up to 5 devices.

HyperDrive-iFlash Drive. This is a solid state device (flash drive) with a USB plug on one end and the iPhone plug on the other, quite small. I am assured by the manufacturer that the iPhone will read from this device and write to it. It appears to be an excellent solution but in my opinion is still quite expensive. 3 sizes, 8, 16 and 32 GB. Prices are from $100 to $200. ($10 off sale now for "cyber" whatever day it is).
The disadvantage here for me is that I can be assured I will lose it. For the past year or so I have lost just about everything small that I own. I am completely unable to find these items no matter how hard I look right up to the day I replace it and then it's right on my desk or some such place. So for me the price doubles.

CLOUD SOLUTION:

There are App based cloud solutions in addition to iCloud's Photo Stream. DROPBOX is one many of us are familiar with and with a WARNING perhaps the best solution so far. The warning is that although the upload is easy to set up, if WiFi is lost it will continue the transfer over the Cellular network. This could lead to a very nasty surprise when the Cell Bill arrives.
The images uploaded to dropbox are right on my desktop Dropbox Folder waiting for me when I get home and Aperture reads from this folder quite easily. It renames files with the date and time of transfer. I haven't yet checked to see I can change that or if it strips image information during transfer but as a backup it works.
I had initially rejected Dropbox because it dramatically reduces file size for transfers to iDevices and the developers have no particular desire to change this. BUT...transfers from the iPhone to the cloud are full resolution...cool.

There is another free cloud based service, www.Box.com. Box offers a range of services and it appears they also give 50GB storage for free. I am testing this service now but so far I am unable to upload multiple images at once. If this is a one at a time transfer it's unworkable. Their reps also tell me that this will search for a cellular connection if WiFi is interrupted so the same warning applies.

There are some other cloud based offerings, such as iDrive Photo Backup but I have had problems using them so I think they're not quite ready...yet.

Meeting friends for the first time

2011-11-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

An interesting experience when using the "Web" is getting to know people whom you've never met. I'm perhaps not alone in referring to people as friends even though having never actually seen them in "real life."

I've followed, admired and learned from the iPhone Photography of Harry Sandler for iPhone years. I recently met and photographed with him in Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Thanks to fellow iPhone Photographer Teri Lou Dantzler for setting that up. It was a great 2 days and it was wonderful walking with someone who has as much trouble as I trying to keep up with TL when she's bounding up a mountain.

One very interesting use Harry makes of his iPhone is as a view finder for his 60 MP Swiss Arca.

New Toy-First Images

2011-10-14T18:07:00.000-07:00

My iPhone 4S arrived today. I was able to activate it right from iTunes...cool. My first impressions of the camera are quite favorable. It's clear and it's fast.

A favorite Camera App is ClearCam which takes 4 shots quickly, analyzes them and saves the sharpest. With the 4S, ClearCam takes and analyzes 6 shots in exactly the same amount of time. The images are larger, 8MB and they appear to be sharper as well. Not bad for a sensor which is probably about the size of a grain of rice.

Mixing Processes

2011-10-12T10:25:00.000-07:00

In the midst of an otherwise gloomy-stormy week we had a brief 10 minute blue sky window. The fact that it was sunset made for a dramatic sky. I took a handful of iPhone images which I am working now but also grabbed a shot with my new toy, the Lumix G2.

I processed the image with Film Lab, an Aperture plug-in made by DxO Labs. The resulting image, an Ektachrome simulation, I sent to my iPad and processed in the App PhotoForge 2. I like the results.

G.A.S attack

2011-10-01T22:48:00.000-07:00

Friend and fellow iPhone Photographer, John Barclay writes in his blog about a newly acquired, used Nikon D-300. I have to admit to a rush of Gear Acquisition Syndrome myself...GAS attack.

After numerous "conversations" with photographer Chris Eastwood I followed his lead and purchased a used Panasonic G series micro 4/3 camera.

I have been on a steadfast path to smaller and smaller cameras ending with the best yet...the iPhone. There are however a few things I miss about a larger camera. Isolation of subject via narrow focus is perhaps what I miss the most. Another thing I seem to need more and more often is a viewfinder. Small cameras are terrific and getting terriffic-er all the time but having everything in focus all the time isn't always an advantage. Also for the once or perhaps twice a year I need a long lens...this will work.

At any rate, the tendency of digital equipment to see it's cost evaporate rather quickly worked in my favor. I found a used G-2 for sale through B&H a trustworthy outfit. The plan was (is) to use my Nikon lenses but B&H also gave me a $100 discount on a lens, so I picked up a pretty sweet f1/7 20mm pancake lens for $249...the same price as the camera body. Good lenses seem to always hold their value.

The camera arrived the other day and I don't think it's ever been out of the box...it's not used at all, still had the manufacturer's registration/warranty card...sweet.

It doesn't fit into my shirt pocket but it does fit quite easily into a jacket pocket...and as we wear jackets 9 or 10 months a year up here there's always a pocket available.

Some images: size comparison with my iPhone and my Canonet 17, a small film camera...and a few shots from the G2.

iPhone image

Canonet, Tri-X image

iPhone image

G2 images

Weather Change

2011-09-17T13:56:00.000-07:00

The winter rains are returning, time for B&W. I still have a handful of Tri-X in the freezer and for digital I am liking the App Simply B&W more and more. I think I'm set for the 6 to 8 months of winter we'll get.

more B&W

2011-08-29T19:14:00.000-07:00

There are now happily a number of good B&W Apps available. A few new releases have some moody/dark capabilities that are fun. I particularly enjoy seeing what others are doing with these tools.

I've been doing quite a lot of B&W iPhoneography lately. I use the App "Simply B&W" quite exclusively and for my money it's the best. It seems to surpass all others in tonality and also has the most "Untz" to steal a phrase from another App developer...mid contrast I think.

I haven't been doing much posting so here are a few.

Scablands

2011-08-15T20:20:00.000-07:00

I believe many of the visitors to The Palouse travel the same route: a flight to Spokane, WA and then a drive south on US 195 to Colfax. A delightful trip...if one watches their speed carefully. The State of Washington however is quite geologically diverse containing a handful of distinctly different areas, The Palouse is one of them, so are The Scablands.

In prehistoric times as the ice sheets withdrew, the giant lake Missoula formed behind an ice dam and covered much of what is now Montana. I'm told that when the dam loosed itself from the rocks 500 cubic miles of water rushed through carrying much of central Washington to the Pacific Ocean. The flood had 10 times the force of all the earths rivers combined. My son the geologist tells me this happened perhaps 90 times. Somehow this water spared The Palouse...a few miles west though the story is different. The western edge of The Palouse is bordered by harsher land.

Called the Channeled Scablands in the northern section, south of the east/west I-90 they tend to drop the fancy first name. The life, the land and the people are different from their eastern cousins. Where it's common practice to leave the keys in the ignition in The Palouse..."in case someone needs to move it" here I am very wary of trespassing. 84 degrees and breezy in Colfax?, the gauge tickles 100 in the Scablands and the breeze is never called that. Wind! and wind with grit for teeth. Anyone who has spent extended time "in the field" knows that grit, it gets everywhere. Any body parts that touch each other while you walk grind grit between them. I swear sometimes it even gets under the fillings in your teeth.

Where Hwy 12 crosses the Lower Dry Creek Road is the town of Lowden. Decent hardworking folk. That they grow crops here is testament to their toughness. I stop for a few snapshots, and a few jokes with the lovely smile that refills my coffee mug and aim the headlights east again.

A New Sheriff

2011-07-07T19:48:00.000-07:00

Since it's introduction, over 2 years ago, VintBW was the undisputed home-run king of B&W Apps. I've been using the newest contender, Simply B&W for a week and it pretty consistently slaps them outa the park. Move over Big Papi.

The results of these 2 Apps are very very similar. In fact whenever I've thought I discovered a difference it turned out to be a mistake I had made. The App though is a whole lot more convenient to use, and for that reason I will use it a whole lot more often. For one thing it doesn't just throw everything away if you happen to leave the App before it's done, for another it will process saved images.

The ability to throw a thin white border around the image (or black if you like) is really helpful. The filters it offers are fun. I've taken real advantage of R, Y, O to "dramaticize" cloudy skies and I was playing with the Blue filter in the garden today. Yes I did say Blue. I found I was able to do 2 interesting things, turn blue flowers into white of course but also the blue really darkened the green background foliage dramatically isolating the flowers.

The wind picked up on the following 2 images and the focus was slightly off (my fault), I sharpened them (twice actually) and can see now that they are oversharpened.

Yarn Bombing

2011-07-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

Billed as perhaps the next "thing" after graffiti, yarn bombers knit covers for all sorts of statues, trees, vehicles etc. This is Elliott Park in Seattle, several trees, lightposts, a kiosk roof have been yarn bombed

Fireworks II

2011-07-05T19:35:00.001-07:00

One of the OOF images further processed on the iPhone. AutoPainter, Van Gogh

Fireworks

2011-07-05T19:32:00.000-07:00

I used my iPhone to photograph fireworks last night. Slow Shutter Cam, Light Trail mode. I set the shutter to B, started it when I heard the "Whump" and stopped when I thought the painted image looked about right. Real scientific process here.

One of the things I remember from DSLR shots of fireworks is that it's really easy to overdo it. A few bright flashes and the image is a mess. With the iPhone on Light Trail it paints the image onto the screen so it's a bit easier to judge. About a third of the time the camera was pointed wrong (I was close, almost directly under the display), and about a third of the time the brightness of the firework just overwhelmed the sensor. The other third I got what appeared to be a good image, but when I got home I discovered about half were out of focus.

I haven't figured a way top pre focus this App but have written the developer.

B&W

2011-07-05T18:13:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of B&W photography. Perhaps like others I find myself immediately attracted to B&W when reviewing thumbnails. This is pretty great since with digital photography we get a B&W as well as a color image. All we need to do is throw away the color...de-saturate. Turns out that in order to make a good B&W image it takes a bit more than that, quite a bit more actually.

Enter the iPhone and the formula changes once again. There are many Apps which will de-saturate the images and several more that give us various controls over the process. Each has strong points, none work perfectly in every situation and many are almost tedious. None that is but an App Vint B&W.

Vint was last updated Feb, 2009, an Ice-Age ago in iPhone time, and hasn't been updated since. The developer Erik Pettersson has other things on his plate evidently. Time after time new B&W Apps are released that seem to be as good as Vint but soon show that they are not. There are some cumbersome problems with Vint though, it's a camera only App, it doesn't work on saved images. So if after working a color image I decide to look at a B&W rendition I can't use Vint. It also is kinda slow and won't work in background. Now I am happy to discover that a new App finally seems as good as Vint...Yipee!!

Simply B&W produces images that are pretty much as good as Vint, and the images are easily improved. It's a camera but works on saved images as well, in fact it will save a B&W image as well as a color image if used as a camera. It has 2 areas that it falls a bit short compared to Vint, Contrast and Vignette, but it's tones, shades mid contrast etc are very very good. It has a contrast control that quickly makes up for the shortcoming in this regard and also has 2 additional features. It will apply color filters, R, O, Y, G, B and it applies a thin border, either B or W which goes on the outside of the image...which is a cool feature. The program I use to apply Vignettes recognizes the border and doesn't apply the darkening to it.

The combination of features and being able to work on saved images is what I had been hoping for. The developer Mr B Ware has a great product.

Cloudy Days

2011-06-30T22:55:00.000-07:00

Well now that it's summer the temps here will rocket up to almost 70, but then the clouds cruise on bye and the temps are back in the mid 60's. The clouds though are great. I'm shooting a TON of bracketed shots on the iPhone, this is one of them. I was struck with how WW II -ish this building looked, contrasted buy the bright red porch (?). I used iCameraHDR to bring out the saturated reds but wasn't crazy about the other colors being saturated also.

An App called PhotoWizard is my go-to masking tool, I masked the building and then desaturated. PhotoForge filter Sin City removes colors with a slider, I removed 'till I had the mottled look I wanted, sharpened and called it good. I tried a version without the yellow in the sign but didn't feel any differently about it.

Coffee Tasters

2011-06-22T19:03:00.000-07:00

Oliver and Sam hard at work.

VintBW image processed in Snapseed on the iPad. Crop, a touch of bright on their faces, textured, Vintage Film look and framed.

SlowShutterCam

2011-06-21T21:12:00.000-07:00

1/2 second exposure, tilted the iPhone up while shutter open. I tried a half dozen or so, Automatic Mode and Light Trail Mode. Didn't notice any difference.

Making White

2011-06-20T15:20:00.000-07:00

The App ClassicPAN has an Exposure Control which seems to work so I got to thinking about making white. White is not an easy color to photograph without various controls, white balance and Exposure Control for example. I tried various ways with degrees of success but the easiest of all was unexpected. I pressed SAVE in an App called iDroste and almost immediately changed my mind and hit CANCEL. I expected it to just stop but rather it gave me a small bit of my image on top of a white "page." A bit of cropping and I have made white.

One use of a white image would be as background for edges and frames. Another would be to get a good look at various surface treatments such as textures or grunge. In fact as an increasing number of Apps have the ability to make and save Presets a white image would be an ideal starting point for making custom effects. I haven't done an extensive search of iPhone Apps yet but I know that some desktop Apps will accept files made elsewhere so the combinations could be quite exciting.

Here are a couple from Grungetastic and a few from some other frame making software.

Tiffen

2011-06-19T09:14:00.000-07:00

Tiffen, the filter people make some quite sophisticated filter simulation software. DFX, originally priced north of $300, had great reviews but was out of my reach. Early on (iPhone 3) they released an App which is a LOT like the DFX software, Photofx. For $3.00 it seemed to have about 95% of the capabilities of the $300 software. It was my second purchased App, right after PhotoGene.

I took this image at a favorite location not far from my home because I could faintly see the Olympic Mountains and also for the yellowish glow in the clouds. Unfortunately neither showed. While having a cup a bit later I realized the Olympics would be a no show regardless of what I did but that I could do something about the color. Photofx has a range of Grad Filters. I just kinda dialed in the amount of darkening I wanted in the foreground and the colors were right. A little diffusion filter to make the image softer, more dreamy and I was about done. I framed it with another App, LiveFX and signed it with Impressions.

When I had a chance to download and look at this image on a larger screen the only change needed was to go back into Impressions and reduce the opacity of my signature so it would be less distracting. I'm considering removing those branches in the upper left...haven't decided yet.

Total time less than 10 minutes. Ain't the iPhone fun folks?

Hat & Boots

2011-06-17T22:34:00.000-07:00

The Hat & Boots was a Seattle landmark for years, built in the 1950's as a gas station (Texaco I believe) it lasted 'till the late 1980's. Age, neglect and vandalism pretty much finished them off and one day they were gone. I found out several years later that they had been restored and sat in Hat & Boots City Park in Georgetown, half a dozen blocks from where they stood...cool.

An outstanding photographer, Karen Messick has been doing some color saturated work lately with an App ClassicPan. I'm familiar with the Classic Apps having used ClassicTOY in the past. This and another App, Lenses always excited me with the colors shown on the iPhone but once on the big screen they never seemed to hold up. But as this was Pre-Grunge (PG) and Pre Painter I decided to give them another try.

The boots are ClassicPan as interpreted by AutoPainter II, felt tip.

Hat and Boots incorporates the famous "Manny-Apps" (many) and reminded me of the joke about the inventor of cottage cheese...how do you know when it's done. Actually I had piled more effects onto the image but dialed some back.
Lenses Vivid which produced a very saturated, low resolution image. Iris Comic Scene furthered the saturation and subdued some of the detail. This was then blended back with the original. An AutoPainter II version of the original was made which was blended with the previous blend. (tip...when stealing ideas, always steal from a great artist, Karen's use of this very blending idea transferred perfectly). I found I liked the impact of LoMob on the resulting image and also the Polaroid type frame works. Impressions for text.

PictureShow

2011-06-16T19:49:00.000-07:00

A year to 18 months ago there were only a handful of really good photography Apps, now there are hundreds. Further, built into regular upgrades are many of the capabilities of other Apps. It's difficult to keep up.

I have decided to spend a bit more time with some of the Apps I have only given a cursory review. One favorite is PictureShow. This App would fall into the All in One category. It has a number of preset "Filters," 45 at last count which may be combined with a collection of frames, light leaks and what it calls Noise but what other Apps would see as Grunge. These may be combined in any order and also added to tilt shift, HDR, RGB color adjustments, and various cropping arrangements. It also allows the creation of personal combinations--presets, which can be a very useful tool.

This App has a Random Tool...of course. Random tools arbitrarily combine effects, frames noise etc and sometimes the results are wonderful. PictureShow gives the option to not only see what elements are combined to make the image but also save it as a preset.

Frames may be added to an image without degradation of the original image. If it's 5MP going in it's 5 MP coming out. I really appreciate that. PictureShow also seems to recognize the frame. If like me you might decide to add something at the last minute, by that I mean if a Vignette is added towards the end of the workflow it doesn't darken the frame, if Noise is added after an image is framed the frame gets no noise treatment. With other Apps I would need to backstep through my actions in order to add either.

The crop tool is very very interesting. When changing an image to square format it up-rezes the image. The 5MP iPhone image is 1937 pixels by 2593 pixels. Cropping this image square makes it 1937 x 1937 or 3.7 MP and in fact this is the output size for Apps which produce a square image, like Hipstamatic. PictureShow produces an image which is 2592 pixels square, or 6.7 MP. I might imagine there is some degradation of the image but it's not obvious to me.

Finally it uploads quite well to Blogger, and appears to be the only App to do so.

Slow Shutter Cam

2011-06-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

After discussing the App with a Beta tester I was anxious for Slow Shutter Cam's introduction about a year ago. Upon release this App combined multiple screen shots into a slow shutter type photographic effect. Initially an exciting concept but kind of a difficult to master "One trick pony" that produced very tiny images it has developed into an exceptional creative tool. Along the way the developer, Cogitap Software, has made several improvements and additions which not only improve this App but help show other App developers a new trick or two. For instance Slow Shutter cam now produces images up to full resolution. (other Apps take advantage of screen shots but produce unusably tiny images)

With the latest upgrade last month I noticed 4 additional capabilities: a Bulb setting; Live Preview; improved Exposure Control; and Freeze Frame which I have yet to test. The first two give me the ability to watch an image be painted onto the screen and when I think the exposure is correct to stop the exposure. The improvements to Exposure Control are allowing me a bit more repair of an image (noise reduction) after capture but before saving. Dependent upon ones ability to creatively use the small screen I think there are some exciting possibilities here.

The fourth, Freeze Control moves emphasis of the final image from first to last image with a slider control. I have a few ideas about trying this with some across the screen movements, either of subjects moving or by panning the camera. These ideas are in the "Gotta try this real soon" area of my mind. Things get lost in there though, more and more as I get older I'm afraid.

The image below was taken with Slow Shutter Cam, Light Trail Mode, B shutter setting and a high "Sensitivity" which is somewhat like f stop I think (more testing required).

Taken at a beaver pond on a grey and rainy day last month. As best as I could on the tiny screen I tried to get as much exposure into the dark areas- in the foreground for example and along the back edge of the pond while keeping the sky from completely blowing out and flaring. The images looked pretty good at the time so I didn't try too many exposures, 3 total I believe. All in all I like the exposure.

Although it changed the mood of the day from grey and dreary to almost sunny the slow shutter effect was very interesting to me. The water took on a glow which I could watch develop on the screen. Also, I watched almost clear reflections of trees develop on the screen but was completely unable to see them on the pond itself due to the rain hitting it. The camera picked up things I couldn't ... fun.

Perkins House

2011-06-12T10:16:00.000-07:00

I first "Discovered" The Palouse about 20 years ago. It's an incredibly productive agricultural area of rolling hills, mostly within SE Washington State although it does extend a bit into western Idaho. At first nobody except locals seemed to know the name but the fields, sky, towns and equipment are so attractive that the are is becoming quite well known photographically.

I've been making semi-regular two day trips for years and regardless of my plans The Palouse presents me with something new and unexpected on every trip. This trip I was able to tour The Perkins House. On the national historic register The Perkins House is a Victorian Age home in Colfax, WA. Although I've known it was there, I never really had the opportunity to visit.

I wound up taking hundreds of digital images in the house and on the grounds. In no particular order here are 3.

New Roof

2011-06-12T09:08:00.001-07:00

Many photo Apps are able to upload to a service such as Blogger. the thing they all have in common for me is my lack of trust in them.

PictureShow manipulated and uploaded Hipsatmatic image.

iPhoneography Challenge

2011-03-14T15:20:00.000-07:00

My friend and fellow iPhoneographer Dan Sniffin offered one of his images for interpretation. I think 15 of us accepted the challenge. The results, in a word, are staggering. Below is Dan's original image and the 23 interpretations by other iPhoneographers. Way to hit it out of the park on the first pitch Dan.

Photo Factory

2011-01-22T21:30:00.000-08:00

When I was working for large companies resumes were a time consuming necessary chore. When I hired people to work for me in my department of a small company I realized that a great resume is better written on the back of a matchbook.

New Apps often go to some length to list a number of effects etc. It's not that they aren't good effects it's that the App it might replace also has a large number of good effects. Does the proposed App have something new, does it do something better, is it easier to use. The matchbook resume.

Photo Factory advertises "...a powerful editor with many filters...straightforward...easy to use...powerful." OK you have my attention.

I grabbed a copy of this App on the day it was free. It sells for $3.99 but is a universal App so I guess that's about right. Frankly I'm more suspicious of free Apps anyway. The $3.99 isn't going to hurt me but the time I waste trying to make a poor free App do what I want will just flat piss me off.

The developer has a demo here: http://www.mavapps.com/

The App opens to a screen showing the chosen image with FX choices on each side. There are 4 groupings: Favorites, Transform, Colors and Frame with multiple effects within each group. The one which caught my attention right away is Transform. In this group are a number of perspective manipulation tools. In this image I angled the paper and added a shadow on the bottom.

This effect looks to me like I'm viewing the image from the side. I did have to smudge the horizontal lines to smooth out the pizelation but not a biggie.

This got me considering using the App to simulate a shift lens or a lens board I might raise to photograph tall buildings. The results I think are pretty darn good considering the alternatives (and of course the price).

Here's how the App looks on my iPad. Transform group, I dialed in a -20 as shown and the results seemed to tip the paper top towards me. It looks like there are 28 different filters within this group.

There are several new filters in this App along with many which are similar to other Apps but have a new twist and are quite easy to use. New filters, new applications for established filters and easy to use. Throw your hats on the ice folks, hat trick.

First ZeroImage shots

2010-12-03T15:51:00.000-08:00

Well here are the first two. I learned a bunch. For one thing if I can see the "Shutter" the camera can see me. Whoops.

This is a very wide angle, I didn't understand just how wide it is. If I do my non scientific calculations, 4x5 would have a diagonal of about 6.4". The distance from pinhole to film is approximately 3/4 inch. Hmm. I come up with about a 35mm equivalent 8.5mm lens. That is wide. In the images below: the camera was about 1" from the canon, in image 2 the tripod, camera (and me of course) were on the sidewalk, perhaps a foot and a half from the steps.

I learned that the free App is well worth 99 cents, it did a great job. I also learned through research that due to reciprocity characteristics TMax 100 (or Acros) are actually faster films than TMax 400 with very long exposures

I also need to triple check the built in bubble level before I expose the film.

The business end of an A-10 Warthog.

St Spiridon's as photographed by Homer..."Do-ope"

New Toy

2010-12-03T15:36:00.000-08:00

I have been toying with the idea to try pinhole photography once again. I have a pretty large stash of 4x5 film both B&W and Color as well as a dozen or so film holders that are just not being used and I'm feeling guilty about that. Buy something new as guilt medicine...shoulda thought of that before.

At any rate I purchased a ZeroImage camera. It's more expensive than others but it's just so darn pretty.

The iPhone has an App, Light Meter that is just that, a light meter. The App is free and for 99 cents I get a larger, ad free screen. The App is quite sophisticated with lots of options. The camera has a 183 f stop pinhole and the App has a setting for 181.

reminders of what's important.

2010-11-30T09:46:00.000-08:00

A friend blogged yesterday about a financial setback he'd received followed by a reminder of what's important.

At the time he was feeling that life had dealt him a body blow my family was going through a financial body blow as well. Ruthless and reckless lawyers financially attacked my youngest daughter completely stripping her of assets. This was a major setback to her, and to the entire family for several reasons and will take some time to get everything put back on an even keel.

As this was unfolding my oldest daughter who has suffered from a very very aggressive case of MS for 5 years announced that the experimental drug she takes has begun to give her back her sense of balance. THIS IS HUGE!! For this advancement we would have paid many times the $ thousands that were taken.

I've been hacked

2010-11-30T09:34:00.000-08:00

An old friend contacted me out of the blue the other day asking why I was suggesting SHE buy Viagra. Aside from all of he usual jokes and good natured ribbing it was obvious something had happened to my Google account.

When I tried to access this blog I was told first that it had been removed and then that I wasn't allowed access.

Contacting Google brought the following response:

"WARNING: WE BELIEVE YOUR ACCOUNT WAS RECENTLY ACCESSED FROM CHINA.

So. If anyone gets a Viagra ad from me I apologize...unless of course it works for you and then you're welcome.

Lenses 2

2010-11-24T14:08:00.000-08:00

OK something happened. I took some images with Lenses App yesterday and then again today. The App has changed somehow. This App had been pretty much ignored by the developers but I noticed today that there are additional lenses and also the resolution of saved images has improved...and one other thing:

The App splits the viewfinder into 4 parts and 3 of them have a user selectable lens, the fourth (1st) is original. An image is taken with whatever quadrant you select. Today when I tapped one of the quadrants I found 4 images in camera roll, one from each of the quadrants. This happened twice but then suddenly stopped. If this is one of the new features the developer promises it's incredibly cool. I hope so.

Kaleidoscope, Polar, Quad Mirror, Original of my keyboard

Lenses

2010-11-24T12:40:00.000-08:00

Lenses App, Polar filter

tertiary markets & contrarians

2010-11-23T20:29:00.000-08:00

I have always been an early adopter. I am just fascinated with technology. The iPhone is one such fascinating device. My youngest daughter may have caught the bug from me and although I resisted at first she convinced me of the iPhone's merits about version 2. Even so, photography with the device while convenient just didn't quite get it somehow.

Then came some kick ass creativity in the Apps. The first eye opener for me was Camera Bag. Previous Apps dealt with making images sharper or with kids games...putting your face on a monkey's body or some such. When I first tried CameraBag my mind said "OH!!" Later came a whole host of wonderful efforts such as textures, grunge, manipulation and the marvelous Hipstamatic.

The iPhoneography "movement" has progressed through the early adopter stage into the professional stage, probably the tertiary market I don't know. The professional embrace of the medium is producing imagery which is exciting, invigorating and downright humbling. That this is only the beginning is overwhelming.

My personal growth with digital, once I got over the urge to take hundreds of similar images, moved quickly towards smaller and smaller imagers. The DP1 with a large sensor in a shirt pocket camera, Canon's S90 with it's wonderful low light capabilities in an even smaller body. These were fun and also fed my contrarian nature. The iPhone continues that tradition. If I am truthful with myself (I don't really like to be) then I understand that I'm a contrarian because I don't have world class skills. I supplant that by producing images with unusual devices. Now that the iPhone is being embraced by many others I am just thrilled by the creativity boosts I get from them and their wonderful work. That I am participating in groups such as the FaceBook iphoneography group is just great for me...and once again humbling.

Art ??

2010-11-20T11:36:00.000-08:00

There is a respected center for photographic art in Seattle. They offer classes, workshops, seminars and exhibitions in their facilities. I have seen some "Game changing" exhibitions there. Last night 4 faculty members lectured and displayed selected images (projected). In a nutshell I shoulda stayed home.

It's probably just me. I figure a person is a curmudgeon about the time they enjoy being called one...couple years ago for me....but. I gotta ask: Does art have a definition? Does this definition have anything at all to do with real people and real situations? Is art about pretentious nonsense about sleeping on materials to get a feel for them and give them a feel for you? Are these people really drawing a salary for this? Huh?

It started off well. The first speaker works with pinhole cameras. His few displayed images gave me an idea or two for iPhoneography. Then he spent way too long displaying dark brooding pencil drawings an architect made in the 1920's accompanied by his reading of the architects brooding and meaningless journal. That the architect was influenced by Kafka was obvious but so the hell what?

Another speaker went on and on about incomprehensible dream sequences she had as a child. The final speaker showed several images of people. First it was all legs and feet because "didn't want to get into that whole thing about am I pretty enough or am I too old." Then when she did show images of peoples faces she admitted she only photographed friends as photographing strangers was too emotionally charged for her.

At that point to quite the philosopher Popeye..."I've had all I can stands. I can't stands no more!" and I was outa there.

C'mon folks. Pull up your socks, get an iPhone or something, get out there and take some goddamn pictures!

I knew it felt slicker somehow

2010-11-15T13:06:00.000-08:00

Or perhaps I new?

I mentioned the loose button on my shirt to the cleaner. For a couple bucks I got the shirt laundered, the button re sewn and this wonderful tag. A bargain!

Sunday Meandering B

2010-11-08T18:48:00.000-08:00

Cold and hungry I passed a pizza joint and as I glanced in a very pretty young woman looked up from her book and smiled at me. At that instant I knew pizza was the answer. After I ordered and sat I noticed the woman's red boots and "stole" two quick iPhone images. She was deeply engrossed in a medical text of some sort so I didn't bother her.

As soon as I downloaded the files into Aperture I knew that there was a great print there. If I can only get it created.

I put these 2 images together with PROHDR and processed that image first in Photofx and then in PhotoStudio.In the first App I added diffusion, blur and very large grain (with a mask over the girl) and the other gave me desaturation, vignetting and a frame. Now I have this image:

I'm getting closer but still not there. The first few manipulations I saw going in to the process, now I'm flailing about a bit. Perhaps a warmer overall tone to give a sunlight feeling. The grain effect is a bit too large for my tastes so i will need to rethink that. It's also possible I suppose that I need to make a decision whether the girl or her boots are the main part of the image.

At any rate I believe that if I can figure this out it will be the best image I've ever made.

Sunday Meandering part 1

2010-11-08T18:27:00.000-08:00

It's been an interesting handful of years for graffiti and for the graffiti artists. The vandalism or art questions, probably never resolved but it's certainly old news now. The Taggers who created new art, or vandalism, over the older efforts...take your pick, art or vandalism. Along the way the colors and creativity caught the attention of numerous photographers...me too. Now I'm not sure what it's saying, but I think I have an idea.

Consider this image:

Multi-colored graffiti painted over with large stylized fat tags in white with black outlines telling us something I'm incapable of reading. Over the top of that we see some person or groups calling cards, 4DC, CRUKK and what appears to be a political statement of sorts...RIP FIST. Most recently in red we have 2 peoples names??? SOMEONE & CHARLIE DAWG. Is this the equivalent of the heart with initials carved into a tree? Cho Lite and Charlie Dawg true love.

What I think I'm seeing here, aside from an obvious community message board, is a reminder that street art is transitory. If the artists don't understand that then the succeeding waves of artists explain it to them with paint. Graffiti art in all it's forms is valid for about 15 minutes. Just about right for photographers.

Lighthouses

2010-11-05T19:04:00.000-07:00

Maine has approximately 70 lighthouses, the majority are Downeast (North) from Portland. On a sunny day in the fall I now estimate driving 30 miles a day is pushing it. It's not that Maine doesn't have highways, it has one, I-95...or perhaps two if you count US Route 1. It's that the sights are so plentiful is's difficult to not stop every few miles. At any rate here are a few lighthouse images, 1 film and 4 iPhone.

What it means to be from Maine

2010-11-01T22:38:00.000-07:00

A bottled water company, Poland Springs has as it's logo "What it means to be from Maine"

I'm kinda thinking though that Sunday services at a small church in the country comes a lot closer.

Liston Grant, 87

suffers from Alzheimer's. I'm told he doesn't remember that he plays but whenever he sits in front of a piano he plays what comes to him or what people hum.

Performing a public service

2010-11-01T15:41:00.000-07:00

Sunday afternoon, rural Maine, shortly after attending services in a small country church I was attracted to this structure. I liked the addition made to the original barn and the red roof was great. I tried to get an award winning image but got these instead. The story however is that I was driving a rental car with NY plates and a couple a two tree farm vehicles went bye while I was standing there...just starting to drizzle. It dawned on me that I gave the locals who passed something to share at the grocery store, restaurant, gas station...

"I was drivin' down the Fullah (fuller) road t'other day and there's this fella from New Yawk standin' in a doryud in the rain, mud up to his ankles, takin' a pictah of HOSS MANUAH."

(doryud is Maine speak for door yard which is Maine speak for driveway)

At any rate I am delighted to give back to the community any way that I can.

EMP

2010-10-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

s'more folks

2010-10-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

Platinum / Palladium

2010-10-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

again, these are very poor substitutes for the fullness of the actual images.

images from Monument Valley, Bode CA, New Orleans and Ohio.

Ray

2010-10-13T09:36:00.000-07:00

Got to spend the day with Ray Bidegain in his workshop in Portland. Ray is a master printer and all around decent guy. A practitioner of what would be called "Historical" photographic processes, wet plate collodion, platinum palladium, he lectures and his work hangs in collections worldwide.

The work involves contact printing from negatives. Ray uses primarily large format negatives, I was using negatives I produced on an inkjet printer from digital images. As the solutions are sensitive to UV light we were able to work in a lighted room and the chemicals are not considered toxic. Cool!

We also produced a negative from one of my iPhone images and printed it. Ray seemed impressed with the results (or he humored my my enthusiasm for the iPhone) but I was definitely impressed. There is a richness and warmth in this process that must be seen to be appreciated. In no way do my samples included in this and the next post come close to doing them justice.

Rangefinders

2010-10-10T20:35:00.000-07:00

My first 35mm camera was a rangefinder, American name, I think it was Ansco. I just realized it's coming up on five-oh years ago. How'd that happen?

At any rate over the last several years I seem to have accumulated a collection of rangefinders, I don't know why. I tell myself that I'm getting them for a song and except for the xPan that's correct. But then I spend hours cleaning, replacing seals, adjusting, repairing them, all the while running film through them to see how they're doing so a song becomes a whole bunch o songs. I keep thinking I will sell them but know that I would put whatever I made towards another rangefinder...perhaps with a red dot on it. It would be interesting to go somewhere though and only carry 1 film camera and not 3.

These are the ones I've used this past year.

still experienced

2010-10-10T19:36:00.000-07:00

iPhoneography has been fun all along. Sometimes it's "funner."

I think Gaudi would have liked the museum.

various manipulation / framing apps.

The week ended well also

2010-10-09T22:22:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday

2010-10-09T21:18:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday Son, happy birthday sis, happy birthday sis, happy birthday sis, happy birthday sis, happy birthday bro...and of course happy Birthday Mom.

Free is good

Are you experienced?

2010-10-09T21:13:00.000-07:00

Dave and Edity from outside Pine Bluff are...now.

Bill

2010-10-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

Bill, in Seattle was holding a sign that he prays for a Tully's gift card. Of course he was standing in front of Tully's Coffee shop. He told me that 15 years ago he was rock climbing with a group and fell, hurting his back. The pain never ended for him and he eventually lost his job, home and family. Then about a year ago a disk ruptured (something I'm familiar with) and the MRI showed that he had fractured his back in 2 places from his fall.

Above iPhone, below Canon 7, 50mm, Fuji Pro400H

Helen

2010-10-07T19:13:00.000-07:00

I met Helen today on her 93rd birthday. Also met Janice who owns the Blue Heron Gallery on Vashon Island WA.

more fog

2010-10-06T10:21:00.000-07:00

It's still reasonably warm but we get fog in the mornings and evenings. As we had such a mild winter last year this fog is still a bit of novelty. It'll wear off as soon as it drops another 10 degrees. In the meantime I'm getting to meet more of my community.

Unfortunately I didn't keep the iCamera steady. I figure that low light due to the fog and all...that's the reason. I mean what other reason could there be for not paying attention?

Uhhhhh...Cookies!

2010-10-06T10:15:00.000-07:00

we all get to be Homer sometimes.

ClassicToy, Photogene

the week is starting well

2010-10-05T22:12:00.000-07:00

Gaudi's House?

2010-10-05T21:42:00.000-07:00

film, market, iPad

2010-09-29T21:28:00.001-07:00

xPan, T Max film, iPad processed

2010-09-29T13:29:00.000-07:00

dew point

2010-09-27T21:35:00.000-07:00

It's been muggy all day. It rained last night and although it stopped the clouds never really left us. Warm, muggy, dew point in upper 60's. As soon as the temperature dropped below 70 (about 7:00pm) a real nice fog started forming on the sound. Yes. I know that fog isn't so nice for boaters or aviators...but for photographers...nice. It was interesting how many people just sort of appeared, all with cameras. I got to meet several neighbors for the first time.

It got dark about 7:20 and the ferry arrived back at the docks about 7:23. You do the best you can.

in town

2010-09-24T21:41:00.000-07:00

driving out of town tonight, Friday, rush hour, dreading "dancing with the fools" in traffic I noticed a couple of news vans with crews preparing to do something so I decided to gawk. Whatever they were preparing for didn't happen but I did get to people watch for a bit.

I heard this young woman doing the same thing I was about to do, actually I heard the motorized film advance. Another film user...oh boy. Turns out she's a college student taking a photography course(s). She of course didn't know anything about the iPhone's artistic capabilities (this is really fun).

"That's a GOOD picture of me. Now that I look at the image I can see that taking a good picture of her is not so difficult a task, probably a lot easier than taking a bad picture of her.

Lakewold Meanderings

2010-09-20T21:08:00.000-07:00

Lakewold is a very lovely garden property in the community next to mine. Spent the afternoon "cruizin'" the grounds with the buds, the xPan and of course the iPhone. Lovely way to spend a few hours.

"I'm about to throw some tomatoes in the griddle to fry..." "Devil's in the jukebox jumpin' on the rythym and blues." Who writes lyrics like that anyway. Shout out to JB...thanks bud.

Most sane folks see an old man dancing by himself they tend to leave a large buffer zone...cool!

at times I see you Silver Rider

Robert Plant

still summer

2010-09-19T23:50:00.000-07:00

officially it's still summer although the weather started shouting "Winter!" a couple of weeks ago. This global cooling is tiresome sometimes.

Hipstamatic, CameraBag, frames by Akvis

Columbia Gorge scenics

2010-09-16T20:43:00.000-07:00

a couple from my S-90, the rest iPhone

more from the gorge

2010-09-16T20:35:00.000-07:00

For What it's Worth

2010-09-16T20:26:00.000-07:00

there's something happening here...

Buffalo Steam Roller Co

2010-09-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

Columbia (river) Gorge. Geologically spectacular. I discovered a property filled with old equipment. Trucks, Cat's, Logging equipment etc. I could easily have spent a week browsing and photographing.

iPhone, CameraBag, Iris, frames by PhotoGene

LoMob

2010-09-10T00:13:00.000-07:00

Cup of soup

2010-09-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

Stopped in a local restaurant for a cup of soup. Sat at the counter as I like to do in restaurants. Met Dennis Frehard Johnson, 84, cancer survivor.
"Went by Dennis but it's a common name so then I was Dennis F for years." "Then a Dennis F made the papers for a DUI and I've been Frehard ever since."

Frehard told his wife he was going for a walk and ducked in for soup. All the waitresses smiled and talked to him...a lot. He's done this before I bet. We agreed that the soup was good and that it matters little why the young women smile at you...just that they do is good enough.

Buon Opportuno Frehard.

Image taken with iPhone 4.1's new HDR feature. There's a slight ghosting in the background but it added brightness to his face. I like this feature.

Tri-X. Remember me?

2010-09-07T19:17:00.000-07:00

This was an interesting exercise (for me). These 2 images are Tri-X, ASA 400, Hassaelblad xPan.

The images were scanned at 3340 x 8150 (tall image) and 5035 x 3340. Yup. That's correct. 27 megapixels and 17 megapixels (lots of information on film). I processed the images in Aperture: levels, contrast, mid-contrast, USM. I also sent un manipulated images to my iPad and processed them in Photoforge, slight S curve, USM and added a dark vignette border in Photogene. They look pretty similar on my screens.

Of course I did downsize the images.

APERTURE PROCESSED

PHOTOFORGE PROCESSED

Bellingham

2010-09-05T20:54:00.000-07:00

give that dog a drink

2010-09-03T16:39:00.000-07:00

VintBW, LoMob

A trail from my neighborhood

2010-09-01T21:49:00.000-07:00

starting behind City Hall it runs a couple miles through the woods and to the ocean, (Puget Sound). It's a favorite.

6 iPhone images combined in Autostitch. Panoramics are a fun exercise but not very practical. This image if printed at 8" tall comes out to be about 3 feet long. Also, the beach really isn't "V" shaped. I like the image though, it captures the mood of the day.

bottom and right of center is the top of my grand daughter's hat. Left in the image purposely.

One neat thing about the cooler weather

2010-09-01T21:40:00.000-07:00

My grand daughters and I get to wear these funky hats again.

yes it's still August

2010-08-31T21:09:00.000-07:00

but there it is

was that Mary Poppins?

2010-08-30T21:57:00.000-07:00

About a week ago the weather seemed to change. Cloudy, cool, definitely feels like summer is over.
Thanks to The Nino we had a glorious winter. Sunny, warm, dry, almost no rain and no snow. The spring made up for it though, cool and damp 'till June. Now in August it sure feels like a change in the weather.

Somehow dark, grainy, blurred images seem appropriate. Hipstamatic processed in Tiffen Photo fx.

Hudson River Lighthouse

2010-08-29T22:33:00.000-07:00

Sleepy Hollow NY

OK. I'll admit it. Iris is a fun App. This is an image taken about a year ago which I ran through Iris. I applied several filters and a "couple a two-tree" layers, didn't keep track, probably couldn't recreate it.

I added the "Instant Film" border in another App...Camera+.
I added the type with a watermark App called Impression, a free App for the iPhone. I believe the iPad version will have the ability to print black as well as white.

Iris "Mask over Base"

2010-08-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago John asked about painting out texture in a blended image. There is an action called "Mask over Base" which seems to do that. The painted section allows the bottom or base layer to show through. Each layer needs to be the same dimension before combining so there might be an extra step involved, and the texture would need to be the top layer I think but it looks like it would work for someone as computer crafty as he is.

brush fire

2010-08-27T21:26:00.000-07:00

Traveling east along the river I could see that parts of south central Washington were on fire. A large brush fire filled the skies with smoke. Helicopters and a C-130? filled their water tanks in the Columbia.

Standing next to Stonehenge looking north at sunset

A 5 image pano stitched in phone with AutoStitch. After cropping this image wound up being almost 14MP. It was very windy.

Stonehenge on The Columbia River

2010-08-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

On one of my regular journeys to The Palouse, this time following The Columbia River through Oregon, I stopped at the Stonehenge Memorial built by Sam Hill. Sam's is an interesting story, drivers in the Northwest owe him a debt of gratitude. He built Maryhill (castle now a museum) perhaps in an unsuccessful attempt to entice his wife Mary to leave Minneapolis. He also built a replica of Stonehenge as a War Memorial after WW1. It sits on a high bluff overlooking the Columbia.

Maryhill Museum

Customer Appriciation Days

2010-08-27T14:24:00.000-07:00

If there were just one day there would have been room for spell check. Oh well. Always great to appriciate your customers.

Say. You don't suppose that's what the kids are calling it now.

Overcast afternoon

2010-08-27T00:57:00.000-07:00

Roll on Mighty Columbia

2010-08-27T00:53:00.000-07:00

Spent a couple hours in the Columbia Gorge today, met these very lovely people. They were somewhat amused by my iPhone...they were impressed with the results though.

("...just type your e-mail address there, press the blue button and a copy will show up in your in box.")

Iris Photo Suite

2010-08-24T17:24:00.000-07:00

If you didn't grab a copy of Iris while it was free (huh??), grab it now at 99 cents. I'm anxious for the iPad version, whenever they develop that.
They have added additional capabilities, one shown below. I knew someone would do this but kinda thought it would be Tiffin.

I recently read an article by a software developer blasting Apps as being all priced way too low. His premise was that we wouldn't see any "Good" apps 'till pricing got up to where they could make some real money. Apps like Iris stuff that premise where the sun don't shine.

Hipstamatic Image

Random Texture available for free on the internet

"Ding" Fries are done!

There are a lot of controls built into Iris such as order of layers (it makes a difference), blurring, intensity, multiple layers etc. Incredible.

need to pay more attention

2010-08-23T21:19:00.000-07:00

to when the shutter actually releases.

Mt Rainier

2010-08-23T20:45:00.000-07:00

Spent Saturday in Mt. Rainier N.P. Low clouds which quickly turned to fog upon gaining elevation. It was also very crowded. The entrance gates had "Express" lanes...no credit cards. Fortunately for me most visitors seem to enjoy the road to Paradise Lodge. There they fight for parking, play in the snow, eat lunch and go home. I get off that road quickly and usually find solitude although sometimes it takes a bit of hiking.

Girlies are back

2010-08-23T19:43:00.000-07:00

from the visit with their other Grandparents. Yippee

Mondays

2010-08-23T09:39:00.000-07:00

Cars

2010-08-22T19:01:00.000-07:00

Tiffen

2010-08-19T20:36:00.000-07:00

This is an iPhone, Hipstamatic image. I additionally processed it with a Tiffen App. Tiffen (the filter people) have 2 iPhone Apps. One of them, Ultrafx is essentially a $5.00 iPhone version of their Dfx software an Aperture or Photoshop copy of which costs $300.00. Fortunately for me (old eyes and large hands) they've also released an iPad version of this App which is so much easier to use.

For this image I used their other App, Coolfx. I added 3 layers to the original Hipstamatic image: a layer emulating 8mm movie film grain, a Glow or Halo layer and a Burnt Copper coloring layer. Not a particularly award winning image either before or after but I like it.

motivation and film vs digital

2010-08-19T13:40:00.000-07:00

Stopped in to a coffee shop the other day and met Andreas Goldemann. As I was reviewing images on my iPad Andreas, a motivational speaker from Germany was writing his second book on his iPad. When he saw that I had a film camera as well as my iPhone he mentioned that film is preferable to digital as it captures a person's entire aura while digital just gets an image.

Didn't know that.

Yet another reason I still use so much film.

a few more

2010-08-17T21:59:00.000-07:00

"WINDOWS" on a MAC

Pepper 4688

2010-08-17T21:54:00.000-07:00

s'more

Shopping

2010-08-16T22:33:00.000-07:00

Pepper 4688

2010-08-16T22:31:00.000-07:00

OK. It's like a bad pun...but fun nevertheless.

Plastic Bullet

2010-08-14T15:44:00.000-07:00

Plastic Bullet is an App made by Red Giant Software, a company with many titles and large enough to actually have a sales department and a customer service department. First released a couple of months ago it unfortunately didn't save full resolution images. I, along with many other iPhoneographers e-mailed them and now version 1.1 saves full resolution. Originally reviewed in blogs as a replacement for Hipstamatic (it isn't) it is fun to use though.

Color Hipstamatic image from a couple of days ago re processed with Plastic Bullet.

Outside the coffee shop

2010-08-13T22:56:00.000-07:00

Having a cup. Watching the world go bye.

Emma

2010-08-13T22:49:00.000-07:00

Loves to draw. Has to draw is more like it. Recently while out together we witnessed an event so brief that I had no time at all to photograph it. "Don't worry Grampa. I've got it." By her drawings I could see that indeed she did.

People photographers

2010-08-12T14:20:00.000-07:00

Some photographers I know have been overheard claiming to not be people photographers. When I look at their work, "most excellent dude!" I find that their images of and about people are my most favorite. Many of us derive a great deal of pleasure pursuing ultimate landscape or nature photographs and as the journey is the experience that's great. If however we want outstanding landscapes they're available in packages of 12 for about $10 in any stationery store...and if we don't need the calendar printed on their backs we could get last years images for about half price.

People on the other hand are compelling. They demand we look at them and attempt to determine what's in their minds. If I consider hiking with my children and now my grandchildren the views are why we start but the life we discover along the way is what excites us. As exhilarating as the surf is it's the tidepools that fascinate us as they teem with life. As a species we are drawn to life as a moth to the flame.

Over 50 years ago I was privileged to see Alfred Stieglitz image Sun Rays taken perhaps 70 years before that. This image of a woman in a sun dappled room caused me to truly look at a photograph for the first time. His later work with the Strands and of course Georgia O'Keeffe is marvelous. His Equivalents I think is non sensical.

Of all Ansel Adams work two stand head and shoulders above the rest I think. Moonrise over Hernandsez without the glowing crosses is a nice image of the moon and mountains but nothing more. I love his image, interestingly also of Georgia O'Keeffe giving the Will Rodgers look alike Orville Cox a look. What's that look anyway? "How YOU doin" perhaps??

It's not easy to take people images, posed or spontaneous but that's what makes them special.

Palouse & frost

2010-08-11T22:56:00.000-07:00

OK. Not iPhone. I was reviewing some images to transfer to the iPad (there's the connection) and found these taken early on a frosty morning in February.