Shopping and Shooting: Creating Mood with Apps: ScratchCam:OldPhotoPro:Noir:Iris

Yesterday, I went shopping. There is a home furnishings and accessory store I love in Rehoboth called Tulip and I always make a stop there when I am at the beach. While shopping I fell in love with the amazing collection of unique lamps they had on display. So I went to work whipped out my iPhone and made some bracketed shots with BracketMode for processing later. At the end of the day at home I processed these images in a similar way going for a moody retro look. ScratchCam is great for adding texture and Old PhotoPro is great for toning. Noir is super for enhancing selective lighting and vignettes. So I combined the three apps after processing the bracketed shots in iCamHDR.
Here are two of the shots in color after processing them in iCameraHDR and the Converted shots. I also applied Perfect Photo sharpening to the finished shots, and I used TouchRetouch to take out the wooden furniture in the beaded lamp image on the right.

Processed BracketMode shots in iCameraHDR

Processed BracketMode shots in iCamHDR

What I love about Summer!!! and the iPhone was there!

BracketMode:TrueHDR:Iris:AutoPainter ll ~Felt tip:Crop'n'Frame:Toaster

Yes two posts in one day......makes me share some thoughts regarding making images: what I find is that I still take as many big camera pictures but I take lots more iPhone shots, where I might not have pulled out the big camera. The apps are just so much fun to work with! Now I shoot these images with the idea of what app I want to use on them. iPhone photography to me is not about the sharpest shot with a big resolution, but a little picture with lots of fun and attitude.
I have been driving past this produce stand all spring as they readied their space for the arrival of fresh seasonal and local produce. I was excited when I saw they were painting the melon boxes red and green and made note when I was passing to make sure I stop when the season arrived. So today on the way to the beach for the last time until September, I stopped in the little town of Clinton, Delaware, bought some produce and made some pictures. I hope they make you smile! They are so summer on the shore! and I got a dozen ears of fresh picked corn for $4.95!

Then when I arrived at the beach my neighbor had his garage open with his robin's egg blue vintage T-Bird, so I had to make a shot of that....so summer! So vintage!

I Love New York!

BracketMode~Capture: iCameraHDR~Blend shots:AutoPainter~painterly effect

Just had a chance to process a few more shots from my day trip to NYC last week. Central Park in summer is filled with activity...it was a bit surreal, with people sunbathing by the lake under the shadows of towering highrise buildings...I love New York City and I just added a day trip workshop on October 27. If you would like to participate; here is the link with info and sign up. I will be teaching and shooting with the iPhone, Lensbaby Composer and regular DSLR for street and cityscape photography. The workshop is limited to 8 people. Hope to see you there.
http://blog.karenlmessickphotography.com/p/november-19-new-york-city-photo-day.html

Lucketts Apps: Old Photo: PicGrunger:BadCamera

Captured with ClassicPan:Processed with: Old PhotoPRO:BadCamera:PicGrunger: Framed with Crop'n'Frame

Today I rolled out at 4:00am and headed south to McKee Beshers for my sunflower workshop. It was a beautiful sunrise over the field of sunflowers, but I was teaching and helping folks capture the shot before the light changed...so I don't have any pictures, except one iPhone shot I grabbed real fast. This is it...I used BracketMode to capture two shots, one for the highlights and one for the darks and blended them together in iCameraHDR, then because it was low light and the shots were handheld they did not line up as sharply as I would like so I painted the image with AutoPainter...well you get the idea...but this blog is not about the sunflowers...its about Lucketts.

Lucketts is a vintage hip home store and antique center in an old, really old building. I have been by this store several times on the way to my nieces house in Ashburn for holiday dinners, but have never been able to enter because they are either closed or I am in a hurry. But today I had time to wander a bit. While scouring the little buildings on the property I found some distressed "Olive Buckets"...I thought would make great planters, so I bought three of them and went inside to explore.  All these shots were made inside of Lucketts. They have a beautiful way of displaying shop goods and the light coming through the old store windows was wonderful.The workshop group was great and we had a fun time among the Sunflowers.

Bryant Park and the iPhone...AutoPainter:Iris: BracketMode:iCameraHDR

Apps: Juxtaposer~blended images for montage~PicGrunger~frame and grunge texture

 These are a few more images I made in Bryant Park yesterday while in New York City. The image above started with a base image; a swipe of the women's public restroom tiled wall, and a patrons hand on the wall. I layered in another swipe I made of the grassy lawn. The Bryant Park signage was an image I made of a trashcan in the park. I also took a Hipstamatic shot of the Women's Restroom signage and used that in this image. Then I layered in a few images of women seated, enjoying summer in the park...it was fun making the montage.
Bryant Park has its own subway stop and is easily accessed, along Sixth Avenue and 42rd Street. It is a gem of a little park with Ping Pong tables, Chess tables, a Boccie Ball court, a great lawn space and tall shady trees. It was being enjoyed by both visitors and residents alike, an urban oasis on a very hot summer day. It was really great to see how the park has been transformed. When I was working the garment market in the 80's the park was filled with homeless and the drug addicted. I walked passed it many times and never ventured in. I enjoyed a rest in the park myself after walking around NYC for five hours,  with a cold bottle of water and a chocolate cookie from one of the food stands in the park. Before heading for the bus home I made a few more images of people in the park.

This image and the following images were made using BracketMode or Hipstamatic for capture: iCameraHDR, AutoPainter and Iris for processing

iPhone goes to New York: Hipstamatic:Matty ALN Lens and BlacKeys B&W Film

Bryant Park

Bryant Park

 

Yesterday,  I made a day trip to New York City. I love New York!!! There is no other city in the world like it! The minute you step off the bus the hum of the city can be felt. I was happy to meet a fellow iPhoneographer, Rad Drew and his friends, Shelly and Tony there for a walk around the Midtown area of Manhattan. I first started shooing in Bryant Park while they were on the way to a parking area. I could spend the day shooting in Bryant Park, and I was so happy to see how it has really been updated and improved to become a wonderful, enjoyable city space. Hipstamatic launched a new lens recently and I have not had a chance to shot with it so I selected the Matty ALN lens and BlacKeys B&W film. New York lends itself to monochrome images, but this comb generated a monochrome image with a slight color tone, which I liked and when processing used Iris to saturate the faint colors generated with this combo. Street shooting is sooo much fun! In Times Square there are always people in front of the theaters promoting shows. I love the old time Bobbie socks, saddles and skirt on this woman so I made the shot. Most of the Hipsta shots I use Touch Retouch to remove the date stamp that is inherent with the film choice. Touch Retouch is much like content aware in Photoshop and magically knows what to do. Here I left the date stamp in (by accident) but it shows what the app Touch Retouch can do. I have removed it from all the other shots here.

 In New York everyone walks everywhere! So there are many opportunities to capture people on the go. Legs are everywhere! Since NYC is also the Fashion capital of the US, Models and fashionable women are everywhere in Midtown. I thought this gal was really showing off her best asset! Really short shorts and Super High Heels! You go girl!

 Even this woman had beautiful shoes and and some shapely legs on the move.

 Then there are the street vendors; this one had a beautiful stack of fresh bananas that caught my eye for its texture and pattern repeat.

As we walked, Shelly wanted to share the architecturally interesting Marriott with Rad since he loves architecture, and I loved the show lights on the escalators! So New York....

The inner "black frame" in most of these shots is from Iris FX Dust 'n' Scratches a little menu tab under "more" when you open Iris and tab on FX. The finishing frame is from the Crop'n'Frame app.

Highrise Reflection

ProSnap App.....Options....Split Screen Shooting

I just found this app seems it has been out for a while with the last update in 2010, but I think it has some creative opportunity, even though it has some bad ratings. I have just played with it a little this morning but the image created with the split mode function was fun. It lets you take two shots and divides the frame in half. Can't say I have seen another app with this functionality. I think the action quad mode could be fun too.
The images below follow the sequence used to get the look on the shot above.

1. Original Capture

2. Original capture processed Sketch Agent and in DynamicLight

3. Run through Photocopier for texture

4. Opened in Iris to brighten and saturate

5. Applied another filter in DynamicLight

6. Tried PopCam for border and Sepia tone

7. Blended the PopCam image #6, with image #5 in Iris and applied black border in Iris

Then finished the image with a border in Crop'n'Frame and my signature in Impression.

Beach Dreams: FlowPaper: FluidAutomata: Juxtaposer:Scratchcam

 I have been playing with some non-photographic apps to make these images. The beginning of these images is the app called FlowPaper. The image below is the start of the background. I draw in the scene roughly using the FlowPaper choices of background paper and then select the drawing options. FlowPaper is a small res app but combined with other apps up sizes to a finished large file.

I drew in all the lines as a base for the images here.

The next step in the process was to run this image through a crazy app called FluidAutomata. 

Then I ran that image through Lens Light to add some bluish color to the edge and Focal Lab to further blur the background.

The next step is to run this into ScratchCam for further enhancement of color and scratch effect. The image below is one of the ScratchCam files I chose to use.

The next step is to go grab a file image like the one below. I liked the blue umbrella to blend with this file, so I open the ScrtachCam file in Juxtaposer as the base layer and then opened the image below as the top layer and made selective erasures until I had the look I wanted. The other images here were made using the same background file only different files out of ScratchCam. After adding the umbrellas I ran it through ScratchCam again and then into Iris for sat and contrast adjustments.