Pictures are Everywhere....ArtistaOil:Photocopier:PhotoWizard

ArtistaOil:VintageScene: PhotoCopier: Crop'n'Frame

Saturday was my second day long iPhone workshop at Mac Business Solutions in Gaithersburg. I had a very enthusiastic group of participants and enjoyed the day. I hope to return to MBS for future workshops. I will be working on a more advanced session of iPhone photography workshops over the next week or so and hope to get that scheduled in late February. During the workshops I plan an hour of shooting outside to help students work with the shooting apps we selected for the day. I also get a chance to make a few images. While a suburban strip shopping center is not where one thinks to go for creating images....there are many images to be made everywhere. Montgomery County is rich in ethnic diversity and cultures. One of the small shops in the center with MBS is a flower/tailor shop. Inside the sun filled window of this shop I noticed a petite Asian woman hand sewing; her hands were rich in texture and form. So I went inside and asked her if I could make a few pictures of her hands as she sewed the garment that lay on her lap. She asked why and I simply replied art. She agreed, so as she continued her work I made three shots. This is the one I liked the best, as she moved the needle into the fabric.

Hipsta with OlloClip:Phonto:PhotoWizard:Percolator:Snapseed Frame

 I also made a few other images on Saturday....the week before I had given one of the students my OlloClip to show him how it worked with the fisheye on the iPhone and he found a checker board patterned concrete topped table to make some images. I loved the shots he had so much that this week I made a few images there as well. When I got back home and was feeling really rough from this cold I now have, I goofed around with the fisheye image. I decided to add a little more madness to the shot and applied the Pinch~Pull filter from PhotoWizard. I added the red x and o letters into the squares before applying the pinch and pull distortion. Then I finished off the idea with Percolator...

ClassicPan:PicGrunger: Photocopier: SnapSeed

I always enjoy making images of cafe tables and chairs and spotted this set in front of another shop. Demonstrating when I choose to use different shooting apps, this scene was perfect for ClassicPan, I made a couple shots. I finished the image by punching up the colors and contrast and then running it through the "Klee" filter in Photocopier for the texture.
I love teaching and I hope you can join me for my next all day workshop at Horizon Photography Workshops in Chesapeake City, Maryland on March 10 or June 9.
So next time you want to make some images head to the closest strip shopping mall and see what you can do!

Baltimore Clayworks: ArtistaHaiku: CameraPlusPro:BadCamera

Capture: CameraPlusPro Processed: ArtistaHaiku, ImageBlender, Snapseed, BadCamera,Crop'n'Frame

On my Thursday iPhone photo walk I visited the Baltimore Clayworks. Their mission as stated on their website~ "Baltimore Clayworks is a non-profit ceramic art center that exists to develop, sustain, and promote an artist-centered community that provides outstanding artistic, educational, and collaborative programs in ceramic arts." I went into the classroom space which is housed in an old city library building. Then I went across the street into the gallery and met Yoshi Fujii the gallery manager and artist. Yoshi is from Japan and studied art in the US. He has a studio in the Clayworks building and has some of his work on display in the gallery.

I enjoyed talking to him and I was reminded of when I made pottery. Yes I made pottery too. I even had a kiln in my basement. I did not "throw" pottery but enjoyed using molds and painting glazes. The  shelves in the classroom area were filled with greenware drying. I loved the way the window light played on the shapes of the handmade bowls.

Text added in Phonto: Light effects: LensLight: BadCamera:Snapseed

 In the gallery there was a display of earthenware books which were fascinating. I enjoyed the way the light was illuminating this display. I used a texture overlay I made out of another image I shot there of some window blinds.

ArtistaHaiku:ImageBlender:BadCamera:Snapseed:DynamicLight

Outside there is a fabulous large pottery piece. I hope you can join me on my Thursday iPhone walks in Mt. Washington. A link to the walk info is on the sidebar of the blog.

Come walk with me and the iPhone: Snapseed

Capture: CameraPlusPro Processed: Snapseed, TouchRetouch, Crop'n'Frame

Thursday I headed to Mt. Washington to make some iPhone images. I contend that images are everywhere even in the most ordinary everyday places. Mt. Washington Mills is an area in Baltimore  along the banks of the Jones Falls that has existed as a community center since the 1800's.  In 1810, the first cotton mill in Baltimore was opened on the Jones Falls by Washington Manufacturing Company in what is now Mount Washington. Mt. Washington the community was founded in the middle of the nineteenth century as a place to escape the oppressive conditions of the city. One of the first "street-car suburbs" of Baltimore, Mt. Washington housed some of the finer families, including H.L. Mencken, during their summer escapes. The neighborhood quickly grew into a year round community. The Mt. Washington Improvement Association was founded in 1885, and continues to this day as one of the oldest neighborhood associations in the country.
Today the core of the community business district contains small eclectic shops, offices and restaurants. Baltimore Clayworks has its gallery and studios in the center of the business area.  Smith and Hawkins used to have a retail shop there but failed to make it and the warehouse location sits empty now. These are just a few of the images I made. If you live in the area I am offering an iPhone Photo walk workshop every Thursday in Mt. Washington for $60.00 from 10-1. Check out the side bar of my blog for details.

Capture: CameraPlusPro Processed: Snapseed, Crop'n'Frame

Capture: BracketMode Processed: TrueHDR, Snapseed, Crop'n'Frame

Capture: Camera+ Processed: Snapseed., Crop'n'Frame

Capture: Camera+ Processed: Snapseed:Photo fx, Crop'n'Frame

Slow Shutter Light Trail Mode: Iphone Photo Workshop

Today was a super day at Mac Business Solutions in Gaithersburg! I had an extremely creative group of iPhone workshop participants. We had an hour planned in the workshop schedule to do some shooting outside in the afternoon with various apps. Even in a suburban strip center there are images to be made!!! I made a couple images in between helping the participants with app settings and making compositions. The day was overcast with peeks of blue sky in between the gathering clouds of a stormy winter sky. There was a beautiful Sycamore tree in front of Mac Business Solutions and I used SlowShutter with Light Trail mode set to make these images. In processing I made an ArtistaHaiku rendering and masked out the the tree trunk in Image Blender to allow the dark trunk to come through the blended image while still maintaining some texture and Haiku effect in the negative spaces. We had a few merchants that were very happy to have us do some shooting in their shops and I just loved the Violin repair shop of Yanfu Tong. One thing I really love about this vocation is meeting amazing people. Yanfu is one of them leaving China 20+ years ago. I played violin in Junior High School and my grandfather played Violin too, it has been a long time since I was that close to one. I asked if I could take a picture in his shop and he so willingly obliged. Thanks Yanfu!
My next scheduled workshop at Mac Business Solutions is Saturday Jan 28.
I hope you can join me then for a little iPhone Magic!

Capture: ClassicPan Processed: ArtistaHaiku: ArtistaSketch: SnapSeed: ImageBlender to blend several times and Crop'n'Frame

Capture: SlowShutter Light Trail Mode: ArtistaHaiku, tree masked in ImageBlender: Diptic for arrangement and Crop'n'Frame

AntiCrop: New App Released today

Processed: AntiCrop: Grungetastic: fx Studio

Like Content Fill in CS5 the new AntiCrop app (click on the name for a u-tube tutorial) for the iPhone is pretty trick! It does not make flawless adds but it's still pretty cool. I was shopping at Ikea on Sunday and had my iPhone in my pocket when I saw some cubes hanging on a wall. I liked them for the shadowing and shapes, so I took an iPhone pic. I thought it would make an interesting image after it was "apped". Today I also thought it would make a good image to test the AntiCrop app with.
The original image size below was 1936 x2592 (iP4 full res) The AntiCrop image size was 1814 x 3819, increasing the width of the image. I will have to keep experimenting with it to see if I can make improvements in the "filled" areas.

Original processed image

Anticrop Image; you can see the added image size in this image. I tried to make a smooth addition to the image, but kept getting a little bit of a jittery edge and a stacked or duplicated look where the app filled in the pixels.

Revisting Images: Montager and Many APPS....

Today I had on my list to photo manage on the iPhone~ that means dump files! It was getting a little 'snaggy' when processing and scrolling, so I needed to clean out my CameraPlus and Hipstamatic files along with the camera roll..man it's hard to find images that you never sync'd or worked on and just transfer them. I found some close up shots I made one day on the way to the beach of this closed down burger restaurant...and jumped on processing them to see what I could do with a few "raw" for lack of a better word iPhone shots. I have also been working on my day long presentation at MAC Business solutions on January 20 and Jan 28 in Gaithersburg, MD. As a result of that I found a cool collage app called Montager. Its not a full res app, it saves files at 1800 x 1200. I wish they could get the res up by a few more pix. I am working all the slides for the presentation on either the iPad or iPhone...and this is a good one for text and images. I also wish they would allow for the grid lines to be color toned...I will have to send the developer my wish list!
In addition to talking about Montager, I wanted to share the raw "before" image with the "after" processed image. The apps available to create with are amazing so heres a few before and afters. Oh and some good news I sold a couple iPhone prints in a gallery in Seattle! If you are in the DC, VA, or MD area I hope you can join me for a fun informative day of iPhoneography!

        

A walk at sundown with the iPhone

Capture: CameraPlusPro Processed: Snapseed: Photocopier: Crop'n'Frame

Yesterday I spent most of the day taking down my outside Christmas lights and decorations. So, when a friend called around 4:00 and asked me to go out to the reservoir to make some images around sundown, I was a bit resistant, thinking I was a little worn out, and didn't want to drag my gear out into their car. Understanding my objections, he suggested I just go and take my iPhone; I said yes. That's about what I was up for. It was nice to be a passenger too! It had been such a warm day that when we arrived at Loch Raven there was hardly a parking spot. People had really been enjoying the reservoir area. We walked down to the water's edge in a cove. He set his tripod up and connected his lens to his camera making adjustments and images. I was walking and exploring the edges of the shoreline. The sky looked as if it was going to put on a bit of a show so we hung around. Quickly the sky became colored and we made images until there was no more light to shoot. When I got home I was excited to process the iPhone images I had made, and was surprised at what I had captured in an hour of walking by the shoreline, as I really did not anticipate getting any shots! In fact I posted the opening image in a square format crop on Instagram which then feed into my Facebook and I had more comments on this image than I think I have had on any other image posts.
 As a photographer who loves color I was reminded by getting out at sundown how there is no other beauty of color in nature than that of sun down or sun up, the edges of night and day!

Capture: CameraPlusPro Processed: Snapseed:Crop'n'Frame

Capture: CameraPlusPro Processed: Photocopier, Snapseed, Crop'n'Frame

Capture: CameraPlusPro Processed: PhotoFX Ultra, BlurFX, Crop'N'Frame

Capture: SlowShutter (Light Trail Mode, 4 seconds, Sensitivity 1) Processed: Photocopier: PhotoForge2, Crop'n'Frame

The image above was a real surprise to me and I don't think I could have made it with the Nikon; Even though I can make multiple exposures in camera in the Nikon, the fact that I was hand holding while the shutter was triggering: and I randomly moving the iPhone up and down, rendered a pretty unique look. I love the abstract nature of this shot. It was the last one I made last night walking back to the car. The real subject was the reflected light on the water coming through the trunks of the tall pines. When I looked at the abstract, it looked to me like a New York City abstract at night with towering buildings and city lights below. Well I guess that's the nature of abstracts you see what you see.....what do you see?
And lastly......the image below was assembled with a new to me App PolyMagic. Its a fun app for collages with many options for arrangement a cool alternative to the traditional collage app Diptic. Now maybe this isn't the greatest arrangement of images but I was just playing with options and wanted to give you an idea of some options..... It was a great hour or so by the lake with the iPhone, friend and nature.

Collage: PolyMagic

Fire Museum of Maryland and Hipstamatic

Capture: Hipstamatic ~ Helga Viking~ Kodot XGrizzled: Processing: Snapseed:Crop'n'Frame

The Fire Museum of Maryland is a great museum and the third largest collection of antique fire fighting equipment in the USA. I had a super morning there visiting with Rob Williams the Assistant Director and Lee Smith the President of the Board of Directors. Rob met me when I arrived and walked me through a portion of the museum, providing a historical narrative on the equipment and its use. I was shooting exclusively with the iPhone as I was trying out the Gymbl accessory which I liked very much (see my previous post)  and have now added that to my accessory list and gadget bag for the iPhone! (Thanks Gordon!). I also enjoyed making a few quick images with the Hipstamatic App, probably the most popular shooting app for the iPhone. One of the docents saw me working with my iPhone and the Gymbl and began a conversation as they had just recently acquired an iPhone. So I spent some time chatting and sharing some photo tips. One photo composition tip I always think about when making images is; when you see red shoot it, well its hard not to there!

Capture: Hipstamatic~Helga Viking and DreamCanvas Processing: SnapSeed: Crop'n'Frame

I really spent more time talking and looking at the interesting museum offerings than I did making images, but I enjoyed the information and conversation.There are many photos of the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. Amazing how well documented it was. Must have been all the members of the Baltimore Camera Club and the Sunpapers staff! Lee said it was so well documented by amateurs and professionals that the images had been studied after the fire to develop new ideas for rebuilding in a more fire proof way, making streets more accessible and adopting building codes. You just have to go enjoy it..check out their site! The visit there made me even more grateful for all of our first responders! What an amazing service they provide.

I asked Lee to strike a pose while tilting his cap up a bit to keep the shadows off his eyes, just before I left..........keeping my new photo resolution to make more people images when I get a chance. He was a great guy to chat with and very knowledgeable.

Capture: Hipstamatic~ Helga Viking ~Dream Canvas: Processing: Simply HDR: Snapseed: Crop'n'Frame

I will have to make a trip back in April with the "big girl" camera when they reopen. Check out their site for museum hours.