Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Ireland, Pottery the iPhone and a new App ~ Glaze

Image 1: Original Image Capture: Camera+
Image 2: Processed in SnapSeed for textures and grunge effect, then Processed in Modern Grunge for the 'ripped" area and more texture.

One of the stops we made on the Peter Cox Photography Tour of  "wild" Ireland, was at the Louis Mulcahy Pottery Craftsman shop. Louis Mulcahy designs and makes his own pottery in this workshop on the R559 road to the west of Ballyferriter. This isolated pottery studio stands between the R559 and a minor road just inside the southern edge of this square.
I had been thinking about making a blog post on a few shots I made there with the iPhone when I became aware, as a result of a post by Donnie Fulks, of a new to me app called "Glaze."  It is not a high res app but can be great for blending back with other files in Image Blender where if you choose the highest res file first for the blend the resulting file will be that size. So essentially the file gets upsized by making the blend in Image Blender. I made a shot of one of the large urns in front of the shop and I thought it would be perfect to work with. The shots below were processed in Glaze from the Image 2 file above, that I had already processed in SnapSeed and Modern Grunge. Glaze can be found in the app store.
Image 3: Filtered with app "Glaze"
Image 4: Filtered with app "Glaze"  
Image 5: Filtered with app "Glaze"
This app has 30 filter presets, which all look very nice, and a randomize feature where you roll the dice and see what happens. Resolution options are Low 382 x 512, Regular 764 x 1024 and Print 1528 x 2048.  The app also has a feature where you can combine filters within the app. This app is quickly becoming one of my favorites for its artistic looks and blend options.
Image 6: Filtered with app "Glaze"
I am also excited to announce my iPhone Photography Course at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore this fall. 
For more information and registration: click here.



Sunday, July 22, 2012

Ireland~ Textures~ WIndows and Doors~ Snapseed~ ImageBlender~PicGrunger


While continuing to work my way through some iPhone images I made in Ireland........I noticed a common thread of window and doorway images. The little town of Dingle, our first stop, had interesting colorful windows and doorways to capture. In almost every window in Ireland there is some type of lace curtain. I was curious about the origins of this style of window decor and could not find in a quick search, anything on the internet relating to the historical use of lace at windows in Ireland. I did find a little history on Irish lace making on this site. History of Irish Lace. Maybe it has become just a decorating tradition but I also think it serves a purpose other than its beauty. Many windows in the houses I saw had no "screens" maybe the lace acts as screen, although I doubt it would keep the "Midges" out...
I snapped a shot of some lace that adorned a table in Dingle's Benner Hotel where we stayed. Walking the town for about an hour in the afternoon I captured a few shots of doors and windows that interested me for their colors or design. I used the single image of the lace from the hotel as a texture and overlaid it on the straight shots in ImageBlender. Then I used a grunge filter in PicGrunger or SnapSeed to finish off the look I had in my  mind.



 I also loved this window shot straight out of the app ClassicPan, no lace needed!

Thursday, July 12, 2012

iPhone Impressions in Ireland~ AutoPainter3~Snapseed~ ImageBlender

Captured with Camera+; Processed with AutoPainter3: Snapseed and ImageBlender
My first impressions of Ireland were on the bus ride from Shannon to Dingle with the photography tour group lead and organized by Peter Cox, John Barclay and Dan Sniffin. I was shooting out the bus window and captured these shots. I processed them as I went along with ImageBlender and AutoPainter3.
The day started out just beautifully with blue skies and high clouds, but quickly became overcast. This I began to know about the Irish weather...If its sunny its going to rain! I can say that one extra benefit of shooting with the iPhone was that it was a good record keeping tool of my locations traveled...I tried to make at least one iPhone shot in each location just for my records...more to come...



Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Mondrian Inspired~Apps~ Flowpaper~ Rollage~

Apps~ Many Apps!!!
What a great three weeks I had in Ireland...I will be posting more iPhone shots from Ireland here in the next few weeks as I get to processing them. Its been several weeks since I posted in my iPhone Blog but wanted to share a little work I was doing in the Appstracts Iphone Group on Facebook before I left for Ireland. Its a fun group of  extremely talented iPhone Artists.  There is a weekly challenge around a theme and the images submitted to the page have to coincide with the Challenge Theme. The images here were all in response to the app challenge "Mondrian." I made solid squares of color in the app Flowpaper to work with first then I also found an app called "Mondrianator" so I downloaded that and used it in my workflow. Also MarbleCam and Rollage became popular and I downloaded that to work with. I also used Diptic to make arrangements of color blocks. Then I used ImageBlender and some distort filters in PhotoWizard. It was fun stretching my app skills to come up with some unique (non-photographic) images. One of the artists referred to the opening image here as "Mondrian" meets "Lichtenstein." Fun, I thought so too...so stretch it out and see what you can create just to create!
Apps: Rollage
Apps: Diptic: MarbleCam