It's My Nature » iPhone

Creative Explorations of the iPhone Phollies Kind

Ed — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 14:58:28 +0000

(iPhone camera; Processed with iPhone Applications – PhotoStudio and Best Camera)

(iPhone camera; Processed in PhotoShop CS4 with Nik Filters – Dfine, Viveza 2, Color Efex Pro and Sharpener Pro)

It’s been a week since I last posted which is somewhat unusual for me. Hopefully with the time change tomorrow, I will be afforded more opportunity to get out in the evenings after work and begin sharing with greater frequency again. In the meantime, I have been doing quite of a bit of reading, thinking and some writing about the creative process as it applies to my passion… photography. I have taken my activity to the point of beginning to plan a presentation/seminar/workshop that I have entitled “Creativity, Composition and the Camera”. I am working on this idea at the same time I am developing another entitled “Making the Ordinary Extraordinary: Great Images from Your Own Backyard!”.

Anyway, I have been exploring ways of stimulating our creative juices, trying new things, developing exercises to increase out-of-the-box thinking and so on. To that end, I am incorporating ideas I have learned in books, presentations, seminars and workshops by folks like Freeman Patterson, Bryan Peterson, Nancy Rotenburg, David DuChemin, Brenda Tharp, Tony Sweet, John Barclay and others.

So what does this have to do with the images above? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. It is a very rainy and windy morning here in eastern Pennsylvania. Barb and I were to lead a hike this morning but it was cancelled. It’s too ugly to head out and take some pictures we decided to head out to our favorite local breakfast place. We ended up getting there a little early so as we sat there, Barb pulled out her iPhone and started to play around. I decided to do the same. As I was checking Facebook, I looked up at the rain-covered windshield and the way it distorted the street scene before me. And it hit me up side the head like a two by four. I clicked on the camera application and started to shoot the street scene with my iPhone camera through the rainy windshield just to see what I could get.

Here are two examples both made with the iPhone. The first was also processed entirely with iPhone applications – PhotoStudio and Best Camera. The second was taken into PhotoShop CS4 and processed using Nik filters (Dfine, Viveza 2, Color Efex Pro and Sharpener Pro). So two different looks through the same rainy windshield and a little creative exploration when I least expected it.

ADDENDUM: I should have added that in processing the first image I tried to focus on how the morning felt. It felt dreary almost depressing so one of the things I did was to add a fade filter in Best Camera to try to add to that feeling. With the second image, I tried to focus on how the morning looked so it is a bit more “realistic” looking even with the distortions through the raindrops. I thought I had explained that as the reason for two images but guess not!

iPhone Phollies – Chimes

Ed — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:04:30 +0000

It has been a very slow weekend from a photography perspective. I have been sick since Thursday and with the snowstorm on Saturday, I haven’t gotten out to shoot at all. So I may have to pull from the archives for something to post to the blog this week. But before I do that, let me indulge in a little bit of creative silliness. I did spend a few minutes out in the backyard yesterday and I happened to have my iPhone tucked away in my pocket. So in the few minutes that I was out there, I did end up making a few images.

When I got back into the house just a few minutes later, I dumped them on to the iMac and started to play around with processing using the Nik Complete suite of plug-ins for Photoshop. Here’s what I came up with.

This image is of three Maine Harbor Bell wind chimes that we have hanging from the corner of the garage. Processing was with Nik Dfine for noise reduction; Nik Viveza for brightness, contrast, structure; Nik Silver Efex Pro for the conversion to black and white and the antique sepia look; and finally just a touch of Sharpener Pro.

It’s not the Mona Lisa but it was fun to create.

The Apple of My Eye

Ed — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 21:17:49 +0000

Slam on brakes; swerve to the right. Every once in a while, I’ve got to try something different. I hadn’t touched a camera since last weekend so this morning before we headed out for a quick visit to Barnes & Noble, lunch at Panera’s and a trip to the Farm Market; I packed a small backpack with the unlikely arsenal of my 30D with the Lensbaby and accessories and my IR-converted Rebel XT with a 50mm f/1.8 lens. By the time we hit the Farm Market, I had yet to hold a camera or, obviously, take a picture.

But that was soon to end not with the 30D and Lensbaby nor with the IR-converted XT but rather with my iPhone camera. I made a series of fruit and veggie images with the iPhone and when I got home, processed them using Nik filters in Photoshop CS4. This particular image was processed with Nik Dfine for noise reduction and Viveza 2 for some global brightness, contrast, saturation and structure adjustments. I then moved into Color Efex Pro where I ran it through the Glamour Glow filter followed by the Vignette Blur filter. And I finished with just a touch of Sharpener Pro.

I kinda like the results. Your thoughts?