iPhone photo du jour . . .

Photo taken yesterday afternoon from my "Knead & Feed" restaurant window table in Coupeville, Whidbey Island, Washington. Good view. Good food. Then walked a couple of miles on the beach to hopefully work off some of that good food!

I may be getting tired of the "Lone Star" photo effect, but I still find little glimmers of joy using it. It works especially well on already-old subject matter (would love to use it at Bodie Ghost Town in California's eastern Sierra), or to make classic subject matter look old (like the ferry photo I took the other day). A lot of the time, however, it's just annoying! Kind of like me, I guess . . .

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

iPhone photos du jour . . .

Washington State Ferry and a photo of late afternoon light on the front porch. Both were taken using the Camera Plus/Camera Awesome app and then processed with Snapseed.

I particularly like the ferry shot because it just looks old.

I like the porch photo because of all the repeating lines. Look at the vertical lines on the railings, the horizontal lines of the siding, the wooden deck, even on the overhang, and then the strong shadows leading your eye this way and that. This is a scene that I believe I'll be revisiting as the light changes throughout the year.

Yesterday, as we were waiting in line to catch the ferry back home, there were a lot of fishing boats offshore, big nets, lots of activity. We asked the ticket-taker what they were fishing for.

"Not sure. Probably humpies, you know, pinks. It's too early for the silvers." We nodded like yeah, we understood. We didn't. But we thought maybe he was talking about salmon.

A quick check and yes, pink salmon are also known as "humpies" because the males develop a hump on their backs during spawning. But get this, their spawning runs happen only every other year. This from the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife: "In Washington, pink salmon runs only occur in odd-numbered years. Pinks have a very regular life history, living for two years before returning to spawn the next generation. This is why pink runs in Washington only occur every other year; there are no one-year-old or three-year-old fish to establish runs in the other years."

Don't get it? Just nod like you do and then go look it up!

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

iPhone photos of the day . . .

Last December I bought a book called The Art of iPhone Photography by Bob Weil. The other day, nine months later, I decided to read it. I got as far as maybe five pages into it when I saw it mentioned various camera applications.

One of the apps mentioned was "Camera Plus," which I've also seen as "Camera Awesome" and, simply, "Camera!".

And that's as far as I've gotten in the book.

I went to download the app and discovered I'd already downloaded it into my camera, but had never used it.

Are you sensing a pattern here?

So I played around with it, completely ignoring the book. I walked around the house, trying this, trying that. I used it at the local nursery to photograph the leaves of a banana plant (or maybe it was a giant bird of paradise).

The app does a lot, has a lot of different features, but I just worked with one effect, something called "Lone Star." All of these were taken using that effect.

What I'm showing you here are the photos that I particularly liked. There were a lot of dogs. I threw away a photo of a fern, a hydrangea blossom, and a number of out-of-focus gerbera daisies. A pathway leading into the woods from my yard looked horrible with this app.

What I like about the app is the softness, the sepia toning, and the texture.

My definite favorite is the banana leaves up at the top. I like the repeating lines, the various diagonal lines, and how it just looks artsy to me.

Next is a shot of a fishnet float given to me by my late friend Juanita, who actually found it floating past her and her husband's boat north of Seattle. I have it sitting on the windowsill in a bathroom and I like the slight texture of the window screen behind it.

The two ceramic glove molds took on an eerie appearance with this app. They sit on a brick mantel of sorts and I shot slightly up at them.

Then I went over to a wall where I have a "gallery" of eight of my photos, some are photomontages, some not. I zoomed in on a photomontage, taking a photo of a photo, which is a photo of an actual collage, isolating just a section of it. I like how that one turned out, too.

Then, late yesterday afternoon, I went out to the front porch where I have a funky old chair in one corner and where I've placed things I've collected here so far, such as a bird nest, a crow feather, some driftwood sticks, and some dried seed pods from the summer's columbine plants. Nothing's artistically arranged; I just throw the stuff there because I've nowhere else to put it at the moment.

The light was lovely, the chair is a rustic one (another gift from Juanita), and I liked how the composition came together.

Would I make prints of any of these and frame them? Yes, I think I would. Not the chair photo, but some of the others, yeah. Will I think the same in a few months? Maybe the banana leaves.

But this could easily become a "what the hell was I thinking?" sort of situation. (I remember an enhancing filter, the Celestron 1000mm mirror lens, the Vaseline on the UV filter for soft effects trick.) Happens all the time!

And that's the fun of it. This is TOTAL PLAY. No expectations. Lots of surprises. Cool results. I'm a happy photographer right now.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

iPhone photos of the day . . . A walk around the yard

Late in the afternoon it was very overcast and sprinkling a bit -- a drop here, a drop there. I went out into the yard to see what I could find.

Apparently deer aren't too fond of sage (at least I think that's what this is) because there's a big mound of it nestled against some rocks with nary a bite taken out of it.

And then I liked the pattern on the side of the woodpile. "Use these in the fire pit, Carol, don't bring them inside for the fireplace" warned the former owner. Why? I should have asked. But I'll take his word for it.

And then these are the few hosta leaves and flowers that the deer (and rabbits) haven't eaten (yet). I'm hoping that they'll eventually turn brown, dry up, and curl oh-so-artistically for future photos. (The hosta leaves, not the rabbits and deer.)

Roasted tomato basil soup (made with locally grown and harvested fresh basil) and a salad for dinner. Not bad.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

iPhone photos of the day . . .

Having fun with this . . . Took photos this week of:

Penn Cove on Whidbey Island
Decorative gourd detail
Car taillight

I've got three different photo projects in mind to play with between now and the end of the year, but still haven't unpacked my DSLR equipment, with the exception of a few lenses and two bodies. Haven't found the battery charger for one of the bodies, which is just a momentary speed bump.

This is where being cautious bit me in the butt. I didn't want to label certain boxes "EXPENSIVE CAMERA GEAR. DO NOT DROP!" when we moved because that's just asking for problems, isn't it? But I THOUGHT I would remember which boxes the good stuff was in . . . apparently memory's the first thing to go . . .

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

If you can't hear me . . .

. . . please raise your hand!

As we're (endlessly) unpacking, we're placing things anywhere, just to get a box emptied and then out of the room. These two glove molds ended up just sitting on the Holly Cabinet, no home for them yet, and I liked the sort of stark look they had against the wall.

What? You think glove molds are weird? Not appropriate for home decor? Yeah, you're probably right . . . But I just love them! 

A few photos later and it was then back to unpacking. The glove molds? Sitting in a closet for now, waiting for just the right spot in the house.

iPhone 6+ and Snapseed.

  ©Carol Leigh
 All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

iPhone photos du jour . . .

I've always liked the town of La Conner, Washington, and now it's so close, we can visit a lot more often, as we did yesterday. I forgot to take my DSLR, but made do with the iPhone.

Here's our new car parked on the street (kidding). But it was gorgeous. I took a closeup of the steering wheel, but, realizing that I RARELY take overviews, crossed the street to shoot this one.

We also went into the Northwest Museum of Art, admired their exhibit of prints on the first floor and the pottery on the second, enjoyed the museum store and chatting with the docents/employees. But what I really liked were the simple, stark lines of the staircase that spiraled up from the first to the second floor.

A good day. One of many.

 ©Carol Leigh
 All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

iPhone photo of the day . . .

One of the few things I brought home from my father's house was a pair of chairs. I think my mom and dad bought them when we were stationed in Carlisle, Pennsylvania for a year. I've always liked their lines. Naturally, no one can sit on them because they're a tad wobbly, but nevertheless, they look pretty cool.

The other morning I noticed the shadows on the wall directly behind this chair and shot the scene with the iPhone 6+. Subsequently processed with Snapseed. One of the better cellphone photos I've created so far . . .

©Carol Leigh
 All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

iPhone photos of the day . . .

Since I don't have much time left here on the Oregon coast, and since I haven't taken photos in like forever, I spent an hour at my favorite fishing net location and used my iPhone for a few of the shots. I also used my Canon 50D, and it will be interesting for me to compare the phone images to the DSLR shots. That's not going to happen today, however.

But . . . The first photo here was taken using the Hipstamatic app and the second one was taken just using the cellphone default camera. I like the wider-angle of Hipstamatic as well as how dark the pavement went versus the iPhone 6+ regular camera photo.

When I looked closely, the quality of both the unprocessed photos is not good. I looked at the specs of each one.

Hipstamatic: 268k in size, 640 x 640 px, 8.9" x 8.9" 72ppi

Regular cellphone camera, square format: 3.28MB in size, 2448 x 2448 px, 34" x 34" 72ppi

Hipstamatic capture was just 268k! That's NOTHING. The regular cellphone capture was 3.28MB, which is still really small, but significantly larger than Hipstamatic.

Neither image looks really good at 100%. For me, with the ultra-limited knowledge I have right now, this makes the iPhone 6+ a very expensive toy camera. I can't use these photos for anything but showing them here in a small size. To use in photomontages, to create art for sale, no way will this work for me.

I do like the ability to shoot from different angles, however. I was walking around using a 70-200mm L lens on a Canon 50D and could not move in really close to my subject. But for the two photos of rust, all I had to do was lean over the big piece of metal and shoot straight down. That was pretty cool. (Both of these photos were processed when I got home in Photoshop.)

What's my point? I don't know . . . It just felt good to be out shooting. It was fun playing with the cellphone camera. And I'm looking forward to seeing what the "real" camera gives me. I'm disappointed in the quality of the cellphone, though, and just need to read and learn and practice with it so that I don't feel so apologetic about my resulting photos. It's a blow to both my pride and my ego, don't you know!

And now back to packing . . .

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

iPhone Photo of the Day . . .

I attached this carved bear fetish to a rock and have it on a table near the front door. I was walking past, had my iPhone in hand, and voila. Processed in Snapseed. It's way overcooked and there's a greenish cast to the rock that's annoying, and I'll re-do it another day. The good thing is that I'm actually thinking about using the cellphone for photography and actually taking a few photos. A big leap for me . . .

Just for the heck of it, I also processed the iPhone photo using Photoshop. I like the pumped-up background color better in the Snapseed version. The Photoshop version is more true to life. And, of course, it doesn't have the cool Polaroidish frame around it as the Snapseed version does!

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

iPhone Photo of the Day

I bought an app for my iPhone called "Slow Shutter Cam" and have been playing around with it.

My friend CJ showed me some cool abstract photos someone had taken of colored papers, which inspired me to try something similar. The first thing I spied was the cover of "Consumer Reports" magazine. Using the Slow Shutter Cam app, I created the first photo you see here. (I'm also including a picture of part of the magazine's front cover so you can see what I started with.)

I kind of liked the tall, slender photo, but then decided to chop it up into two separate images.

Those are pretty neat, so then I decided to make a diptych, putting both photos in the same frame.

And there you have it, what I've been doing lately using the iPhone, trying to be a bit more creative with it.

The photos are TINY however! Just a couple inches in size. If I want to make prints, or if I want to submit iPhone photos to Fine Art America, the small size of iPhone photos doesn't allow me to do that. If anyone knows of a way to "biggify" iPhone photos without them pixelating themselves to death, I'd love to hear about it.

©Carol Leigh
All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

iPhone Photo of the Day

A cool aspect of the iPhone is being able to have an idea for a post, shoot a couple images for it, and then have it online relatively quickly.

For example, I have an "idea book," a Moleskine notebook where I might sketch out a potential photomontage composition, or where I'll keep quotes I find meaningful, or where I'll glue pictures or drawings for future reference, color combinations I find appealing, for instance.

The first photo you see here is a sample of what a couple of pages in my book look like.

But what I want to point out is the second photo, which is a crude drawing of an idea I had. And then in the third photo you can see the final result. Did I refer to my sketch as I made the photomontage? No. But apparently it was subliminally in my mind all along, because when I came across this sketch the other day, I didn't even remember drawing it. But over the years, as I've paged through this book, it must have registered in my brain, settled in like a little seed, and popped up when the time was right.

What's this got to do with my cellphone photography? It was just so cool to sit here at my desk this morning, put the idea book in front of me, take a couple of shots, frame them in Photoshop, and present them here to show you a little bit of what I do. Artistic? Nope. But fun and useful? Yup.

©Carol Leigh

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

iPhone Photo of the Day

I've got a collection of old grungy paintbrushes (and some of you are saying, "of course you do!"). They were in the studio. The phone was in the studio. So I placed the brushes in front of a monoprint to give them an appropriate background and took a few photos. Processed with Snapseed.

©Carol Leigh

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

iPhone Photo of the Day

I'm of an age and a generation of photographers who remember "enhancing filters." The first time I looked at a scene through an enhancing filter I began hyperventilating. Look at those colors! Especially the pinks and reds and oranges. I used that damned thing on EVERYthing! The result was a lot of horribly magenta-colored sidewalks and tree trunks and overly-saturated colors that looked absolutely barfy.

Well, today with the iPhone and with an app called "Brushstroke," I'm doing it again. And by now I'm old enough to know better! But you know what? Better to have unbridled enthusiasm than to have it and tamp it down.

So here we go. Here's what I did to an iPhone photo of a paintbrush that I subsequently tweaked using Brushstroke. And I kinda like it. At least I do today! Check back in another 30 years!

©Carol Leigh

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

iPhone Photo of the Day

This ladder was standing against the side of a hardware store. Sunlight glinting off windows directly across the street from the store created strange blobby reflections on the yellow wall. I liked the starkness and the color. Tweaked afterwards in Snapseed.

©Carol Leigh

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!

iPhone Photo of the Day

I'm attempting to learn how to use my iPhone to take decent photographs and although I think I'm good at composing, all the apps and the "@#$% I've lost my photo again" problems are getting to me. I persist, however, and, similar to my "photo a day" project, will begin taking and posting a daily iPhone photo.

Yesterday Chris and I drove into Corvallis, where I enjoy walking the back alleys behind the buildings. I loved the repeating patterns of the bricks and how they created horizontal lines. And then the repeating vertical/horizontal lines of the pipes were just icing on the cake.

Converted to black and white and tweaked a bit in Snapseed.

©Carol Leigh

All text, photographs, and other media are ©Copyright Carol Leigh (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from Carol Leigh. Thank you!