Ireland, Abandoned House

Abandoned House, Yellow Door and Window, Dingle Peninsula, Ireland

It seems that I am always drawn to bits and pieces of color on abandoned buildings. This image is one in a number from my several trips to Ireland. Spotted this one buried back off the road....basically in a sea of mud....hardly was able to get the car in and turned around to get out...Wonder if it is a fixer upper...

For the next few weeks I will be posting every other day.....I am trying to catch up on my printing which has fallen way behind...One day it will be this blog and the next my big boy camera blog...

Did I mention how cold it is in New York........GO GIANTS.......

Ireland, Pier

Ireland, Pier, Dingle

Back at the same photo location today.....only this time in color....still processing using NIK application in CS5 - trying to see how far I can go with non-traditional iPhone processing - but then I was never really a purist about my iPhone work. It is always about the journey to the end result...

This is the same image as posted yesterday, only this time I left the color in...single image johns lens and kodot grizzled film...my favorite combo..

Ireland, Pier

Pier, Ireland

It has been awhile since I have used NIK's Silver EFX Pro 2. Recently I have been processing some of my iPhone4s Hipstamatic images with SFX2 achieving results that I am quite happy with....NIK has made several upgrades and these new features give the user a bit more control over the image...

Today's image fromt he beach in Ireland looking out at the Dingle Peninsula....Hipstamatic - JohnS lens with Kodot Grizzled film...As you can tell yet another windy, rainy afternoon....but it certainly does add some character....

Ireland, Ring of Kerry

Stream, Ring of Kerry, Ireland

This image is from the last touring day in Ireland. I remembered this spot on The Ring of Kerry from the trip before when the weather simply had not cooperated. The conditions were pretty much the same this times around - something about touring Ireland in December and January just might be part of the problem - you get what you get. I was hell bent on getting an image of this stream and decided just to do it with my iPhone -  it becomes difficult to get any image with rain on one's lens.

As I was trying to use minimal applications on this trip the first adjustments were minimal - just filterstorm and NIK Snapseed. Then last night as I was watching the NY Football Giants beat the Atlanta Falcons (note the subtle sarcasm in that statement) I started blending textures back into the image in Filterstorm using the 'double exposure' - and ended up blending the original image with the textured one in Iris....then it was local adjustments in Filterstorm to taste.

The blended image (a 12 image stitch) is at the top of this page and the original image is below. It usually takes me a few days living with an image until I decide whether to pursue a workflow a bit more. Personally I am leaning toward the more painterly version on this image.

Stream, Ring of Kerry, Ireland

Ireland, View of Dingle Peninsula

Dingle Peninsula from County Kerry

On this Ireland trip I got into making panoramic landscape images using my iPhone4s and either ProHDR, TrueHDR and sometimes stitching Clear Cam images. The goal was to use as few applications as possible, and, for the most part kept it to Filterstorm, Snapseed and occasionally Blender and Iris.As mentioned previously the weather conditions were less then hoped and I attempted to stay true to the image as I remembered it.

This particular image is the view of the Dingle Peninsula from the Ring of Kerry....there are many many places one can drop down to the water from the ring with little or no 'private property' signs - albeit some of the access roads are hardly wider the car....

Ireland, Killarney National Park

Killarney National Park - Ladies View

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”.........John Muir

This image made with my iPhone4s - it is a straight ahead three image stitch using Autostitch. Local adjustments were made using Filterstorm....It is Ireland but feels to me like The Hudson Valley....

The JOyce's, Partry Mountain, Ireland

The Joyce's

So there we are driving down this one lane road up on Partry Mountain looking for an images.....Spot this couple walking their dog coming down the road and needless to say have to stop to let them by.....Mr Joyce looks in the window and says 'Surely you must be lost' - I say 'Yes, but on purpose'.....He tells me I might not make more then one more mile as the road is closed..... We chat for awhile and I ask to take their photo.....this is the iPhone version - I also did a big boy camera image to process later (this one has the dog in the photo).....In the end we take their address to send a print and move on down the road.

As we drive away it suddenly dawns on us that this is 'Joyce Country' as in James Joyce.....Make you wonder....will ask when I send the prints over....those are two fabulous faces....

Ireland, Giant's Causeway

Giant's Casueway

Quite the place. This was one place I was looking forward to seeing...located on the Scenic Causeway Coastal Road in Northern Ireland approximately three miles northeast of Bushmill. Giant's is a World Heritage Site and a National Nature Reserve.......Wikipedia says the fourth natural wonder in the United Kingdom...

Mostly this area is basalt columns stemming from an ancient volcano eruption - some as tall as 12 meters. According to Wikipedia the Irish warrior Fin McCool built the causeway so he could walk to Scotland to fight his Scottish counterpart....maybe yes maybe no......At any rate a must see if you are in Northern Ireland.....that and the murals in Belfast should be high on your list...

As it was off the charts windy this particular day, 70 mile an hours wind and pelting sleet I was only able to manage a few images...This one is an iPhone4s image....

Ireland, Blue Door

Blue Door - PaintMee

The original image was made using a medium format digital back. It was then processed in the iPad which resulted in the image below. I re-processed this morning using the PaintMee application on the MacBook. Local image management was done in Filterstorm.

Blue Door - Original

Ireland - Ring of Kerry

Ireland iPhone4

As mentioned in my other blog, http://hsandler.blogspot.com, this morning I am completely bogged down trying to get out of NY for a month of travel. Going to points west including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Whidbey Island for a workshop and finally Denver.

As I just got my new iPhone 4s this will be an interesting trip doing the test drive...looking forward to seeing old friends and making some power stitches with the new high res camera......

I can not remember very much about today's image other then it was in Ireland on the Ring of Kerry....most likely a pro-hdr image.....I processed in Filterstorm and blender this morning on the iPad2.....

stay tuned to this space for some travel images.......what fun...

Technique

Church of Ireland -New Technique - iPhone4

Technique: The way in which the fundamentals, as of an artistic work, are handled.

As you learn new image management techniques, go back into the archives and re-process older images. While I do this on a regular basis (both big boy camera and iPhone images) the re-processing of older images is worth the time and effort, not to mention a worthwhile learning experience. Even the most subtle change, as in the image posted today, can be significant. . I would advise giving this exercise some time in your daily work-flow - even if just one image a week...

The image today was simply given a new sharpening and contrast technique I picked up over the past few weeks...subtle as mentioned but works for me....

 Did I mention that an iPhone or iPad is the perfect tool  - Filterstorm works well for this type of exercise.

Church of Ireland - Original Process - iPhone4