Ferris Wheel, Burka

Convergence, iPhone5

As we are driving around Dubai I notice this Ferris Wheel which has the Burj Khalifa (178 story building) in the background. I am thinking this makes a great juxtaposition for an image...we pull over and of course it is virtually impossible to get them both in the shot being so close to the Ferris Wheel. I decide to just make an iPhone image of the wheel when along comes a woman in a colorful Burka....I got the shot although not what I originally stopped for...

Iceland, Red Church

This iPhone4 image has been in the archive since last July. This image was made in Hellnar, Snaefellsnes, Iceland.

Since the arrival of so many iPhone/iPad applications for Mac it has become increasing viable to process image like this one on the big screen. And there is no way to express my the gratitude I am certain my eyes are feeling by doing this. Thant plus the availability of CS5 content aware and sharpening applications such as Pixel Genius.

This image wsas processed using developer Macphun's FX Photo Studio PRO and Snapheal. Macphun makes many viable applications for both iPad/iPhone and Mac... Additionally this image was sharpened using Pixel Genius in Photoshop along with the lens correction in Lightroom3.

PS: I also added a bit of noise in Photoshop.

On another note The Last-Pixel Show Workshop website is up and running at http://www.thelastpixelshow.org/.

I am also taking on a few one on one students at my home studio - if interested drop me an email at harry@harrysandler.com. The one on one classes are iPhone/iPad as well as basic Lightroom and Photoshop skills.

below is the original iPhone image:

Chicago

Midway Plaisance - University of Chicago

There's a moon out tonight whoa-oh-oh ooh
Let's go strollin'
There's a girl in my heart whoa-oh-oh ooh
Whose heart I've stolen
There's a moon out tonight (whoa-oh-oh ooh)
                                     Let's go strollin' through the park (ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh)..........The Capris 1961

Went driving around Chicago on Wednesday with a few friends and ended up at Midway Plaisance at The University of Chicago at sunset. 'Plaisance' meaning 'a pleasure ground laid out with shady walks, trees, shrubs, statuary and ornamental water....

According to Wikipedia The World's Columbian Expo of 1893 was held in this area - the worldwide celebration of Columbus's transfer of the torch of civilization to the New World. It was also the where Gorge Ferris's original Ferris Wheel carried over 1.5 million passengers....The things you learn from a photograph......

That being said I was shooting one way but was summoned over to see the moon rising behind this particular statue - which of course led to this image. It also reminded me to always turn around - sometimes the best images are behind you.

Artistic Block

Fonthill - Bucks County

For the past 6 or 7 weeks I have been in a creative dark hole - nothing seemed to interest me....Maybe it was that I was back in my old touring world working on a one time project to make some money to support my image addiction toys....Yup just maybe that was it....takes one's head back to the left side of the brain....

The cure - A ROAD TRIP...... First stop was Seattle where I met old friends - facebook friends - Teri Lou Dantzler, Scooter Lowrimore and Charles 'Dick' Maclauchlan. I have known Dick and Scooter only on FB for the last year....have watched their images pass my screen but had never met them until a few days ago.  We broke some bread and had a great time shooting - both in Seattle and up in Olympic National Park.

Fonthill Original.....

I decided the cure for getting my head back into my iPhone work was to re-process older images using the new technology for the iPhone. Today's image is from last year at Fonthill in Bucks County......a 28 image Autostitch panoramic processed in Photo Studio, Perfect Photo, Snapseed and Filterstorm. I started right from the beginning of the process by re-doing the Autostitch....

Teri Lou Dantzler and I are teaching an iPhone creativity class on Whidbey Island starting on Friday at 1PM....there are still a few places open.....here is the link to The Pacific Northwest Art School...

Music and iPhone

Eddie Van Halen, 2004

I spent most of my working life as a tour manager for various rock bands before retiring, well there are those who say I have not really retired, in May 2008. I almost always had a camera close by during these years....

So fast forward and my good friend Ken Leslie and I get together and decide to create a gallery show to benefit his organization, 1Matters.org which is based in Toledo, Ohio. I first met Ken while on the road with John Mellencamp a few years back and greatly admired his tenacity in working to help one person at a time overcome not having a place to live. Ken went out and found a space in Toledo, 20 North Gallery, to host the show. After several discussions between myself and Ken it was decided this was the right time to pull out the archives and show some of my music images - time to rescue them from the shoe-box's they lived in for years.

Having been a child of the 60's, San Francisco, etc, my thought process is to take these images out of the standard musician on stage genre and make them a bit more like my perception of live music...music being the fabric of my life since the mid-sixties. To that end several of the images will be printed on large stretched canvas.....other will be printed on Epson 9900 and 3800 printers using archival Epson papers.

Some recent landscape and personal black and white images will also be part of this show. More on that in the coming days on my big boy camera blog, http://hsandler.blogspot.com. 

Click here for more information about the Toledo show. Additionally, this work will be shown in Indianapolis, Indiana at the Renaissance Fine Art and Design Gallery.

The new image in the header is Billy Joel, circa 1985, performing in Tokyo at the Budokan.

Sunset - Maine

Sunset - Maine

Photographed on the way to dinner a few months ago near Thomason, Maine.

Image Management:

iPhone4
ProHDR - handheld
Filerstorm
Iris
Perfect Photo
Photostudio

Transfer

Union Station

Stacked Chairs, Union Station

These chairs were stacked outside of Union Station in Washington, DC. Made a fast image on the iPhone as I was running for the train.

Image Management:

iPhone4
Prohdr - hand held
Perfect Photo for sharpening
Toon Paint for blending layer
Photo Studio for another blending layer using pencil paint 2
Iris to blend
Filterstorm for local corrections

Perception

Still Life, Christiania, Copenhagen

There are several ways to take a viewer through an image, be it a high resolution image from a traditional camera or an image made using an alternative camera such as the iPhone. This morning I applied what I call a light-dark technique to the image posted today. I learned this in several workshops taken over the past few years with Dan Burkholder and John Paul Caponigro. Basically it is using light and painting light and dark areas to create a path for the viewer to see the image, and, to highlight what John Paul calls the 'main actor in the play'. There are several other platforms to make this move but for today I concentrated on the light-dark using the application Filterstorm.

One way is to simply adjust the luminance in Filterstorm and 'apply with mask', meaning you paint in the light and dark areas using a brush with varying opacity and size. Another way is to make separate light and dark images to taste and then use the 'add exposure' dialog in Filterstorm to add the images then selectively paint in light or dark to taste using the brushes and opacity dialog. One can also selectively paint in texture using this same technique. And yes, there are other ways to make this move and whatever works for you is the right answer....

Of course this is not for every image but most definitely worth taking some time to explore what is can do for your images.

Image Management:

photo made using ProHDR handheld
photo transfer
Photostudio for texture
Perfect Photo for sharpening
Filterstrom for local adjustments

Boats - Christiania

Boats, Christiania, Copenhagen

 
I came across these two boats while walking Christiania yesterday. Would have posted them earlier today but the blogspot was not uploading properly...

I have been trying to achieve sort of a cloisonne look with water - getting closer I think but not quite there.

Image managed with:

TrueHDR on Tripod
Perfect Photo
Filterstorm
Iris
Photostudio
Blender

Claremont Hotel

This one is from one year ago. I was in Oakland, California staying at the Claremont Hotel and Resort in Berkeley, California. The Claremont was built circa 1917 and is a fabulous old place, albeit in need of a renovation.

At any rate there are fabulous views of San Francisco on one side while the other side gives one a look at the architecture of the hotel.  As per my usual I photograph out of my hotel room window at sunrise and caught the image posted today. Of course I applied a bit of iPad image management as per below:

Photographed using the iPhone4
TrueHDR resting on the window sill
Photostudio
SketchmeeHD
Perfect Photo
Iris
Filterstorm

Ain't That America

Ain't that America

Not a good deal of time this morning. Heading out to the walking dunes near Montauk out on Eastern, Long Island.

Found this image on Shelter Island yesterday after turning down a 'Dead End" street near the water. Most likely will re-process at a later date as part of my American Flag series....

Image Management:

ProHDR - handheld
Photforge for Watercolor
Photostudio
Perfect Photo
Iris
Filterstorm

LaBelle

LaBelle

'Gitchi gitchi ya ya da da
gitchi gitchi ya ya here
mocha chocolata, ya ya
Creole Lady Marmalade'.......Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan for Labelle

This image was made during the mid 70's in New York City and was published in Rolling Stone.

Photograph was made in the studio using a Hasselblad, 80MM Lens and Ektachrome Film - scanned into the digital world using a Hasselblad/Imacon scanner.

Re-processed on the iPad2 using:

Perfect Photo
Auto Painter
Filterstrom
Iris
Photo Studio