iPhone Guest Gallery: Other Realities

Exploring other realities, the world just outside our ordinary view, has long been a theme in my photography. Which is why I am so excited about these most recent submissions to iPhone Diva. These iPhoneographs are incredibly inspiring, allowing a glimpse into three distinct parallel universes. Enjoy!

Robin Robertis shares her most recent photo art piece entitled "Sisters". I'm waiting to hear which apps and will update this post as soon as I know. Right now, I'm just loving the image.

Shock my pic app enhances Brian Kavanaugh Jones's unexpected (and very cool) perspective in this photograph.

Duncan Berry's offering showcases the Average Camera app, which is one of my new favorites. It shoots a number of shots during which you can move the camera and create multiple exposure art. Love the enigmatic feel of this piece.

Ten Reasons To Make The iPhone Your Main Camera

1. The best camera is the one you have with you. The shots that I used to miss when I left my big girl camera at home or in the trunk of my car remain embedded in my brain. And while neurochromes (as photo wizard John Barclay refers to mind-only pictures) make for wonderful memories, I sure wouldn’t mind having a few of the ones that got away. My iPhone is always with me.

2. The iPhone is completely non-threatening for people photography. Sure, you still ask for permission, but hardly anyone will say no to a tiny little phone. And you can email them the photo so that they have it before they get home. How cool is that?

3. The learning curve is blessedly flat. If you can download an app (or someone can download it for you), you can optimize or artify your photos I swear that with every new version of Photoshop, I feel like I’m going back to college for a new advanced degree. I love it, but it is daunting. The iPhone apps are so intuitive that I can just jump right in.

4. You don’t need to carry around a computer, card reader or cords, extra batteries and cards, lenses, etc. etc etc. (Although an iPad is very handy for working your images in a size that you can actually SEE.) There are apps where you can share photos between these devices in moments using wifi or bluetooth.

5. It weighs NOTHING!

6. You can share photos almost instantly via email, Facebook, Twitter, and more - usually directly from within the app you are working in.

7. The apps are so cheap you can’t afford not to have them. And so many of them are FREE! I have over 150 camera apps - I’ve spent less than 1/10 the amount it costs to purchase Photoshop on them. That’s without plugins!

8. You can make art in the moment. And you need never be irritated or upset again about having to wait in line at Costco or at the doctor’s office. I now see these little inconveniences as art breaks and actually look forward to them. No joke.

9. New ideas are stimulated about things you can do with photos in Photoshop, should you be unable to give up your DSLR or Point and Shoot. As my handsome photographer hubby, Dewitt Jones, says, “The iPhone is a great visual sketchpad.” (Watch for his new ebook on iPhone photography coming very soon to all major ebook stores.) Personally, I’d still ditch the big girl / big boy cameras. You know you have enough photo files to work on til the end of time.

10. You can do more than you dreamed of with the apps and more are flooding into the app store everyday. I foolishly tried to catalog all my photo apps with corresponding images to organize visually what they all do. It was a fool’s errand, as everything changed again in a week. Live and learn. I swear that my iPhone can do more than my CS5 with all my Photoshop Wow presets, Nik software, onOne software, Topaz plugins, Imagenomic, and so on. (Though I love them all dearly.)

11. You can work on an image and talk on the phone at the same time. Artistically, however, I do not recommend this. In fact, it irritates me when my camera rings. Don’t they know I’m making art? I turn off my ringer so as not to break my concentration.

Okay that’s 11, but close enough. I’ll see you all out on the photographic trail. I’ll be the one with a teeny, tiny camera bag - it once doubled as my eyeglass case. Actually, it WAS my eyeglass case.

Content Aware Fill - There's An App For That

Yep. iPhone Diva has a new look. Every once in awhile, we all need a makeover, and this site was due. I hope you like it.

I have been on the fast track of learning in iPhoneography this past few months, thanks to an incredible group of iPhone fanatics who share their best with grace and humor. (Lots of humor). Expect to see lots of new apps and arty permutations in the upcoming months.

Some posts will be highlighting apps and what they do. Some may just be sharings of some cool iPhone photos. Some will illuminate some iPhoneography "pros" and how you can learn more from them.

This blog post concerns a terrific app called TouchRetouch. Adobe Photoshop CS5 users will be familiar with content aware fill. Basically, it takes out unwanted stuff like telephone wires and intelligently creates a 'fill' to keep the coherence of the photo.

Okay, photos are better than words. Check out the first image. Dewitt and I were hiking and came upon an old car, or rather the last remnants of a car. No roof, no seats or doors, hard to tell it was even an automobile, except for the gas gauge and instrument panel open to the elements.

I snapped a shot, but as you can see there's a huge white blob in the upper left and an annoying wire coming across the left of the gauge. Still, I loved the colors and textures of the rusted metal.


I selected the offending areas in TouchRetouch with the lasso tool and then asked it to work. The result below is amazing. I actually think it is magic.
To finish the photo, I sharpened it in Perfect Photo (my fave for sharpening and a whole lot more) and added PicGrunger for an antique look.
The grunge turned out to be a little too much for my taste; after all it's already grungy and old. So I backed it off and I like the rendition below best.

Flying High With the iPhone

My pal, surfing instructor, and renowned Photoshop guru Jack Davis was flying high with his iPhone the other day and sent these terrific captures. He used apps
Instagram and ProHDR.

He calls this little portfolio: "What to do when you can't get a window view - steal someone else's!"

Bird of Paradise Appstravaganza

I love to photograph our tropical flowers, especially the Bird of Paradise. And the iPhone apps make it possible to show them off in myriad ways. Here are four appstravagant views.

This shot was antiqued and framed in one of my favorite apps called Infinicam.


I turned this shot into a sketch with Artista Sketch app and combined it with the original in Iris app.
This shot was grunged and optimized in Iris and the lettering layer is courtesy of the FotoMuse app.

I shot a couple different frames of these birds with the Hipstamatic app using Dreamcanvas and John S. (Dreamcanvas gives the cool border effect.) I punched up the saturation in Photoforge. Then I combined the two shots in DXP. This is one of my favorites. But stayed tuned - the bird of paradise plants in my garden are always blooming. And new apps are out for photographers every day!

Off To The Picture Show: Picture Show App and More

Diane Rupnow shares a wonderful and inspiring double exposure. Here's how she did it:
"I took the pic of my kamaka uke on my phone. The layered image is palm tree bark. Apps used were dxp, Fotomuse, Iris (to slightly bump up saturation), and crop n frame."



And Jack Davis, our Photoshop guru and artist beyond compare shows off the new, improved Pictureshow app. Here's his take on it:

"PictureShow has been "updated" (major understatement!;) and now has added to it's already prolific arsenal, Cropping, HDR Effects, Tilt Shift selective blur, and Presets!!!"

He shares a couple teaser images with us below. I can't wait to explore this app in more depth. In my spare time, of course. Let's all go play with PictureShow and see what we come up with.

iPhoneography to the Max

Okay, photo friends, iPhone Diva is back. I went on retreat for a couple of months, but my little phone/camera has been smokin'! I got invited to join a group of extremely talented iPhone (and all camera) photographers and my creativity has gotten a real infusion. Kind of like getting a drink of water from a fire hose.

Now I'm ready to share some of that inspiration - and to share the websites and blogs of these amazing professionals who teach iPhone photo art workshops as well as normal photo workshops. And of course, there'll be amazing new apps to showcase!

A lot of my new photo pals are very versed in an app called Hipstamatic. (Brian Kavanaugh Jones has been our afficionado on iPhone Diva - check out earlier posts for some of his amazing work.) Hipstamatic has a number of optional film/lens combos that you can buy from within the app for extra versatility. And you can mix and match film choice, lens choice, and flash if you like. When I discovered that, I bought my new favorite combo called Salvador and Dreamcanvas (referring to surrealist Salvador Dali.) Here are my very first shots taken with the combo looking down from a Waikiki highrise to the lagoon below. I love the look here.