Same scene... different result! Smoky Mountains of Tennessee...

Who knows where the time goes... a little something different today... a fall scene from the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee with two images from the same location. One image was shot with my big girl camera (Nikon D7000 with 18-200mm Nikon lens; aperture priority) and one with my iPhone 4s native camera in HDR mode. Both were processed further, the big girl image post processing was done in Lightroom, Viveza 2 and Color Efex Pro 4. The iPhone image post processing is covered on my iPhone blog.

First, the "big girl" camera image: Second, the iPhone camera image:

The two images have a completely different feel to them... I like them both for different reasons. One of the most wonderful things I've discovered in taking tours with John Barclay and Dan Sniffin (marvelous tour leaders) is how much fun it is to play around with the original image to enhance the beauty of what my eye sees. Their tours always involve scouting on their part before we arrive in the area so we are assured that they will be taking us to scenes such as this one.

Long time... no posts! An image from Ireland...

I cannot believe I have neglected this blog for such a long time. I confess to having become totally enamored with iPhone photography and iOS apps used to edit those images. Although I've continued to take photos with my "big girl" camera, I have spent a lot more time lately with my iPhone images and do most of my editing of those on an iPad 2.

Recently, I tried editing an SLR image on my iPad using several different iOS apps after doing some preliminary editing of the image in Lightroom and other desktop apps/plugins. I am going to share two images here (and on Weekly Top Shots) and elaborate the process further on my iPhone blog. The image that served as the starting point for this exercise was an HDR image assembled with Nik HDR Efex Pro from 3 images shot at ISO 400, f/14 with a Nikon D7000/18-200mm lens.

I played around with the above image (on my computer) using a couple different Topaz plug-ins and tried also (using Content Aware) to remove the phone wires in Photoshop. But my skill set didn't allow me to achieve the results I wanted so I moved the image to my iPad and continued the processing there to achieve the final result shown below. The processing steps to achieve this result are posted on my iPhone blog.

Announcing a new blog...

I've decided it is time to separate my iPhone photography passion out from this blog and have started a new blog to discuss how I achieved (as my first post) the following image. :-)

Title: Better Energy as seen through a steamy window in Manhattan (note, if you go to my other blog, you will discover that the effects were achieved through the magic of various iPhone photography apps and that the original image was not taken through a steamy window)

As a bonus, here is another image of two Camellias (both growing on the SAME bush in my garden). Again, this was done with several iPhone apps which I may discuss in a later post but am anxious to get up here since it has been SO LONG since I've posted on Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... I'll be posting this later over there... come on over and join the fun!.

I'm off on another trip shortly but will be trying, once again, to catch up with blogs. I've been sick with bronchitis for over two weeks and am only now starting to feel human again... just in time to head off on another adventure!

Macro images collage... alternative to Picnik?

By now, I'm guessing anyone who uses Picnik to make collages of their images is wondering, as I am, what to do when Picnik disappears. I personally am in a bit of a panic because I really don't want to have to reinvent the process I've been using to assemble collages for my vacation blog as well as for this one.

In the process of searching for an alternative, I came across an app for the iPhone and iPad called Diptic... this collage was made with that app which, of course, required me to transfer images from my computer to my iPad (Transfer app) so I could assemble the collage. Since there is an app called Web Albums (for both iPad and iPhone) that allows one to transfer images to Picasa (where I store my photos that I will use for blogs), I was then able to transfer the collage for insertion below. (NOTE that all the images in the collage were captured with a Nikon D90 fitted with a 105mm Nikon macro lens. I only used the iPad to assemble the collage with Diptic.) Posted to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and join the fun!

Colorado iPhone Image - The answer to how it was done...

I don't pretend to be an expert at using iPhone apps for photo enhancement. But I do have one image that seems to be quite popular and can actually recall every step I did to get the end result. I'll explain the entire process in this post. At the end, two alternative results of post processing are shown as well as an image taken with Hipstamatic and presented 'as is' with no post processing. This post is especially for those who've inquired about the process involved in processing this image. (Oh, and this is my first post for Skywatch Friday and Weekly Top Shot.)

Two images captured in BracketMode on the iPhone; I chased clouds for miles in an attempt to find scenery worthy of the sky... the red barn and rolling fields did it for me!

On the left is the HDR image obtained from merging the two BracketMode images using the Pro HDR app; on the right is the retouched image shown after removing the telephone pole and overhead wires with the Touch/Retouch app. (The two images shown at the end were those achieved by continuing with subsequent processing from starting with the left image OR the right image. Regardless of which image was the starting point, the steps shown from here forward were the same.

The image on the left shows the top right image in the previous set of images after it has been processed through AutoPainter with the Benson effect applied. The image on the right is the previous two images blended in Iris with the retouched original HDR image set as the base layer and the Benson effect image blended at 50%. Setting the original as the base layer allows one to keep the high resolution of the original image in the resultant image. No masking was used.

The image on the left shows the previous image slightly desaturated and the one on the right is cropped to achieve a more pleasing composition, to my eye anyway!

On the left, is the same image as the previous without removing the telephone pole and overhead wires; on the right is an un-retouched image shot with Kodot film and the John S lens of the Hipstamatic app.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Browsing around Flickr and Facebook today, I noticed people posting about Valentine's Day which I had tried to ignore this year since I'm newly single (by choice). So it occurred to me that even though I'm not "in a relationship" with a significant other, I am rich in friends and have a lot of love in my life.

So I decided to try to put together a photo that spoke a bit about love anyway. For years, I've collected tiny boxes of various shapes and sizes. Quite a few of them are heart shaped... so I put together a still life with a few of them and some solid tiny glass hearts, a few tiny silver hearts, and a few foreign coins strewn on a velveteen cloth.

This photo was taken using BracketMode on my iPhone. For those unfamiliar with iPhone photography, BracketMode takes two exposures, one exposed correctly for the bright areas in the scene, and one exposed correctly for the dark areas. Pro HDR was used to merge the two exposures into a single image which was then processed through Painteresque to create a painterly feel. Iris was used to blend the painted image (at 65% opacity) with the merged single image. I then continued to process the image in Iris by adding the Normal Grunge effect and the Grunge frame (in the Dust 'n Scratches effect). The text and the heart surrounding "love" was added using A+ Signature which is a mind boggling app for adding text and simple images.

Winter macros - inside and outside...

On a particularly nasty day, I gave my new iPhone macro lens (part of an "Olloclip" set of three lenses for iPhone) a try and photographed an Alstroemeria blossom up close and personal.

A couple of days later, I ventured outdoors to capture some icy, snowy macro images in my garden since the snowy mix we'd had earlier in the week hadn't melted due to two days running of cold temperatures. Clockwise from top left below: Rosemary, Camellia in bud, Vinca covered with ice and snow and a faded Hydrangea blossom encased in an ice and snow mix.

I'm posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and join the fun!

Montana images... beautiful in Winter too!

I went to Montana to attend a pajama party given by friends on New Year's Eve. It was great fun but I'm not posting pictures from that here! ;-) When I go to Red Lodge, I fly into Billings, rent a car and drive the ~60 miles to Red Lodge which is south-west of Billings. The first image below is from a roadside stop along route 212 between Roberts and Boyd, MT. I watched the clouds over the mountains from the time I left Billings on I-90 (no place to stop there) and finally found a "scenic" and safe stopping spot from which to shoot them.

The image below is from a favorite spot on the West Fork of Rock Creek outside of Red Lodge. Silver Run is a cross country ski trail in winter and a biking, hiking trail in summer. I go to the parking lot there every time I visit Red Lodge and am always inspired to take yet more photographs. This is the first time I've been there in winter and I experimented with my Singh Ray VND (variable neutral density) filter with this as the result. Only the fastest running part of the creek was not frozen.

I have recently created an account at iPhoneArt, one at Twitter (toryporter) and one for Instagram (also toryporter) which is a camera/uploading app for iPhone. So I am in even more overwhelm than usual but I have resolved to work out a schedule where I am blogging AT LEAST one day a week and can devote time to posting on other sites/social media services on a rotating basis as yet to be determined. I am also on Facebook, Google+ and Flickr. I think I'm in overload mode!

Holiday Greetings... Cardinal Collage and Poinsettia Images!

This will most likely be my last post for 2011 since I'm expecting family tomorrow and will be visiting over the next few days with them. On Christmas Eve, I will be cooking dinner for them, myself, friends and cousins who live locally. For your viewing pleasure during the holiday season, here are a couple of Poinsettia images and a collage of cardinals... my favorites in winter! Wishing everyone a joyous holiday season and a healthy, happy new year.(wrote this on Dec 22nd, had difficulty posting but here it is finally... I'm sharing this on Macro Monday (Jan 2, 2012) over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and join the fun!)

Close-up of a miniature Poinsettia taken with iPhone camera, sharpened and cropped with PerfectPhoto, run through AutoPainter with Aquarell effect. Photo and paint layers blended in Iris with 35% opacity for the paint layer.

Image taken with Nikon D7000 and Nikon 105mm macro lens at ISO 250, f/3.5, 1/60 sec. Sharpened using Topaz In Focus plug-in in Photoshop... AMAZING! Text added in Photoshop.

Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal on snowy winter days. (Some of you have seen these before but I just love Cardinals in winter so here they are again, freshly put together as a collage in Picnik.)

Sunrise... Sunset... Four images of sunlight on the water in Cape May, NJ

I keep letting life get in the way of posting on my blog... so sorry! With the holidays fast approaching and another trip in the offing (a short one over the New Year to ring in 2012 with friends in Montana), I'll make no promises that I cannot keep!

Meanwhile, while at the Cape May, NJ photography workshop recently (with John Barclay and George Brown), I spent quite a lot of time shooting sunlight on the water during both sunrises and sunsets. These four images were captured using a Singh Ray Vari-ND filter with my Nikon D7000 (new toy) fitted with a Nikon 18-200mm lens. The diagonally opposite landscape orientation images are from sunrise on the first morning of the workshop; the other two are from sunset the same day.

Fall foliage close-up... iPhone fun!

I know I've been missing for a long time... cannot believe my last post was over a month ago... there's been quite a bit of upheaval in my personal life but things are now settling down somewhat. I hope to be a better follower of your blogs and a bit more regular at posting to my own blog!

That said... I've recently been on another photography workshop... this time to Cape May, New Jersey. This image was taken with my iPhone and processed on my iPad. I hope you enjoy the luscious colors as much as I do. :-)

I'll be posting it to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and join the fun! And if you have the time, you might like to visit my vacation blog where I've posted quite a few images from the Cape May workshop led by John Barclay and George Brown.

Scenic Colorado... what a marvelous place to be in the fall...

Just a quick post of one of my favorite landscape images from the Colorado photography tour mentioned in my previous post. And Dutchbaby, if you are listening, check my vacation blog (all others are welcome too) if you want to see more about taking pictures with an iPhone and the apps I used.

This image was taken with a Nikon D90 and a Nikkor 18-200mm lens; three bracketed exposures were combined with Nik HDR Efex Pro. It will most likely be included in my upcoming gallery show (for which I've been frantically preparing since my return from out west) that opens November 5, 2011 at Photoworks of Glen Echo Park. I will be one of three photographers featured in the show.

Something new and different from me... iPhone photos!

I recently attended a six-day photography workshop shooting fall color in Colorado. It was led by John Barclay and Dan Sniffin and was an absolutely fantastic experience. My brain has been filled to overflowing with new ways of looking at a scene in terms of how to shoot it. In addition, learning about a few applications (apps) for shooting and processing images on the iPhone has been mind-blowing in terms of getting me to think more creatively about presentation of images.

The two images in this collage were both taken with an iPhone 4g. (Please view full size of each using links in the following sentences; including in a collage meant cropping part of each of the images to fit the collage template.) The one on the left was taken with the HDR feature of the Camera app supplied by Apple and available on all iPhones. The one on the right was taken using a program called BracketMode (available for a small fee from the Apple App Store) that takes two exposures, one that is exposed properly for the dark areas of the image and one that is exposed properly for the light areas of the image. The two exposures were then merged using the Pro HDR app to get the final result.

(Note to self... learn how to make my own collage templates to display things as I want them displayed!) Note to readers: I've been home briefly for two days after having been away for three weeks. I am away again to visit family in nearby Pennsylvania for the weekend. I'll be back online properly next week and will visit blogs then.

Clouded Sulphur butterfly on Spotted Knapweed... Montana!

Thought I'd post this collage today just so folks don't think I've dropped off the face of the earth while I'm traveling out west. I will get around to blogs eventually but am slower than usual while on travel.

I'm traveling light which means I do not have my macro lens with me. These images were taken with a 70-300mm Nikon telephoto lens (leftover from my film camera that works perfectly fine on my Nikon D90). The image on the left was taken at 300mm while standing about 10 feet away from the action. The other two were taken with the same lens from the same distance but using a 1.4x tele-converter to get closer to the action. I rather like how these turned out, especially since shooting from further away meant that the butterflies weren't disturbed by my presence!

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and join the fun! If you'd like to view the collage up closer, click on the image. The images on the left, middle and right are also available to view large if you want to have a closer look.

Experiment with Vari-ND filter... western exposure!

I'm currently in Red Lodge, Montana and will soon be in Colorado for a photography workshop shooting fall color in the Rockies. A Vari-ND filter is one piece of equipment that it was recommended we bring with us to the photography workshop. Since I've never used one before, it seemed to make sense to spend some time learning a bit about it before the workshop.

The image below shows two shots of the same scene (camera moved a bit so the images aren't exactly identical). Compare the water appearance in the two photos and you will be able to see the difference between shooting with (on the right) and without (on the left) a Vari-ND filter. I have much more to learn about using this filter but wanted to share these images with you and let you know that I'm mostly away from blogging while traveling in the wild west.

This is the West Fork of Rock Creek as seen from under the bridge at the entry to the parking lot for the Silver Run hiking trail. I was balancing my tripod on rocks and myself as well so was having trouble keeping the exact same scene in my viewfinder.

Wildflowers of Sweden's alpine region... help with ID on two if you can...

It seems my notes weren't as complete as I'd thought... I know the Common Yellow Violet and the Forget-me-not... but I do not know the two flowers on the right side of the collage (see ADDENDUM below for update on one of the unknowns). Click the collage for larger view; for the two unknowns, a closer view of the top right and/or bottom right may help with an ID if you think you know either of them. And if you do, please advise! And thanks for looking. I will be traveling soon and may find it difficult to post while on travel. In the meantime, this is my post for Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and join the fun!

ADDENDUM: As montucky pointed out, this looks like Bunchberry dogwood (Cornus canadensis) and is, in fact, its sister species, the Swedish Cornel (Cornus suecica). According to one reference I found, "both have flowers that bloom explosively." And if you thought it looked like a dogwood blossom, you won't be surprised to know that this tiny shrub is a member of the dogwood family.

Backyard Birds... Spring and Summer, 2011

Hope I make the deadline for World Bird Wednesday... whether or not I do, you should check it out! Feel free to click the collages to see a larger image of each.

Female Cardinal wondering what I'm doing; male Cardinal escaping from the deck and male House Finch posing.

Female (or young?) House Sparrow doing who knows what... have never seen such a pose! I put out some bread crumbs and blueberries on the table outside... the Sparrows didn't know what to make of the blueberries and left them behind when eating the breadcrumbs... I'm not sure which of the many birds visiting my garden finally ate the blueberries. Maybe a bluejay! In the last image, I imagine the sparrow is yelling to come and get it before he eats all of it!

Hoverfly approaching wildflower... whirr of wings... Sweden, 2011.

Oh dear... it's very late in the evening, or early in the morning... and I just realized I need a post for Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... so here you go! If you haven't stopped by yet to check out the lovely macro images, do stop by and have a look.

This is an image from our visit to the Västerbottens open air museum in Gammlia, Umeå, Sweden. If you'd like to read more about that visit, please check my vacation blog. As for this image, I just happened to wander over to some lovely flowers for a closer look and spotted the hoverfly... I've never managed to capture one 'on the move' before so hope you like this!

Busy bee on wildflower... High Coast of Sweden, 2011.

Still wading through images from my trip to Sweden in mid-June... posted another day of travel on my other blog if you want to have a look. In the meantime, here are a couple of bumble-bee images from our visit to the High Coast area of Sweden. This bee is different from our bumble-bees here in the US and I don't know the wildflower either!

Busy Bumble-bee on unknown wildflower.

Busy Bumble-bee heading off to visit somewhere else...

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and join the fun!

Sharp-shinned Hawk revisited... from the winter of 2011.

In March, as some of you may recall, I posted a single image from a series of images captured while photographing a Sharp-shinned Hawk perched in a neighbor's silver maple. He was EXTREMELY interested in the House Sparrows that he could see and hear cheeping in fear while 'hiding' down below him in the brambles of a wild rose bush that is about 10 feet in diameter and over 7 feet tall. The sparrows were either gathered on the ground or perched on the lowest limbs of the rose bush and were inaccessible as far as the raptor was concerned.

I was having breakfast when I spotted him on a cold day in March so I grabbed my camera and dashed outside, hoping to not spook him. He was clearly more interested in the sparrows than any silly photographer and I snapped pictures until I nearly froze because I'd run out without putting on a coat or gloves! While revisiting these images the other day, it occurred to me that some of them tell a story so here you go.

Is this my best side?

Or is this?

OK, I can hear the sparrows... but where are they?

What? Those sparrows are hiding in the rose brambles???

That's too bad... I think I'll see what's on the other side of the garden.

Aren't you tired of taking pictures yet?!

Between the previous perch and this one, he landed within 10 feet of me on the fence... I don't know who was more surprised between the two of us... the hawk or me! He didn't stay long here and by the time he landed here, I'd been out for 20 minutes or more in freezing cold so was finished taking pictures anyway!

I'll be posting this to World Bird Wednesday later on... if you haven't found your way there yet, do drop by and have a look!