Inca vs. Spaniard: "macro"-snapseeded chess set

Years ago, I got this while traveling in Latin America--

a Peruvian Inca vs. Spaniard chess-set:

Recently, I thought I'd play around with the almost-macro possibility of the iPhone camera, and this chess set seemed to lend itself to close-ups. For inexpensive folk-art, I like the detail of these little ceramic gamepieces.

While there are special clip-on macro-lenses available for the iPhone, (such as from olliclip.com), I don't have any such 'adaptor;' just using the iPhone itself, you can get remarkably close and still stay in focus:

above: using the tilt-shift filter and then the grunge filter...
below: using the tilt-shift and grunge filters again, but changing the texture
and texture-strength:

below--drama and tilt-shift filters:

...and finally,a heavy blur with the tilt-shift filter, to focus on the faces of the Inca Queen and  King; I don't know if the facial consternation was intended by whomever hand-painted these little pieces, but it seems historically appropriate:

Against a 'naturally textured' background...Scenes from Gyeongbok-gung Palace in Seoul

One of the aspects of NE Asian painting that fascinates me is the fact that, often, no attention is given to the background in the scene; in Western painting, a canvas will be completely painted over with a base layer--showing the blue sky, for example. In many NE Asian scrolls, the silk or the paper is left in its natural state; the foreground elements are recorded in detail, but the artist feels no need to fill in the blank background space with a 'realistically-colored' sky: 

19th-century painting reproduction from:

http://www.royalpalace.go.kr

The above silk scroll, depicting a ceremony in the Throne Hall of Gyeongbok-gung Palace in Seoul is a typical example of the 'raw parchment' look in many scroll paintings.

Or, below, in this handpainted hanji (artisan hand-made paper) scene of a drummer, the fibers in the paper are part of the rustic effect; no need to place the percussionist on an identifiable background when the textured paper contributes its own rhythm:

So, I thought it would be interesting to see if I could mimic the 'naturally textured background' of traditional Korean art by playing with some of snapseed's filters and applying them to some photos I took with my iPhone in Gyeongbok-gung Palace last summer. (A bit of historical background: Gyeongbok-gung was established as the seat of government when the Joseon Dynasty was founded in 1392.)

Here is a view of the Throne Hall depicted in the scroll painting above,

 "Geun-jeong-jeon:"

(Lofty architecture with a lofty title; 'Geun-jeong-jeon' means 'diligence helps governance.') 

Below is the original photo from which the above scene is cropped.

You can see how the mid-day lighting hides the colorful eaves in dark shadow.

Using the 'selective adjust' filter allowed me to specifically brighten the colorfully painted eaves.

Finally, applying one of the 'grunge' filter styles,

and then intensifying the 'texture strength' produced the 'parchment look' above.

(above panorama stitched together on the iPhone using "AutoStitch.")

This is the east gate of the palace, "Geon-chun-mun,"

meaning 'spring begins.'

Through it, you can see the double-roof of the Throne Hall:

I particularly wanted the 'grunge filter' to blur the street details in front of the gate--

painted yellow lines along a concrete curb don't belong in a 'scroll-painting.'

Below, experimenting with a different texture, a scene of the Palace's main gate,

"Gwanghwamun," with Bugak-san mountain behind,

taken from Gwanghwamun Plaza:

I don't like this texture effect as much as the texture style

used for the Throne Hall and the east gate,

but it does turn the otherwise pastel evening sky into a more 

neutral 'scroll background.'

A more close-up view of Gwanghwa-mun gate,

with a mythical fire-eating and justice-promulgating 'haetae' standing guard:

Looking through the central portal of Gwanghwamun gate,

leading to Heung-nye-mun gate,

which leads to the Throne Hall complex:

This style isn't my favorite, either,

but it shows another variation available in the 'grunge filter,'

a combination of edge-blurring as well as a sepia-tone 

to tone down the saturation,

along with the texture effect.

Another day, another scene through Gwanghwamun,

showing the re-enacting of the medieval Changing of the Guard:

By using the exaggerated texture in this scene, I was going for a watercolor-paper effect...

One last scene, from the rear gardens of Gyeongbok-gung Palace--

a hexagonal pavilion on an island in a lotus-pond,

the poetically named "Hyang-weon-jeon,"

'The Pavilion of Far-reaching Fragrance,' one of the loveliest spots in Seoul:

Again, I think this particular texture style is not as successful as what I used in the first photo of the Throne-Hall in mimicking the color and texture of a scroll-painting, but you do get an idea of some of the variations possible within the 'grunge' filter.

With digital photography and digital editing, it's more and more difficult for viewers to know if they're seeing 'what's really there' as opposed to something that's been 'photoshopped;' it's so easy to add or subtract elements from a scene now, to alter the honesty out of the frame. I used to be very wary of 'altered photos,' but if altering a photo means using certain filters to modify lighting, intensity of color, and point of focus, instead of adding or subtracting physical objects...if 'unaltered' photos can be compared to prose, perhaps 'altered' photos can be likened to poetry?--a certain way of distilling what the photographer wants a scene to convey. Prose and poetry can both convey truth, just in different ways...

[All photos in this posting were taken with an iPhone 4,

and edited solely using snapseed.]

Planting the seed...

So I'm starting a new blog--one of the estimated 175,000 created every day...why?

Because I couldn't find one out there that specialized in what this blog is going to feature: 'snapseeded' photos. (See disclaimer at bottom of page.)

Since getting the snapseed app a couple of months ago, I've been continuously amazed at the creative possibilities of photo-editing on my iPhone--at home, on the go, on my lunch-hour, or even while taking a stretching-break during a trail-run--I literally have a digital darkroom in the palm of my hand! And instead of being a one-trick wonder, snapseed allows the iPhoneographer/iPhotographer to play with a whole range of powerful, creative editing.

I spent a good portion of last summer abroad, and I ended up with hundreds of snapshots on my iPhone--almost as many, in fact, as I took with my 'real' camera...As soon as I downloaded snapseed, I began to experiment with those travel photos...and then after a few weeks I began to e-mail some 'regular' photos, including old, scanned pics, to my iPhone just so that I would be able to edit them with snapseed.

Whether I'm traveling elsewhere, or just in my home city, I'm always on the lookout for details and a sense of place. Proust's well-known statement, "the real voyage of discovery consists not [necessarily] in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes," is often in the back of my mind as I look around...and so I include a paraphrase of his quote in this blog's title.

A few snapseeded scenes, then, to get started, from Arizona and beyond:
=======================================================
(for larger views, simply click on any of the photos)

close-up of an agave in AZ; I love the 'x-ray' imprint of the leaves...

taken on iPhone, converted to b&w with snapseed,

then used the 'center focus' and 'drama' filters

on an evening hike in Sabino Canyon, on the NE edge of Tucson, AZ

the sun had already set behind the ridge, and the photo

would otherwise have been too dark;

with a few finger swipes--the exposure and lighting corrected

this panorama of downtown St. Louis, MO stitched with the AutoStitch app,

then 'miniaturized' for a toy model effect

using the 'tilt&shift' filter on snapseed

this scene in León, Nicaragua, is a 'transplanted' photo--

taken, pre-iPhone era, when my wife and I lived in Central America;

I e-mailed it to my phone so that I could edit it with snapseed,

using various configurations of the 'tilt&shift' and 'center focus' filters

in order to isolate the one girl looking back

another 'transplant,' this one of an old scanned photo,

a view of Paris from the south bell tower of Notre Dame cathedral,

converting to sepia tone and using the 'tilt&shift' and 'center focus'

to focus on the cityscape in the middle distance

back to a 'completely iphoneographic' snapshot,

this detail of a wall in the Bukchon neighborhood in Seoul, S. Korea,

using one of the 'grunge' filters

and another 'transplanted photo'--an overview of central Seoul,

'tilt-shifted' with Gwanghwamun Plaza,

the 14th-c. Gyeongbok-gung Palace,

and the blue-tile-roofed Cheongwadae (the Presidential Mansion),

taken from a high-rise, zooming northward towards the

flanks of Mt. Bugak-san

and finally, a photo I took earlier tonight,

showing the almost 'macro'-possibilities of iphoneography

along with the 'center-focus' snapseed filter,

the 'title photo' for the blog--

my 'signature-chop' ('toh-jahng' in Korean)...

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With snapseed so ideal for travel-photos, for capturing and playing with a sense of place,

this description of travel, by writer Rebecca Solnit, comes to mind:

"Perhaps people travel for pleasure because the visual is much more memorable than the tangible, the seen than the felt.  At the time, traveling may be nothing more than a series of discomforts in magnificent settings:  running for the train to paradise in a heat wave, carrying an ever heavier pack in alpine splendor, seeing sublime ruins with stomach trouble. Yet it is the field of images and not the body of sensations that lingers.  My mother once remarked that if women remembered what childbirth felt like, no one would have more than one child.  And so I, third child of a third child, owe my existence to forgetting and my taste for travels to the dominance of the eye..."

(--from A Book of Migrations)

"The field of images...the dominance of the eye..."

     ...all to be played with in the palm of one's hand...