"Bici en el Barrio Viejo" in this week's "Apps Uncovered"

This past spring, I went on a photo-walk in Tucson's Barrio Viejo...
...and one of the scenes from that day is featured in this week's "Apps Uncovered" by iphoneographycentral.com:

"Bici en el Barrio Viejo, Tucson"

Backstory/Apps Used: Just south of downtown Tucson, the architectural soul of the city--

Sonoran adobe rowhouses from the 19th-c., unique in the U.S. 

(iPhone5, snapseed, iwatermark)

It's an honor to have this photo in this week's showcase; there is some amazing work in this week's selections!

The "Apps Uncovered" series is such a good place to learn from--the 'backstory' for each image gives you a bit of a behind-the-scenes look into the 'toolbox' the photographer/artist used.

For this particular image, as you can see, the only app I used was snapseed. (iWatermark is just used for my 'signature' in the corner.) I used the crop-tool to make the scene into a square, and then the 'drama' filter allowed me to bring out the texture of the wall. I used the 'center focus' tool just very lightly for a slight vignette. 

New apps keep coming out every week, but snapseed remains my 'go-to' app--even when I use others for different effects, I usually begin and end the process with snapseed.

In Tucson's Barrio Viejo...

This past weekend, The Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation organized a "Historic Adobes of Barrio Viejo" Tour--a rare opportunity to get an inside view of some of the oldest homes in the architectural soul of the city--the Sonoran rowhouses of the 19th century. It was a singular combination of sanctioned voyeurism and exhibitionism--'ok'd' by the historicity of it all...

No interior photography was allowed, but I did take my iPhone with me, so here are a few shots of the streetscape:

It feels so much more Mexican or Mediterranean than "Wild West US"...It's almost unbelievable to think that in the 1960's, blocks and blocks of this architecture was just torn down to make room for the Tucson Convention Center. (Before the days of gentrification--when this neighborhood was mostly Latino, with Chinese corner-grocers...) 

Just incredible. Tucson could've had a downtown as architecturally and as historically compelling as Santa Fe, NM--unified and with an authentic sense of place...Alas, just relics are left--but still enough for a worthy stroll or bike-ride...No other city in the U.S. has this collection of Sonoran architecture.

Some of the wrought-iron details:

--gotta love the cat-and-mouse sense of humor in this window...

...and the rattlesnake almost has a cute face...

creative tortoise-lock:

--and the old Teatro Carmen:

(this was not taken on my iPhone,

but I did use snapseed to edit it)

This particular alleyway has always reminded

me of a De Chirico painting...

...and, from a couple of years ago,

a serendipitous rainbow over a renovated adobe façade: