from mackerel in a faraway market to desert blooms...

Yesterday, I was honored to find out that this photo ("Mackerel in the Market") is featured in this week's showcase that The App Whisperer curates...

I took this photo a couple of summers ago while visiting the coastal city of Sokcho, just south of the DMZ on the east coast of South Korea. Reminded of this market scene a few days ago, I decided to re-snapseed it. I was a bit surprised that the main thing I wanted to do was to de-saturate the image--normally, you tend to want to add color intensity, but the color of the fresh mackerel and the plastic buckets was already so vivid, that I thought the picture would benefit from slightly less color--but then I did warm up the white balance a bit...Below is the original.

When I was in the market, I loved the fact that this husband-and-wife team had a baseball-game on in the background as they worked on the day's catch...

Nearby, part of the waterfront, with the mountains of Seoraksan National Park in the background:

I am just starting to experiment with the Scratchcam app. I am wary of 'over-apping,' (slapping a filter on a scene does not necessarily a 'good image' make), but I have come to like textures...So, after reading some blog posts and interviews with mobile photographers whose images I've been admiring, I added Scratchcam to my iPhone...

...And scenes from Sokcho, again, came to mind. Sokcho is scenically-situated, but it definitely ain't quaint; it's a working port with lax zoning laws. Although it's near some spectacular mountains, the town itself is not a particular draw for visitors from outside of Korea; I ended up there a couple of summers ago because an uncle of mine had moved there...And while the town's modern architecture is haphazard (and at times breathtakingly ugly), there are some historically interesting neighborhoods, the air is clean, and the seafood is amazing...

So. The bridge--I liked the idea of the segmented texture overlaid on a panorama.

...the original, three-shots-blended-by-AutoStitch:

The neighborhood around this bridge, directly north of where I was staying, was originally settled in the 1950's, during the Korean War: refugees from the North built small--what they thought would be temporary--homes. Then, when the war stopped and the DMZ was drawn, they ended up stranded here. People who had farmed the same lands for generations found themselves now on a spit of land between a lagoon and the sea...and their ad hoc construction became their new homes. In the decades since then, the neighborhood has filled in even more--a dense, utilitarian, poignant hodge-podge:

--snapseed, then Scratchcam, then snapseed again, for this edit.

And here's the original:

Compared to the now-internationally-known images of Seoul (via "Gangnam-style"), this part of Sokcho is like stepping back in time...

======================

Now, back to where home is now: the Sonoran Desert...

One of my favorite desert flowers around Tucson, "sacred datura:"

Solely snapseed for this edit.

I often take my iPhone with me on my long weekend morning runs, and there's a spot in Sabino Canyon where there's almost always a bunch of these blooming from April through December. Each flower lasts for just a day--opening at night, and within a few hours of the following sunrise, closing up, finished... 

Before the 'grunge'-filter texturizing:

Purple-tinged and almost lunar..

Here's one that's closed up after having bloomed,

with a new bud underneath:

post-bloom and pre-bloom; point, counterpoint...

(the original)

With PicFrame--different ways of seeing:
the original...b&w...

...and then for the bottom two variations, I went back to Scratchcam...

This image was chosen for this week's "Capturing the Moment" showcase by mobiography.net:

After initial cropping and editing for exposure with snapseed, I chose this particular Scratchcam texture for its geometrical qualities; I like the contrast of the overlay of 'folds' on the tendril-tipped hexagonal flower. Each rectangular 'segment' of the scene could almost stand on its own as a study of texture- or color-detail. The bottom right--with the previous day's spent bloom in the shadow of its fully open 'sibling' on this particular morning--seems, to me, to be a 'memento mori:' a foil to the largest and brightest rectangular section to its left, so full of light and life.

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Something less somber--
effervescent spring: a bee in a palo verde tree:


(kind of going for a Japanese wood-block on Korean-paper effect here...)

This time of year, my wife and I do miss the cherry blossoms up in Seattle, 
but in their own way, the palo verde here almost make up for it...

And, turning things upside down,
a reflective moment in the canyon:

featured on AMPt's twitter challenge this week.


================================
One last image--
yesterday's #fmsPhotoADay challenge theme was "earth;"
I couldn't resist the word- and visual-play,
so I used the TinyPlanets app to
manipulate a scene from a few weeks ago
at the Mission San Xavier del Bac:
 "Mission on Earth."

SNOW in Tucson! School, Sabino Canyon, and Saguaro National Park

During the work-week, I am a teacher...

...and so, yesterday in Tucson, when the rain began to change over to snow, I just had to let my students go outside. For this particular young woman--originally from Africa--it was the first time she'd ever seen the white stuff falling from the sky:

Snow in Tucson is a rare treat; the last time kids in this desert city enjoyed it was six years ago, before I moved here. 

As it began to accumulate, the only sane and humane thing for me to do was to let them go outside and have a snowball fight:

By mid-afternoon, the clouds had begun to lift;

I went for a hike in Sabino Canyon after work--

the lower-elevation snow was melting quickly... 

...but then the clouds began to roll back in...

...and by dinner-time, it was snowing--AND sticking--again.

It snowed for most of the evening.

So, this morning, I got up early and drove out to Saguaro National Park East, (about a 15 minute drive from where we live), hoping that if I got there before the sun came up, I'd beat the melting.

I got my wish. 

For years, I've wanted to see the rare spectacle of a snow-covered saguaro-forest...

The timing was perfect: today and tomorrow are school-holidays--it's the annual Tucson Rodeo/Fiesta de los Vaqueros. It might have been overpoweringly tempting to call in sick, had I not already had the day off...
You might get snow down in the Tucson basin, oh, maybe once a decade or so. The mountains get blanketed several times each winter, but it's rare that the snow-line drops below three- or four-thousand feet...

Frosted ocotillos looking so wintry...

...but look closely: you'll see the new spring leaf-buds under the snow:

As soon as the sun rose over the ridge of the Rincon Mountains,

I could hear the drip-drip-drip of the melting begin...

Sun, snow, and saguaros...

By mid-day, the blanket of white was a memory...

So ephemeral, snow in the desert...

Next time--when? 

It might be years from now.

By then, who knows what mobile photography will be like?

[For more snow-in-the-desert-photos (non-iphone), 

see my other blog.]

From the highest peak in the Tucson Mountains

I've been back in the classroom for a couple of days now...

Last Thursday, though, on a clear cold morning, I went for a hike in the Tucson Mountains. On the western edge of the city, this the lowest mountain range in the area, but from its highest point, Wasson Peak, you get 360-degree views over the entire area: city, wilderness and more peaks on the far horizons.

Water, sunscreen, and iphone...

it's a 7-mile round-trip desert hike with about a two-thousand-foot elevation gain.

(Do NOT do this hike in the summer; there is NO shade...but perfect from late fall through early spring.)

About 2/3 of the way up, this is the view toward the SW,

across the agricultural land of the Tohono O'odham nation,

toward Baboquivari Peak,

the 'navel of the world' in their native cosmology:

No shortage of cholla cactus along the rocky trail...

Here, looking south down the mountain range

toward the distant Santa Rita Mountains.

I played with the 'dark 1' option in the 'drama' filters for the scene above,

then with the black-and-white filter for the version below,

adjusting the white balance in the 'tune image' filter;

I like the imperfection of the flare, shooting

directly into the low sun...

...approaching the summit on the left:

(seven photos fused together with the AutoStitch app)

 Finally, at the peak--4687ft/1429m...

looking off to the NNW toward Picacho Peak...

Not as lofty as the 9000+ ft. peaks in the Santa Catalinas and the Rincons, but still high enough to feel on top of the world...

Below,
--looking NORTH toward the Tortolita Mtns
--looking from the NE to the E toward the Santa Catalina Mtns, across Oro Valley & Tucson
--looking SOUTH down the Tucson Mtns toward the distant Santa Rita Mtns
--looking toward the WEST across the Avra Valley

(made with PicFrame app)

And finally, one more saguaro-studded scene,

using 'tilt-shift' & one of the relatively new 'retrolux' filters:

=============================

Incidentally, in the January NIK software newsletter,

in the "Spotlight on Snapseed" section

THIS blog is featured...

Thanks, NIK!

2013, day one: deer and snowcapped mountains

The first of the year dawned bright and cold here in southern Arizona. With yesterday's clouds lifting overnight, we woke up to freshly snowcapped Santa Catalina Mountains on the horizon; a perfect winter morning in the desert...a perfect day for my wife and I to take a hike. 

We weren't on the trail for five minutes yet, when:

...and then the deer practically pranced across our trail: 

...stopped to pick a fruit from a barrel cactus: 

 ...a bit of chewing:

...and finally, off to graze elsewhere:

A perfect winter day:

snowcapped Thimble Peak

above the cottonwoods in Sabino Canyon,

still hanging on to the last of last autumn's color:

Hiking boots, a bottle of water, some sunscreen...and the iPhone--all you need...

desert evening...

It's been a good-and-wet monsoon season in Tucson so far...Last night was a break in the rain, so my wife and I went for a walk near Sabino Canyon--good to see the desert slopes so green, with water gushing out of the Santa Catalina Mountains... 

A few iphone-shots from last night:

...surveying the trails into Sabino Canyon...

...road to Bear Canyon, flooded...

...late summer wildflowers popping up...

...lots of grass shooting up among the prickly pear...

...an evening ride...

 ...a lone rain shower off to the south:

Really--I did not overly tweak the color in this shot;

I did play with 'ambiance' and 'drama' in order to 

brighten the foreground,

but the otherworldly clouds are REAL:

...sunset path...

desert, jungle, palace, mountain...and 'bokeh'

I was flipping through the British magazine "Digital Photographer" the other day in the bookstore, and an article caught my eye: "Smartphones with shutters" (p. 58) In it, writer and photographer Dylan Baker highlighted these statistics (and the italics are mine): 

"Of the estimated 600 billion digital photos taken annually, over 60 per cent are taken on cameraphones--and the market for point-and-shoot cameras themselves remains flat. It seems that the point-and-shoot may eventually be replaced by the smartphone, with compact system cameras and DSLRs remaining the ideal choices for enthusiasts." He goes on to write:  "Since the launch of Apple's App store in 2008, and subsequent offerings such as Android's Marketplace, there have been more and more reasons to use a smartphone as your primary everyday camera. Apps have transformed the experience with everything from basic editing tools to programs that will emulate the look and feel of vintage cameras and film..." Also, there is the convenience: "The fact that you'll always have your phone on you is one of the greatest benefits of shooting with a smartphone."

So...on to some more snapseeding from the past week.

First, from last weekend's wildflower hike in Catalina State Park, just NW of Tucson. Last fall and winter gave us well-timed rains, and so the poppies, lupine, and paintbrush are putting on a welcome display in the desert--nice to see after last spring's drought-and-late-freeze-induced no-show.

I took this shot with my Canon, but then thought it would be fun to snapseed it, so I e-mailed it to my iPhone. (This was before I found out that Nik software just released snapseed for desktop--both OS X and Windows...but I still prefer the intuitive--and portable!--'swiping' on my iPhone.)

So, with a bit of tilt-and-shift, as well as the center-focus filter for the vignette effect,

voilà, a 'transplanted' and snapseeded desert wildflower scene:

I posted the photo, and immediately got a comment: "Nice Bokeh!" Well, thanks...except that it's not really 'bokeh.'  This photo effect (taken from a Japanese word), has always been reliant on lens and aperture settings...but now, with digital darkrooms, you can do a pretty good job of simulating it. It's amazing how easy it is to do with snapseed.

================== 

Now...on to Guatemala. Several years ago my wife and I were fortunate enough to be able to visit the Mayan ruins in Tikal National Park, in the NE of the country, in the Petén region of the Yucatán peninsula. The temple pyramids in the jungle are among the tallest stone structures ever built in the Americas; not until skyscrapers arose in New York in the 20th century did construction reach higher! I had just bought my first digital camera--a 5 MP Canon point-and-shoot...still learning how to use it while trekking beneath the howler monkeys and strangler fig vines...From the top of Temple IV (about the height of a 25-story building), I took this view of the tops of the Jaguar Temple and the Mask Temple:

I've always had fun with 'my-feet-in-the-scene-shots,' but ACK!--the flash went off! 

Blurry feet and everything washed-out...

So--a fun 'remember-that?' shot, but not really anything to 'show'...

So, I thought I'd snapseed it:

some cropping,

more saturation in the sky, (using the 'drama filter'),

and a bit of tilt-and-shift around the temple-tops peeking above the forest canopy:

The sky's not perfect--but this 'transplanted' photo is a much better travel snapshot than the original, no?

==================

Now, for the palace.

Covering 78 acres of hilly forest in the heart of Seoul, "Huweon," the 'rear garden' of Changdeok-gung Palace is better known by the city's millions as 'Biweon'--'the Secret Garden.'


Once exclusively for the Royal family, today it's a favorite spot for local couples and foreign visitors alike. In the early 19th century, the Joseon dynasty kings built, in the middle of this wooded enclave, a 'country-villa,' (part of which you see below), as a rustic respite from the duties of governing. Even royalty needed an oasis from the fishbowl of the palace, it seems.


I spent an afternoon alone here, contmplating history and family...a few weeks later, it was a joy to show my wife, on her first visit to Korea, these lush grounds, strolling in the summer rain.

I took this doorway shot quickly; my Canon's battery had died,

and all I had was my iPhone...

Months later--flipping back through my phone's photos,

this scene was crying out for some tweaking:

a bit of cropping,

some tilt-shifting to get the focus through the doorway,

then converting to black and white,

and then 'warming up' the 'white balance' in the 'tune image' filter,

I got this semi-sepia scene:

...walk into the past...

================== 

And finally, tonight, a scene from what was home for us during the last year we lived in Seattle,

when we returned from living in Nicaragua. On an early autumn morning, this scene of Mt. Rainier looming over the fog, from our apartment balcony:

This was taken with the same Canon 5-megapixel point-and-shoot 

that took the original Guatemalan scene above. 

So--another 'snapseed-transplant:'

I didn't tweak this one too much--

just some cropping

and a little bit of 'tilt-and-shift'

so that the trees in the foreground would blur,

setting off the distant fog and mountain in clearer focus:

When "The Mountain is out," as Puget Sound residents say, everything else pales...

This glacier-covered volcanic giant presides over the entire landscape.

When the fog blankets the valleys, urban and suburban sprawl disappear--

enjoy the feeling of being alone with sky and mountain, 

on top of the world, even if only for a morning.