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.

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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?

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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...

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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.

a 'delicious' shot..and local wildflowers

For week number two of the afar.com travel highlight competition, these were the themes:

WEEK 2 February 23rd – 29th
DELICIOUS. Everyone talks about food; we want to hear the real details. A perfect ramen discovery in the middle of Paris. The best place for avocados at your local farmers market.
ARE WE THERE YET? Embarking on your daily commute or navigating the Japanese subway. What surprises have you uncovered while getting from point A to point B that AFAR travelers would want to hear about?

I submitted a few for both themes, and...I won again!

Another snapseeded photo won the 'delicious' category; see below:

above, on the home page,
below, the 'highlight' itself:

Two weeks in a row, now, in which iPhone photos won--not shots from a 'fancy' camera!

All edited in the palm of my hand--

more proof that it's not necessarily the length of the zoom

of the number of megapixels;

it's what you see, what you choose to to frame--

all in your eyes and your hands...

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Last Sunday, we went out to Saguaro National Park West to see some of the wildflowers; spring's arrived early this year, and with the decent winter rains, the poppies are putting on a show--a nice display after last year's drought-and-late-freeze-induced floral no-show:

I submitted the above photo to the local newspaper, and it was published a few days ago here.

A few more shots from that day:

 --playing with the 'center focus'  filter in order to bring out the 'yellow flower road' in the center

--some 'tilt and shift' and 'drama' work to make the lupine pop a bit; the mid-day lighting was harsh 

--a field of low poppies really lends itself to the 'tilt-and-shift' filter 

--and some more 'tilt-and-shift' filtering for the prickly-pear amidst the poppies

It's a beautiful spring in the Sonoran Desert this year; I went for another wildflower hike today--the season doesn't last long--both with the big camera and with my iPhone...will find some time to upload those scenes from Catalina State Park later this week.

AND--head to your local Starbucks if you want to get snapseed for FREE right now; it's their freebie 'pick of the week' app! Start snapseeding!

near and far, before and after

To begin with, the first desert poppies of the spring: 

(Filters used: center focus and tilt-and-shift, which also allows for playing with brightness and saturation.) A few afternoons ago, I went for a hike--iPhone in hand. In Rattlesnake Canyon in the foothills of the Santa Catalina mountains here in Tucson, the wildflowers are several weeks early this year.

After last week's initial posting, I thought I should include some more before-and-after comparisons, to show more clearly what snapseed can allow you to do.

So, back to Sabino Canyon, to one of the first scenes that showed me how useful snapseed can be:

To the left, this is the 'before' version, the original iPhotograph.


With the sun behind the ridge, the shapes and colors of the riparian vegetation get lost; it's a 'throw-away' shot that doesn't really convey the landscape...




But then, using the 'drama' filter and then playing with the brightness, contrast, and 'ambiance' functions of the 'tune image' filter, the colors of the cottonwood, ash, and sycamore trees, along with some of the saguaros on the hillside, can stand out. With a bit of cropping, below is the 'after' image, which truly shows what this riparian desert canyon looks like in late autumn in southern Arizona:

Now, an urban scene--St. Louis, seen from the observation deck at the top of the Gateway Arch:

Stitched together using the AutoStitch app, I thought this view of downtown would be fun as a 'toy-miniature' scene. The tilt-and-shift filter was used to 'miniaturize' the cityscape, and then to add the corner vignettes, I chose one of the the 'dark styles' in the center focus filter:

From the Midwest to the Southeast--

a Victorian building in Augusta, GA:

The whimsical placing of a horse-statue on the balcony of a Victorian brick building lends itself to a surreal treatment, so I used the 'grunge' filter, which plays with blur, texture, and color temperature. You end up with a more compelling, atmospheric image, instead of a simple architectural documentation of a streetcorner:

Still in this city along the Savannah River, another Victorian building--the Old Cotton Exchange.


The brick-lined plaza leading from it to the Riverwalk park is home to a weekend farmer's market.




Architecture and pedestrians--the image lends itself perfectly to playing with color and scale, so this time, the tilt-and-shift filter, pure and simple--blur, saturation, brightness, and contrast all 'tweak-able' in this filter:

...true to the spirit of the place, if not totally true to the actual hue of the foliage, 

which was not quite as autumnal as the 'after'-shot would make you think...

Some more Victorian red brick, but now back out West, (yesterday)

to the mile-high mountain mining town of Bisbee,  AZ:

...slight tilt-and-shift 'filtration' of this scene. I didn't meet the owner of this 'roaming-gnome-mobile,' but it's a perfect example of the quirky side of this town. Some residents have bumper stickers that read 'Keep Bisbee Bizarre.' Below is a perfect example of some of Bisbee's 'bizarchitecturural' ornamentation--slightly tilt-shifted:

Red! I must have red! And more red for my found-object-façade!

And then, tucked in between two buildings down in Brewery Gulch...

 ...there's this stairwell--blink and you'll miss it:

A cool enough scene, but it cries out to be 'played with'--to be 'snapseeded:'

ominous sepia...

And now, from near to far, for a bit of geography, with an old French globe, 'grunge-filtered:'

Below is a 'transplanted and snapseeded' scene--

I e-mailed this photo to my iPhone in order to edit it with snapseed, using the tilt-shift filter:

A scene from Seoul's Gyeongbok-gung Palace, where, on a summer afternoon, a tea-ceremony class is being held in the old residence of the Queen Dowager. Shoes off before tea-time--always a must before entering a Korean home, whether that of royalty or of peasants... 

          ...and finally, from Corée to Centroamérica: 

(this Spanish-globe-shot snapseeded with one of the styles in the vintage filter)

Another 'transplanted' photo--looking from the roof of the Cathedral in León, Nicaragua, out over the eastern part of the city, on to the volcanoes on the horizon, with the colorful Calvario church, one of Nicaragua's 18th-century architectural gems:

"Filtered"-photography...

is it as honest as 'unfiltered?' 

Or is it like the difference between poetry and prose?

Gratuitous filtering of photos can be just that--gratuitous.

But, the field for visual play is wide open.

What does your eye see that you want other eyes to see?