deep-fried at the Ritz-Carlton...and tapas in Tucson

No shortage of food-blogs out there...and smart-phone-photography is making it easier than ever to post food-photos...So, a couple of snapseeded restaurant-shots from around Tucson recently:

No matter how posh, there's always a place for something deep-fried to go with cocktails, eh?

Tucked into its own private canyon on the far northwestern edge of Tucson, the Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain resort is the epitome of understated desert chic... Each February, world champion golfers come to the foothills of the Tortolita Mountains to compete in the Accenture Match PlayChampionship, the spa has recently been ranked one of the best in the world, and it's been open for two and a half years now...So, curious, and since we live less than an hour's drive away, S. and I thought we'd spend an afternoon here...

...and on the patio of "Ignite" (the lobby lounge/café), we noshed on "Avocado FRIES!" With a three-chili aioli and an "Arizona Greyhound," (grapefruit and vodka), cactus wrens and cardinals darting about the blooming saguaros, the fried avocado wedges were an unexpected accompaniment to relaxing in the shade...

And now for a tapa: 

"Casa Vicente" is an institution in this desert city--Tucson's outpost for tapas a la española. Just south of the downtown core, this restaurant also features live music on different weeknights: classical guitar, flamenco, even tango lessons. This particular evening we tried "chipirones rellenos," a trio of baby calamari, skewered and stuffed with green tomatoes and spices. In a town more known for its tacos and burros (a.k.a. 'burritos' elsewhere), it's appropriate, if somewhat uncommon, to find Iberian fare--Tucson was founded in 1775 as an outpost of the Spanish empire, decades before it became Mexican, and then in the mid-19th century, finally part of a U.S. territory...And, by the way, the sangría here rocks. 

tea and gelato

A couple of scenes from earlier this evening here in Tucson:

First--some of the teas in "Seven Cups," recently named by Travel and Leisure magazine as one of the best places in the U.S. to get authentic Chinese tea...

...and then some gelato, from a few blocks away at "Allegro Gelato,"

where the flavors literally rotate:

C'mon--isn't this the coolest frozen dessert display you've ever seen? Ahh, Italian style...And yep, that's an avocado you see front-and-center. Some other unexpected flavors--anise, lavender, saffron...


(Both of these photos were taken and edited completely on the iPhone, using the iPhone version of snapseed--tilt-shift and vignette filters, along with some 'ambiance'-tweaking for the bottom photo, using the 'tune image' filter.')

two-fingered end-of-the-school-year fun...astronomers in L.A....a Uruguayan's tower

           

A student of mine was having finger-art fun--and I just had to take a couple of photos.

The left might just elicit a 'huh?'...but cross those fingers, and drama ensues...

(Gracias, David!)

Just another week with kids-in-the-classroom...

Now, a scene that's been 'stuck' in my iPhone for about a year and a half:

(drama-filter and center-focus vignette)

In the hills above Los Angeles, near the Hollywood sign, Kepler, Galileo and Copernicus look out over the city of 'stars'...Dominating the lawn in front of Griffith Observatory, this Astronomers Monument dates from the 1930's; the Depression-era Public Works of Art Projects gave work to artists and beautified public spaces. (Nearby is another piece of statuary: a bust of James Dean--the "Rebel Without a Cause" monument, commemorating the film in which Griffith Observatory played a large role.) There's no better place in L.A. from which to see the city lights at night...or to look up at real stars through the free public telescopes in the observatory itself.

And a bit of architectural contrast from Seoul:

One of the most distinctive buildings in central Seoul is the 33-story Jongno Tower, a triangular glass and steel tower topped with an oval floating above seven stories of emptiness.

Across the street is the traditionally reconstructed "Bo-shin-gahk" belfry, housing a large bronze bell. During the Joseon dynasty, the bell would be rung 33 times every morning, (symbolizing the 33 heavens of Buddhism), to open the city's gates. At dusk, the bell would be rung 28 times (linked to the locations of constellations) to signal the shutting of the city's gates.The original bell is now in the National Museum, but a reproduction still hangs here, and every December 31st, it's struck 33 times to ring in the New Year.

Here's the original iPhone shot--the colorful underside of the Bell Pavilion's roof was in almost total darkness. Using the selective control point, I was able to bring out the colorfully painted eaves...

(More about the architect--Uruguayan Rafael Viñoly--and his design:

http://www.rvapc.com/works/341-samsung-jong-ro-tower)

featured: architecture in Los Angeles...and saguaro blooms

This week, a snapseeded photo ('transplanted') featured on the afar.com homepage:   

(always a thrill to be published!)

--and here's the highlight:

I took the photo a few years ago, pre-iPhone,

and then the other evening, going back through some things,

I thought this scene would benefit from just a bit of tweaking--

just a little of bit of vignette to soften the edges

and pull the eyes even more toward the sky in the middle...

So--a 'transplanted' snapseed,

taken with a Canon, then edited with snapseed...

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

This morning, after I finished my Sabino Canyon run,

I grabbed my iPhone out of the car

and went back to take a few photos--

this year, a few weeks earlier than usual,

the saguaros are already blooming:

The cacti can be decades old before they start blooming,

and each hand-sized bloom stays 'fresh' for only a day;

bats and doves love to pollinate them...

The blooms are often hard to photograph since they're usually on the arm-tops,

but occasionally, you get a low-reaching limb:

  

(tilt-shift and center-focus filters used on all of the saguaro photos above)

Saguaros aren't the only cacti blooming;

cholla flowers are coming out too...

(no filters used here--just cropped)

Summer's almost here...and the thermometer is climbing...

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:

cactus blooms, palace scenes, and a New England lighthouse

From earlier today,

some prickly pear cactus buds and blossoms

in the mountains around Tucson:

(some tilt-shifting to concentrate

the focus on the blooms and buds,

and a bit of vignette, using the center focus filter)

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

In the last posting, I played with a snapshot

of the Throne Hall in Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul;

Here's another angle of the same grand, upswept building,

 still going for the 'scroll background' effect:

This is a 'transplanted' photo; I took it on my Canon,

then e-mailed it to my iPhone in order to snapseed it;

below is the original shot--late afternoon shadows made the

main façade very dark:

So, a bit of selective tool brightening and color-saturating,

and then de-saturating the sky before 

using one of the 'grunge' filters

to end up with the 'scroll effect' version.

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

Another palace photo, 

showing an overview of one of Seoul's minor palaces--

this one taken with my iPhone on my last day in Korea last summer

--this is the view over the main courtyards of 

Changgyeong-gung Palace:

I had climbed to the rooftop terrace garden

of Seoul National University's Cancer Hospital

across the street from the palace in order to get this view,

and just then, the drizzle began to turn into a downpour...

The umbrella adds a certain effect,

but crop it out, and the focus is more on the architecture:

Using one of the grunge filters again,

this time I was aiming more for nostalgia instead of a 'scroll-painting' effect:

 Looking at it now, there's more blur than I would like on the sides...

will do some more tweaking later...

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

To finish for this week,

a shot of what is perhaps the most-photographed-lighthouse in America,

the Portland Head Light

in Cape Elizabeth, Maine:

This is another 'transplant;'

took this with my Canon a few summers ago,

e-mailed it to my iPhone a few days ago, 

and again, with the grunge filter 

(which seems to be my 'flavor of the month' right now),

I played around and ended up with this:

The crispness of the image contrasted with the watercolor-paper-feel of the background--

a combination that lends itself to a coastal scene...

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.]