this summer's scenic runs: Georgia, France, Spain...and back to Arizona

With the new school-year starting less than a week after our return from Europe, there hasn't been time yet to go back and finish organizing/editing the hundreds of photos on my iPhone...Each day, two or three get done in the afternoon...

As a starting point, then, for posting some of those scenes here: some of this summer's scenic runs...A while back I got one of those hand-strappy-water-bottles for running, and conveniently enough, the ID zipper pocket on the side just fits my iPhone:

(from yesterday morning in Saguaro Nat'l Park)

So, when I'm not doing my routine neighborhood-morning-run, 

my iPhone often comes with me...

...as it did along the trail between the Savannah River and the Augusta Canal, when I was in Georgia back in June:

...Spanish-moss...19th-c. architecture...and lots of water...

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In Paris, on my first morning back in 11 years,

along the Canal St.-Martin:

(some thought-provoking street-art...)

the Cité des Sciences, Europe's biggest science museum, in the Parc de la Villette

Staying with some friends on Paris' southwestern edge,

trails in the hilly forest above St.-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse:

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Down to the South of France--

running along the Canal du Midi, near Toulouse:

a Carpe-Diem-emblazoned-barge-with-a-bike--gotta love it...

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And then down to Barcelona:

--along the waterfront of the Olympic Village, Frank Gehry's "Peix" (fish) sculpture: 

ahh, the Mediterranean...

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And then, Madrid:

--starting point, in the Plaza Santa Ana, 

in front of our hotel and Hemingway's old haunt:

A statue of Federico García Lorca, in front of the Teatro Español

jogging past Goya, presiding over the entrance to The Prado

....the Parque del Buen Retiro

...the Palacio de Cristal, originally built in the 19th-c. to house

flora and fauna from the Philippines...

black swans!

across from the entrance to the Park, part of the Prado,
housed in what was once the Ballroom of the Buen Retiro Palace

storefront: Velázquez' Infanta, with a 'free the Canary Islands' slogan...

a freaky mural, while jogging back up the hill to the Plaza

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Back to Tucson and the Sonoran Desert...

This evening, I went for a quick run in the hills around Sabino Canyon...

...enjoying some of the water that the monsoon has brought...

...and hoping to time it right for sunset:

Back home.

Now--back to work, too.

...back from Europe...anyone going to be in Vermont?

I've been back in Arizona for about a week-and-a-half now...And back to work, as the school-year here began this past week...I took about a thousand photos with my iPhone while in France and Spain from late June through last week; stay tuned...

But for this first post-trip post, a question for you readers--will anyone be in Vermont now through September first? The Vermont Center for Photography is hosting a juried exhibition, and I'm honored to have two images included!

So, should you find yourself in the area, check it out, and you'll see these images of mine:

"Nighthawks for Dumplings, Bukchon, Seoul"

"When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there."

(scenes from France and Spain...coming soon...)

"are smartphones killing memories?"...seeing like Monet?...and Arch views

Perhaps you've seen this piece, from a couple of days ago on the BBC:

"Are smartphones killing memories?"

If you're interested in mobile photography at all, whether as a part-time hobby or as an addictive avocation, these seven minutes are worth your time.

I've been thinking about this for while now, even before I dove into the iPhone-world...

There is so much to be said (ad nauseam) for 'being in the moment'...and yet so much to be gained from being able to document the day-to-day with such ease...

Perhaps you've heard the expression from Wordsworth--yes, the 18th-19th-c. poet, who spoke of the 'inward eye, the bliss of solitude'...the power of visual memories...

Does constant photographing enhance or diminish our capacity to truly look and remember, to learn how to see? There's the 'professional seeing' that photographers learn...but then there's the purely personal gaze--for one's own enjoyment and thoughts...With the constant distraction of documenting and (over)sharing, are we remembering what we lose when we only think we're gaining? Is our 'inward eye' morphing into a 3- or 4-inch screen we hold in the palm of our hands? When there's only the 'joy' of sharing on social networks, is there any room for the 'bliss of solitude?'


In our world of constant snapshots, we need to remember how to gaze purposefully, not just fleetingly.

Then again, I think of the photographers and artists who are using the medium of smartphone-cameras as a way to visually meditate, to freeze their deep gazes...or to keep them alive...

I'm reminded of the series of paintings that Monet created--the façades of the Rouen Cathedral, and the water lilies at Giverny. Those have become so well-known, clichéd even--but how many people today are able to look at one scene so deeply, over and over again? Obsession is a word that might be used, yes, but not gratuitous...


A couple of years ago, I went to St. Louis for a work conference. It was just a few days, but I had the mornings and late afternoons to myself--I found myself going for runs in the park along the Mississippi River, beneath the Gateway Arch. It's such an incredible structure--despite its visual familiarity, its audacity of form is just amazing--standing underneath its deceptive simplicity--no photograph can translate its scale...
...I did take a few photos, though, with my iPhone...

Recently, I've been going back to those scenes; as I've become more familiar and more comfortable with different photo-apps, I've been wanting to play with them--looking back and seeing the geometry and scale of the Arch and trying to, well, 'translate' the structure in different ways. Call it an obsession, if you want. But Monet's way of seeing--and I'm not trying to compare my edits to his work--but just trying to learn from how he saw...and how, even without brush, palette, and canvas, one can still learn how to see...and how the smartphone-camera can be involved...

(apps used, in addition to snapseed--picframe, scratchcam, laminar, distressedfx)

"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 iPhoneography Central's "Apps Uncovered"

Last week, iphoneographycentral.com published the recent installment in their "Apps Uncovered" series...and I'm honored to have two of my 'snapseeded' photos included:

"Red Doors, Sokcho"

Backstory/Apps Used: --like stepping back in time, this seaside district of Sokcho, S.Korea; a relic of the Korean War--the houses of N.Korean refugees and their descendants in the "Abai village" neighborhood (snapseed & colorsplash apps used; this photo among the "Honorable Mentions" in this year's Mobile Photo Awards)

     For "Red doors, Sokcho"--I took this with an iPhone4 a couple of summers ago. Not far from the location of the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympics, Sokcho, South Korea has a frontier-feel. (The setting is gorgeous--between mountains and the sea, but lax zoning laws have led to haphazard construction.) The neighborhood where I saw this streetscape is a relic of the Korean War--on a spit of land between a lagoon and the sea, refugees from what would become North Korea built makeshift dwellings, thinking these would be just for the short-term... When the DMZ was drawn in 1953, they found themselves stranded, and this neighborhood has now been home to a several generations of these N. Korean descendants. It feels like a different world from the wifi-and-caffeinated frenzy of Seoul. I used snapseed and the ColorSplash apps for this scene. ColorSplash allowed me to isolate the red doors and shirt stripes, converting the rest of the scene into greyscale. Then I used snapseed's 'tilt-shift' filter and the 'white balance' option found among the 'tune image' options. Combining the 'hyper'-sepia tone and the red accents reminded me of the traditional color scheme used in many older Korean scroll-paintings.

"Bear Canyon, evening"

Backstory/Apps Used: I took the photo with my iPhone5 a few months ago while on a trail-run in the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains on the edge of Tucson, Arizona. Winter evening light is just gorgeous in the desert. I used snapseed to convert the shot into a black-and-white scene, then used ''white balance' in the 'tune image' to warm up the scene. I also used the 'drama' filter to play with the contrast. The 'tilt-shift' filter in snapseed and then the "BigLens" app allowed me to smoothen out the sky.

From the chicken to the dinosaur

I've been having fun playing with semi-surrealism with recent iPhone images; last week's "ominous chicken talk" shot was featured in Mobiography's weekly showcase...and then today, WeAreJuxt's weekly "1000 Words" showcase came out...including this:

"When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there..."

On a busy, otherwise prosaic, intersection near where I live in Tucson, a dinosaur sculpture presides over the traffic whizzing by fast food, a gas station, and an oil-change joint…The words of Guatemalan author Augusto Monterrosso come to mind when I pass this seemingly gratuitous T-Rex reproduction–in one of the shortest short-stories in any language, he wrote: “Cuando despertó, el dinosaurio todavía estaba allí.” (“When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there.”) That’s it, just that one sentence; enigmatic, allegorical, and surreal…Juxtaposition within one short sentence that illuminates the juxtaposition of a prehistoric-reptilian-statue in the middle of the automobile-centered cityscape of the American West…

I took this with my iPhone5. Initially I used the Perspective Correct app to straighten the traffic light next to the sculpture. Then I used Snapseed to crop and even out the exposure. The grid/fold overlay is from ScratchCam–but to get the ‘folds’ to line up where I wanted them to, I placed the photo in one of the options in the PicFrame app, estimating where it would line up in ScratchCam before I would crop it again. The surreal color-gradation from ‘prehistoric’ red on the right to dream-like green sky on the left is also from ScratchCam. To add a bit more texture, I used DistressedFX, and then the final vignetting was done in snapseed. (For my ‘signature’ in the bottom corner, I used iWatermark.)

Honored to be included again!

(Another 'surrealization' of a Tucson landmark 

was featured back in March.)

"Ominous Chicken Talk"...streetscape

In this week's "Capturing the Moment" showcase by Mobiography, this was one of the featured photos:

 "Ominous Chicken Talk"

(Honored to be included, and yep, I had fun with this title...)

I drive by this street corner in Tucson very often. Finally, on a recent Sunday morning, the parking lot deserted, I pulled over to take a few photos. The juxtaposition of these oversized animal sculptures next to an otherwise nondescript strip-mall makes me smile every time I pass them--Is it whimsical? Gratuitous? Intentionally surreal? Mere kitsch, or knowingly dadaist? 

I went back and forth between the snapseed and scratchcam apps to edit this scene, which I took on my iPhone5. I liked the rectangular 'fold' overlay on this scene because it frames the chicken in a way to make it seem that it's talking to the giraffe. But WHY does the chicken pay more for gold? And WHY is the giraffe even there? (is there a giraffe-ransom involved?) And why would I want to come here to sell my gold? Endless questions...

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And, for breaking out of a creative slump, check out this recent article, "Breaking out of the Photographer Slump," from We Are Juxt...and in it you'll find some images and a few words of mine among others' useful comments and photos: