Sunrise Through a Bottle

I'm a morning person. That's a great quality if you want to take pictures. You can get good light at the end of the day too, but the problem is there are usually lots of people demanding my attention. At 6am not so much ;-) We are visiting Courtney's family and I got out on the porch before anybody else got up. I love a quiet morning.

Lunch Time Leaves

While eating my sub at Publix today I was sitting right nect to this beautiful potted plant. There were all kinds of flowers but what really caught my eye was this collection of leaves with the one in the middle being a different color. I knew it would make a nice B&W conversion. Taken with an iPhone 4S.

 

Silly Monkey - iPhone 4s and Snapseed

I just recently got a new iPhone 4s. I have been an iPhone user since the iPhone 3g. I had a 4 and I was eligible for an upgrade and was not sure I wanted to make the move or wait until later in the year for a new iPhone 5. The good news is with all the kids on my account i claim all phone upgrades ;-)  I had a Samsung Galaxy SII in my hands at the register and was ready to check out then chickened out and went with another iPhone. One of the majore reasons was Snapseed from Nik software was not available on the Android platform. They just released it on the Androd tablets so i suspect the phone will be next. I used to have a whole crapload of editing apps. I primarily use two now. Snapseed and I still keep Hipstamatic but find that it is slow and can be frustrating to get the look I want as you need to know up front what lens, film and flash combo to use. 

With Snapseed you take the picture first and have a very high power photo editing tool directly on your device. In fact I have never really been inclined to get the photo connection kit for my iPad but I can see how I would use it with Snapseed on vacation. The best thing about Snapseed is the interface. It is such an intuitive design it is genius. Anybody can pick it up and start using it. I used to always take pictures on my phone, upload them to lightroom and edit them there. Now I usually do all the editing directly on the device. If you get a minute and have an iPhone make sure to go download the app. It may be the only iPhone photo app you need. 

Riley on the iPhone

This weekend I saw that Hipstamatic re-released a lens that I didn't have. It is called the Melodie. I took a few shots this weekend that I really liked. Here is one of Riley as we were waiting for Courtney to come out of the store. Of all the pictures I have taken of her in the first four months of her life I have to say this is one of my favorites. More evidence that it is not about the camera....

Favorite Picture from Last week

With the new baby it has been hard to get out an shoot. It just seems we are always sleep deprived and if I get a few minutes you can usually find me napping (or drooling on myself if a nap is out of the question). Last week I had to go out for a birthday present at lunch. I went down to Lenox mall here in Atlanta and was walking around with my iPhone. I usually use it in places like Lenox mall as all the security people get their panties in a wad if you walk around the mall with your DSLR. Clearly I am a threat to security. With your iPhone you can walk around with impunity shooting away and nobody cares....Clueless. Anyhow, I digress.

An area of the mall was blocked off and this man and (I assume) his wife were laying out an intricate pattern on the floor. It was all taped up and they had a long way to go. The interesting thing was the stripes were made out of individual silk flower petals. The work was painstaking. The patterns were cool. I took a few shots at ground level but then looked up and realized I could get above him for a different angle. This is what I came up with. I had to use digital zoom to frame it, its grainy as hell but for whatever reason I really like it. I just did a quick color palette change in Lightroom 3.

iHeart Faces Weekly Photo Contest Finalist

Click for Full SizeA few days after Riley was born I had probably taken a thousand pictures (well not really but it was alot). Unfortunately none of them had me in them. That's the problem with being the family photographer. I got up early and fed Riley. We were sitting by the window and the sun was just coming up. She was done and wide awake so I started to mess around with my iPhone and the Hipstamatic app. I wanted to get a decent self portrait of Riley and me. It was kind of a pain because when you use the Hipstamatic app you can't use the front facing camera. I ended up taking 5 or 6 shots before getting the one I liked but when I got it I knew it would be an important memory for me as the years go by. A quiet morning with my new daughter when nobody else was awake.

Looking for more ways to get my photography in front of people I decided to enter the iHeart Faces weekly photo contest. This week it was phone photography. Perfect. I knew just the picture. It ended up tenth place but there were quite a few entries so I was happy that the judge saw the feeling of the moment in my photograph. I know we all say "I just take pictures for myself" but i would be lying if i didn't say that i like it when others enjoy my pictures.

Here is the link to the rest of the finalists:iHeart Faces Weekly Photo Challenge : Phone