Flying High With the iPhone

Flying High With the iPhone

My pal, surfing instructor, and renowned Photoshop guru Jack Davis was flying high with his iPhone the other day and sent these terrific captures. He used apps
Instagram and ProHDR.

He calls this little portfolio: "What to do when you can't get a window view - steal someone else's!"

Content Aware Fill - There's An App For That

Content Aware Fill

Yep. iPhone Diva has a new look. Every once in awhile, we all need a makeover, and this site was due. I hope you like it.

I have been on the fast track of learning in iPhoneography this past few months, thanks to an incredible group of iPhone fanatics who share their best with grace and humor. (Lots of humor). Expect to see lots of new apps and arty permutations in the upcoming months.

iPhone Guest Gallery: Other Realities

iPhone Guest Gallery: Other Realities

Exploring other realities, the world just outside our ordinary view, has long been a theme in my photography. Which is why I am so excited about these most recent submissions to iPhone Diva. These iPhoneographs are incredibly inspiring, allowing a glimpse into three distinct parallel universes. Enjoy!

Robin Robertis shares her most recent photo art piece entitled "Sisters". I'm waiting to hear which apps and will update this post as soon as I know. Right now, I'm just loving the image.
Shock my pic app enhances Brian Kavanaugh Jones's unexpected (and very cool) perspective in this photograph.

Dare To Break The Rules With Your iPhone

Dare To Break The Rules With Your iPhone

I love attending the Merrie Monarch hula festival and competition. It's sort of an annual Hula Olympics if you will. As the official photographer for our Halau (hula school or group), I used my "big girl" cameras to document the event each time we participated. And along with the documentation, I got to take loads of artsy pictures - slow shutter speed motion blurs being my favorites.

Fabulous App Pixel Blend Pro for the iPhone

Fabulous App Pixel Blend Pro for the iPhone

Hallelujah! Pixel Blend app is now available for the iPhone! (Drumroll, please!) (Here's the review of the iPad version for those who missed it.) I know that many of you have been waiting patiently - I'm delighted to report that your wait is over. For fans of the SX70 - Polaroid Time Zero emulsion manipulation process, this is a must-have app! If you love impressionist painted-look photos, you'll also want to download it ASAP.

Transferring Photos From iPhone to iPad to Computer

Transferring Photos From iPhone to iPad to Computer

One of the questions I am most often asked is "What's the best app for transferring photos back and forth?" Working on the iPhone itself can be a fast track to eyestrain especially if you are using a painting app, such as my fave Pixel Blend. Ideally, we'd rather "app" our photos on our iPad or optimize them on our computer. So we need a reliable and quick way to transfer our art.

Of all the apps I've tried, (and as an appaholic, I've tried a bunch), the one that gets my overall vote is PhotoSync. For $1.99, you can install it on both your iPhone and iPad. The computer version is free (of course, you have to have it installed on one of your other devices for it to work.)

It is unbelievably fast - I've never had it crash or had any problems with it. I use it everyday. There is only one caveat: you must have wifi access.

And, traveling around to photograph, there may be times - gulp - when there is no access (eg. in the Galapagos, or Yosemite or camping.)

For those situations, I depend on my previous favorite transfer app:  Photo Transfer. ($2.99 in the app store.) Because (drumroll please), it also works with bluetooth. Just turn on bluetooth on both devices, open Photo Transfer on both, and voila, you are on your way. Go have a cup of coffee or chimp on your big boy/big girl camera for a bit, because bluetooth is a lot slower than wifi. But it's still magic.

The above image was transferred to my iPad or I'd never have been able to process it - the iPhone, much as I love it, is just too tiny for accurate brush strokes. This heliconia blossom was "painted" in Ghostbird Software's Photoforge app using the smudge tool, (way harder than Pixel Blend, but it wasn't available when I worked this) then combined with a sketch of the same image from Jixi Pix Artista Sketch app. The combining and blend mode was done using IRIS Photo Suite app.

So iphoneographers, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. The two best and most versatile transfer apps for less than the cost of a latte. You can't afford not to have them!

New iPhone Photo Gallery

iPhoneographer John Derby contributes a few of his favorite iPhone images to iPhone Diva. To create The Green Bar, he used these Apps: Snapseed, Pro HDR, Simply HDR, Grungetastic HD.

New iPhone Photo Gallery

 About Iris #4, John says:  "I used only Pro HDR, and Snapseed (get the joke?) on this flower's pic." Love the selective focus here.

Painteresque: iPhone Diva’s New Fave App

I was asked the other day what might be my favorite iPhone photo art app. That’s hard to answer - because I have lots of favorites - and they change all the time.

iPhone Diva’s New Fave App

It all depends on what I want to convey in an image, and that usually involves a number of apps for each shot. Sometimes I’ve previsualized - taking a shot with a specific app in mind; other times it’s an organic process of just working a photo until it “feels right”.

A Look In The Mirror - iPhone Style

 iPhone Style

An iPhoneographer in Paris

iPhoneographer in Paris

Paris is truly an iPhoneographer's dream. It is not, however, a wifi dream. Hence the paucity of images posted here lately. Be forewarned: that is about to change! As I sift through the ginormous pile of images on my hard drive, I'll be putting them up on iPhone Diva: here and on the Facebook page. And showing some guest photo galleries in between, so I don't hog all the space.

An iPhoneographer in Paris, Part Deux

An iPhoneographer in Paris

Sometimes (in my case, rarely) an iPhone photo doesn't need to be apped all that much. These three Paris scenes were apped only with Snapseed to optimize. I'm sure that in the future I will revisit them and app them madly. But for now, they are enough for me just as they are. Alleyway wall in the Latin Quarter. Magritte lives.

Creative Photography and iPhoneography Workshop

 Sunset in Kapuaiwa Palm Grove, Moloka`i Hawai`i    © lynette sheppard  iPhone photo

Jack Davis, Photoshop guru, creative animal, and iPhoneography maniac is once again teaching in beautiful Moloka`i, Hawai`i this fall. But this workshop will be a little different.

A Glissando of Gondolas

A Glissando of Gondolas

If a group of larks is called an exultation, what do you call a bunch of gondolas? A glory of gondolas? A glide? A glissando? OK, maybe I'm going overboard but it is hard not to wax poetic about these slender craft in Venice. I took way too many iPhone shots of them and love them all. I used Slow Shutter Cam to actually paint these moored craft in the dawn light on the Riva degli Schiavoni. I used to think that the light in Titian's paintings was enhanced by a significant amount of imagination but now I see he was just painting what was right in front of him.

Smoosh: New Fab Painting App from Pixel Blend Creator

Pixel Blend, a painting app that simulates the process of Time Zero Polaroid SX70 emulsion "painting" is one of my favorite apps. Now, Michael Valdez has come out with its easier to use cousin: Smoosh. (Smooshing is what we SX70 enthusiasts used to say we were doing when we moved the emulsion on the Polaroid prints.) I tried it and I love it! It's intuitive and user-friendly - even if you've never heard of SX70 or Time Zero or heaven forbid, Polaroid.

Simply B and W Has a New Home

Good news, iphoneographers! Simply Band W has found a new home with app developer FotoSyn, the folks who brought us Bleach Bypass and Gelo. I am so happy!

Here's the press release from developer Jim Moore: 

Simply B and W Has a New Home

Simply B and W will be joining the Fotosyn stable of apps. A few weeks ago, Brian Kennedy of Mr B Ware, author of Simply B and W began discussions with myself about looking after and taking on the presence of Simply B and W in the App Store. As that handover will soon be complete with the app reappearing in the next week or so I wanted to let you know what was happening and where we’ll be going in the next few months with the app.

My Own Private Paris

My Own Private Paris

It can be challenging to find  new views of places that have been photographed so much. Even more so with iPhoneography where you have a single focal length and fixed aperture (unless you app it to approximate a larger one). So I'm always thrilled when I can take a photo that I've not seen before of a popular destination. Here are three views of my last trip to Paris that fit the bill.

Guest Gallery iPhone Art

Here are a couple of great shots by iPhone Diva contributors Diane Rupnow and Judy Norton. Enjoy!

Guest Gallery iPhone Art

Diane shares: " I just had to share this recent image. I took this with my big girl camera in the town of Springdale, Utah, just outside Zion National Park. It was a nice image initially, but I used a couple of apps to bring the feeling that this was taken at the time this little cemetery was new,and then carried around in someone's pack for a few generations. Apps used: Iris, Picture Show."

Big Fun on the Big Island of Hawaii

Big Fun on the Big Island of Hawaii

Dewitt and I just had an amazing day with fun folks from Penn Mutual at the Fairmont Orchid Mauna Lani on the Kohala Coast of Hawaii Island. We explored photography, mostly with the iphone all around the grounds of this lovely resort. Yes, more of us fell down the rabbit hole of iphoneography - so much creative art work happened in such a short period of time that I promised to reprise the apps we used (and mention a few that we didn't so here they are!)

Haunting Beauty on Kalaupapa Peninsula, Moloka`i

One of the most beautiful, heart wrenching places on Earth is Kalaupapa peninsula, Moloka`i, Hawai`i where people with Hansen's disease (leprosy) were exiled, until a cure was finally discovered. We were blessed to be hosted by dear friends for a couple of days to immerse ourselves. Here are a few iPhone memories.

Beach Leaves       Apps: Snapseed, Camera +, Camera Awesome

Petal Pushers Two

Artists Candy Spring and Carol Robinson share some lovely iPhone flora of their own in this guest gallery. Enjoy!