Graffiti Underground Revisited

Philly - a world of contrasts

The Graffiti Underground is a favorite stop in Philly. Such a place of contrast. The fun part is that it is ever changing. Unfortunately I have never been there when the artists are at work, always a treat. 

This image was taken in December of last year. It was a beautiful morning with a group of friends. A perfect place to practice my art of iPhoneography. 

ProHDR

Autostitch

Grungetastic

Filterstorm

Too Red Barber Chair

Eastern State Penitentiary - The Barber Chair

ESP is a favorite location of mine. The Red Barber Chair is always a treat to shoot. I had spent days thinking about how I was going to uniquely capture it. On the day I arrived I realized the best choice was a vertical pano so I could capture both skylights in the prison cell.  However I never imagined I would be there when a fire broke out, getting this once in a lifetime shot. Never to be captured again. 

Well not really, because you see my dad is a retired firefighter and he taught me how to put fires out. So while the iPhone was busy stitching this image together I ran and got the fire extinguisher and put out the flames in no time! So all of you still have the chance to capture this red beauty too when you are Philadelphia next time!!! 

ProHDR

Autostitch

PerfectPhoto

picGrunger

PhotoStudio

Filterstorm

Impression

Do you want to learn to use the apps of the iPhone to create photographs beyond a basic snapshot? Sign up for the iPhoneography 101 online course for easy to follow instruction. The course allows you to work at your own pace while having a professional standing by to provide assistance, answer questions and offer critiques. Starts March 12th - sign up now! Contact instructor: Teri Lou at teri@terilou.com and ask for a course outline.

iPainting - The Red Flower

Red Flower iPainted

I am experimenting with different things to iPaint. I have found that some images work well and some do not. Sometimes it will take hours of work before I discover that it is not working. I try not to get frustrated and instead move on to a simpler image. That is one of the reasons I decided to revisit this red flower.

The original image was captured with the Hipsta camera app. I use the app PhotoForge for all my painted images. For this one I first used the largest brush on everything except the vase and the flower. I then zoomed in closer to the outside of the vase and flower and with a smaller brush painted right up to the vase and flower. I continued to zoom in and use a smaller brush on the vase and the flower. As I made the brush smaller, I also re-blended the surrounding areas to add more brush strokes. It also seems inevitable that I will create brush strokes that go against the grain. When I do I just swipe them clean with multiple strokes in the correct direction.

At this point I find it important to see if all the pixels were painted. So after I save the image in PhotoForge which can take up to 1 hour, I open the image in PerfectPhoto and zoom in looking over the entire image for missed pixels. Sometime it will take me 3-4 times before I am happy with the results.

I thought I would just stop there but instead I went on to process the image a bit more. I am going to get technical here so you may have questions. I wanted to get more texture back into the image so I used the app PhotoCopier and found that the Photo Penn worked well for texture. I then brought the same image twice into Iris, one for the base layer and one to blend with the base. I blended them in screen at 85% to lighten up the image. I then sharpened both the original painted image and the new textured one in Perfect Photo. For the final touch I blended the original painted image and the textured one in Iris because the texture was too harsh. This time I blended in normal at 85%.

I used the app Diptic to combine these images to show the different steps.

Perfect Photo for sharpening

PhotoForge for painting

PhotoCopier - Photo Penn 

Iris for lightening and blending

Perfect Photo for sharpening again

Impression for copyright

iPhoneography classes from beginner to advance are available in either classroom style of via the internet. Please contact me for further information. teri@terilou.com Please join my Facebook Group iPhoneography with Teri Lou

Graffiti Underground Pano

180 degree view of Graffiti Underground

The Graffiti Underground, located in Philadelphia, is a place I could return to time and time again. It is ever changing in lighting, mood and artistic talent. Usually I am quite adventurous and will enter places many feel uncomfortable about but this is a place I would not venture to on my own because of its location. For this image I arrived at dawn to capture the soft morning light and still water.

This is 9 ProHDR images merged together using the app Autostitch. Autostitch is a powerful app that seamlessly stitches at least 60 images together. (A friend of mine has tested it to 60 and I have personally stitched up to 25 images.) As I stated in a previous post it is very important to have a large overlap, at least 1/3, of the images to provide the app with enough information to complete the process. Also in wide images make sure you are capturing enough information on both the top and the bottom of the image so that you won't lose any important part during cropping. This image actually wasn't cropped hence the broken black border, cleverly disguised!

9 ProHRD image Autostitch

PhotoStudio

picGrunger

Iris

Impression

PerfectPhoto

iPhoneography classes from beginner to advance are available. Please contact me for further information. teri@terilou.com Please join my Facebook Group iPhoneography with Teri Lou

Red Flower

Captured with the Hipstamatic Camera using the John S lens and Dream Canvas film.

I find it very interesting where I will take photos with my iPhone 4. This image was captured in the restroom at Longwood Gardens in Philly about a month ago. I was there with several iPhoneographers. One friend announced that there were the most beautiful red flowers in the bathroom and started showing off all his photos. Promptly all of us went to find our own red bathroom flower to capture. I must note that the restrooms there are very usual with 17 private rooms. The above image was my favorite straight Hipstamatic shot.

Image after processing within the iPhone 4

I will admit that I am not sure of all the apps I used for processing this image. I do know that several from fxPhotoStudio are apparent. After adding a effect such as Vintage I would have blended the effect back into the original photo using Iris. I also know that I use PhotoPerfect for sharpening.  I use the app Impression to add my watermark to my photos.

I found it most interesting that even though we all started with this basic red flower in a vase, everyone went in to different direction when processing it. Proving once again that art is in the eye of the beholder. 

iPhoneography classes from beginner to advance are available. Please contact me for further information. teri@terilou.com Please join my Facebook Group iPhoneography with Teri Lou