My nephew Damion looked up from playing with his trains long enough to wave good-bye while wearing his favorite bear hat. It’s not a terribly sharp photo as the light was very low in the room, but sometimes that doesn’t matter. Catching him in this moment, with the hat, expression and wave makes up for the softness of the photo. Anyone who photographs young kids knows that they run at about 100 miles an hour and sometimes you just can’t get them to stand or sit still long enough to get a sharp photo.

Does this mean that you should do away with your soft photos? Not if they record a moment that brings you emotion and that you’ll be able to look back on and fondly remember.

Today I used the built in camera app to shoot the photo and then processed it through Snapseed. I then brought it into Photoshop CS6 and brought down the saturation in the photo and applied the clarity filter in Topaz Adjust.

Today when I stopped by my sisters house my niece Elaina opened up her arms wide and gave me this expression you see here. Of course I along with anyone else could tell what she wanted me to do and she sat there patiently waiting as I shot her picture using the Lomora Pro App before picking her up. She, along with all the young kids in the family, are very social and like having their picture taken which works well for me and most of the rest of the family as we’re all into the picture taking thing!

This was the first picture that I’ve taken that I’m pretty happy with from this new App that I downloaded yesterday and I must say I’m still figuring out the settings that I like. It was shot with the Provia Film with normal exposure in a square format. I kinda like the retro blue look of the photo, like I shot tungsten film in the daylight. The App only has one style border which is Ok, but I wanted to have that Polaroid look that I used yesterday and so I opened the image and processed it through the ShakeItPhoto App to achieve that look. I also did a little tweaking in the Snapseed App to bring down the blue tint just a little as it was more than I liked with the Lomora Pro camera App.

I like the ability that the iPhone gives me for processing the same picture through several different Apps to achieve a look that I like. Just can’t wait till March as I will be able to upgrade to the 5S, which has 12mp camera instead of the 8mp with the 4S.

CSX railroad recently did some rail/tie plate replacements through downtown Madisonville, Ky and left a heap of these plates that were replaced. I liked the mountain of the old rusty plates and together with the old building next to the tracks in the background and the cloudy skies I envisioned a pop art kinda picture when I first saw the scene.

After shooting the picture with the native iPhone 4s camera I opened the picture in a App called Lomora, one I haven’t used a lot. The “Lomo” style seemed to be what I thought I was looking for so I downloaded this app to try it out. There’s also a pro version of the App which I didn’t use for this photo, but think I’ll make the leap and pay the $2.99! I love my apps and their prices! I’ll try the pro version out with my pictures from the next few days, so stay tuned.

Today’s photo is a simple shot of a CLF lightbulb. This is the first one I’ve ever used in my home as the early ones always had that bluish white light that gave the look of florescent which I really never cared for. The new ones of today are a warmer tone and look more like incandescent lights which I favor. After installing it I looked at it and decided it’d make a good shot for my daily iPhone challenge.

I used the standard camera app on my iPhone 4s to shoot the photo with. I touched the screen where the light was to set the exposure for the camera (yes you can do that and it also sets the focus point) as I wanted the tube to show up and everything else to go black.

I then opened the image in the ShakeitPhoto App that gives an old style Polaroid SX-70 look to the picture, complete with the borders. That resulting picture I then opened in the Dynamic Light App to make the bulb pop even more as it didn’t quite have the look I wanted.

Today’s photo is of my niece Elaina in mid yawn and as you can tell, it’s not my normal looking photograph and yes, it’s had a bit of post processing done to it.

I’ve always felt that I am a frustrated artist in respects that I’ve always wanted to be able to paint, either watercolor or oils, and even took a few classes, but never developed the enthusiasm that I have for my photography.

Well, here lately I’ve been playing around with different ideas using filters and plugins to allow a photograph to take on the look of the types of “art” that I like and today’s is one such photograph.

I did the initial shooting with the Hipstamatic App again with the Jane Lens and the DC film today as we were eating lunch. She was rather bored sitting in her car seat while my sis and I were finishing up our lunch and kept yawning off and on. Well, at six months old I couldn’t get her to yawn on cue so between my sister and I keeping an eye out and me keeping the iPhone ready to snap at a moments notice I was able to catch this one yawn.

I then brought the image into Photoshop as I’ve downloaded a trial of a filter set I’m thinking about buying that is called Snap Art by Alien Skin software, which gives you total control over how you can turn your photograph into “art” by using presets and sliders that produce the effect. I’m really happy with the results and think I might lay out the $99 to purchase the filter set.

How many people can say they have a bus in their backyard?

I don’t know the answer to the above question myself, but I know at least one and they live just south of Crofton, Ky.

I’m always on the lookout for interesting old machines to photograph as part of an ongoing series I’m doing on the subject. Someday I hope to turn my favorite photos into a book on the ones I’ve found fro0m my travels over the years.

I think having a long-term photography project goes a long way in improving ones photography skills and if you’re not currently doing one, I’d encourage you to take one up.

Our photography club is currently running 4 different year-long photography challenges that could easily be a long-term project that anyone that wants to be a better photographer could use to improve their skills and challenge themselves.

It’s not to late to join us and you don’t have to be a paid member of the club as you can participate via our Facebook page. Stop by and pay a visit. I’m the President of the club.

West Kentucky Photography Club on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/westkentuckyphotographyclub/

Our Website
http://www.westkentuckyphotographyclub.org/

Photograph was shot using the HDRpro App and processed in Snapseed.

These two guys were working the Sushi counter at the Ft. Campbell PX when I stopped in to do some grocery shopping. I liked the screen that was around the concession, but it wasn’t quite what I had in mind and so I decided to play around with some of the settings in the Snapseed App to see if I couldn’t find something that was closer to what I had in my minds eye.

After processing the image as I normally do by adjusting the Ambiance and Shadows slider under Tune Image and applying the Drama filter, I played around with the Grunge filter until I achieved the the effect you see here that is more in line of what I wanted. I reminds me of rice paintings I have seen on my many trips to the orient over the years.

I took a photo of the poster advertising the movie “Lone Survivor” which I went to see with my sister and niece in Evansville, Indiana as my iPhone Challenge photo for the day.

It’s the first movie I have gone to see in a very long time where the audience actually applauded at the end, not because of the makers of the film, or even the acting in the film, but because of the story these creative movie makers brought to life.

As a photographer most things that I am engaged in and usually talk about the visuals that I find in my life and the lives of those around me. As a 24-year veteran, this movie really moved me and not wanting to give anything away by bringing up spoilers to the film all I can say is, if you haven’t seen it… you need to!

Today’s iPhone challenge photo is of my great-great nephew Xaiver using his grandmother’s (AKA GiGi’s) iPhone and he’s just a little over two years old!

As many of you know I’ve been working on all the new kids in our family to develop an early affection for the love of taking pictures. Where it will lead only time will tell. I do know that none of them at this stage of the game mind having their pictures taken and as they get older I can only imagine that taking their own pictures, weather professionally or just for fun will be as normal for them as walking. (I hope)

It seems a long time ago, (the early 1990s) when I was in the Air Force and our unit (Combat Camera), where I used my first digital camera (DCS-100) that was a Nikon F3 body that was modified by Kodak to shoot using one of the first sensors (1.3 Megapixels). We were one of the first test sites and the Air Force has been at the forefront of using digital photography ever since then.

It amazes me on how far we’ve come from that first camera. It had this thick cord coming out of the bottom of the camera leading downward to a box that had a preview screen and a whooping 20 megabyte hard drive for storing the photos at a 1.3 megapixels each. As I recall the price of the cameras were somewhere in the range of $20,000.

Now days you can buy a toy camera (that actually takes photos) for $50 that is higher quality than that and has the ability to store hundreds if not thousands of pictures. I can only imagine where the cameras will be, or what they’ll be (like Google Glass, a wearable set of glasses that record photos or video and more) by the time these kids are even in high school. I think there’s exciting times ahead!

Anyway, I’ve gotten away from today’s photo so let’s get back to it.Xaiver was working with the phone as he was getting ready to leave with his mom and was in the hall leading to the front door. I knew that the lighting was going to be very poor as there’s no overhead light there. So when he sat down in a small kids chair and brought the iPhone close to his face, I knew I could capture what I was looking for without using the dreaded flash. I just waited for the light from the phone to illuminate his face, which is what I wanted to emphasize, and then fired off several frames till I got a few that seemed to be fairly sharp and exposed good for his face.

I find that the iPhone does alright in low light situations as long as you keep in mind that it increases the ISO of the camera which also increases noise in the picture. Sometimes this is good and sometimes it’s distracting.

The other thing to keep in mind that in low light without using the flash the camera will use a slow shutter speed so try to keep the camera and the subject steady as possible when making your photo.

Today I processed the photo with a new App I downloaded called Afterlight. I saw some photos done with it by someone else and decided I’d give it a try. It has a lot of nice features. The border was applied using Snapseed.