Dude Moving to Facebook & Diva On iPhone Diva

Dear Friends,

Digital Dude here. It's been a long time since I've posted. I apologize. Two things have happened. First, I've been made part of a Facebook group called Iphoneography (there are many of these) where folks post their iPhone shots. Hugely creative group and I'm learning like crazy. Unfortunately, it is a closed group so I can't ask you all to come join (wish I could). This group has taken much of my time and pulled me away from Digital Diva, Digital Dude.

Second, I've started posting my iphone photos on MY Facebook page almost daily. I don't go into the technical side there but I am putting up a LOT of images.

So, for all of you who have followed me here, go friend me on Facebook and follow me there. If you have questions on technique, just add a comment or shoot me and email and I'll answer.

Thank you all for your support. I look forward to seeing you on Facebook.

Pix for today -- Two shots with ProHDR. Blended back on itself in Multiply Blend mode in IRIS. Then painted in Artista Oil and blended with original in IRIS. Final tweaks in FilterStorm. Enjoy!

Digital Diva here. I will continue to post on iPhone Diva (iphonediva.com) and still welcomes submission from all her iPhone buddies. I am so excited to share all the wonderful things I've learned the last couple months on iPhoneography. Get ready for Mr. Toad's wild ride. To see new pix and my latest app review, click here.

The Bare Bones of iPhone Photography

Hey there, Digital Diva here. One of my favorite artists is Georgia O'Keeffe. I've done some iPhone photos of abstracted flowers as homage to her paintings where I use Gooey Faces to "melt" the blossoms into pure shapes.

So when I came across this cow skull nailed to a post at Hui Hoolana during a recent photo seminar, it was all over.

Here's the straight photo; busy background, tilted awkwardly, not too interesting. Yet.
Straightened the skull in Photogene. Blurred out the background in Photoforge. Double exposed with abstract color pattern in DXP.
Sepia in Tiffen Cool FX, Double expose in DXP with background of abstracted lines.
Sketchmee? Tiffen Cool FX black and white.
Painted background to rust color and added border in EdgePix (sadly no longer available.)
Lightened, toned and bordered in VintageScene app.
And my favorite done in Vintage Scene with a little embossing of the skull itself done in TouchUp.

High Dynamic Range from PRO HDR app

Digital Diva here. I just can't believe what some of these apps can do (along with the iPhone herself). The Dude and I were walking through a Sedona, Arizona canyon a couple months back. We came upon one of those impossible lighting situations that is now possible thanks to the great HDR apps.

By tapping on a given spot on your iPhone, you can tell it where to focus and where to figure exposure. So for the first photo I tapped on the highlight in the far canyon wall that was harshly lit. So you can see that but not much else. For the second shot, I tapped on the dark shadows in the creek area but the highlights then blew out. Two really poor exposures overall, because there's just too many stops of exposure to hold it.

Enter PRo HDR app and the third photo shows the combined HDR photo. I added a little warmth, sharpness, and saturation in Photoforge and Iris apps. (I also like TrueHDr app for some images - just a trial and error approach seems to work for some images.)

Monet In Moloka`i

Digital Diva here. We just finished a fabulous week long seminar on our home island, See The Light taught by the Digital Dude himself, Dewitt Jones, with Jonathan Kingston, and Rikki Cooke. Of course, my iPhone got as much workout as my other cameras. A tasty new app the Dude told me about called MobileMonet has brought new light to some old favorite locations and subjects. For more about this past week's photo extravaganza, check out Jonathan's blog; The Nomadic Photographer.

Digital Diva here. Whew, the Dude and I have been traveling and just enjoying the beauty everywhere we go. We went to Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite and gave our Digital cameras a workout. I almost forgot to use my iPhone! But I did snap a few, and outside of a little Photogene optimizing, I left them alone. So unlike me. Here's a little taste of "what I did on my summer vacation".

HDR On The Prairie at Ballyneal

Digital Diva here with a travelogue piece on Ballyneal Golf Club. On a recent trip to Colorado, two hours outside of Denver on a magic golf course in the middle of nowhere (which is really SOMEWHERE special) the Dude and I played golf with 4 other dear photographer friends. And of course, documented the experience with our phones. And the Dude went full on HDR.

HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography has a specific look to it - sometimes I like it; sometimes I think it looks over the top. Still, I like when we can make the iPhone and other cameras "see" as much as our eyes do.

Dewitt used mostly True HDR app to put two exposures together. He tapped the phone in the shadows to open up detail and then tapped the phone on a highlight to expose properly for it. The resultant two images worked not at all until combined in True HDR.

(And news flash, I hear the new OS for iPHone is due out soon - which will have HDR capability built into the OS. Woo - hoo. Can't wait to try it.)








And if you want to see some really beautiful images by professional photographers Dick Durrance and Sue Drinker, check out the Ballyneal site.

Vintage Seen

Digital Diva here. One of my new favorite apps is called Vintage Scene. It allows for all kinds of grungifying to antique your iPhone photo art. This first shot is of Smileys Bar in Bolinas CA. It lends itself perfectly to this aging technique.


This was a relatively crappy shot of a tree with sun starring through it; was all blocked up and I opened the shadows and decreased the contrast in Photoforge, creating a crappy low contrast shot. Ah, but all is not lost. I knew when I took it that it would make a great antique looking image.

My handsome, talented son, Brian Kavanaugh Jones as he photographed Lake Tahoe, and I photographed him. No, this is not 1954, it was a couple of weeks ago.
Here in Lake Tahoe, a group of us have a picnic on the beach every Tuesday night. This forces us to go to the beach, because no matter where you live, it's easy to forget to partake of the great places we live unless of course we have company. After sunset, we spotted the M.S. Dixie paddlewheeler boat cruising across the lake. A perfect subject for grunging - it seems like it is from another century.

Finally, the Ahwahnee Hotel's dining room in Yosemite is as gorgeous and timeless today as it was when it opened in 1927.