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.

Having a Fleuriffic Time With the iPhone

iPhone Diva here. The greatest thing about the iPhone (aside from the apps) is that I always have it with me. And so I take photos that I might never have even thought to shoot.

This group of flowers was planted along side the main Hwy 50 here in Lake Tahoe. The Dude and I were walking by and just had to stop and pay homage.

This first shot was made with the app Slow Shutter, for a kind of soft dreamy effect.


These tulips were sketched in Toonpaint and the sketch was combined with the original in DXP. Not exactly sure which blend mode, maybe multiply.


This wider shot of the road tulips really looks painted to me. I sure wish I could remember what apps I used for this. Alas, it may end up being one of a kind.


I went to my local Safeway store to buy some food and had to walk through the flower section. They had some lovely orchids and I shoved my iPhone right into their little faces. The flower manager came over and I thought "Uh oh. I'm in trouble." But no, she was excited about what I was doing and wanted to show me some other blooms that might be fun to shoot. Now that's customer service!!

I optimized the orchid in Photogene (color, levels, sharpness, etc) and framed it with the Crop n Frame app.

Best Straight iPhone Shot Ever!

Digital Diva here with the best straight iPhone shot ever. No photoshop, no cool iPhone apps. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Except maybe supernatural or divine creation having nothing to do with the photographer. The Dude gave a coffee cup to his Diva for Christmas this year that says "Dog Mom" on it and has a ring of paw prints on its inner circumference. I zapped a cup of coffee in the microwave and pulled it out to find this perfect paw print in bubbles on top. When I hollered to the Digital Dude to come look, he gasped and said "Did you get a picture of it?" I did. Proving that the Best Camera truly is the one you have with you. Ahhhhhh, the paws that refreshes.

Through The Looking Glass

Digital Diva here with some questions to ponder. What is our personal creative vision? What themes continually drive our photographic expression? Who are we as artists?

Having just finished a fabulous photo seminar here on Molokai called "Rekindling The Creative Spirit" co-taught by Dewitt Jones, Rikki Cooke, Theresa Airey, and Jonathan Kingston, the Diva may be getting closer to an answer for herself. This annual event fills participants and instructors with inspiration and new techniques/ideas for going further in our photos. We come away rejuvenated; our photography gains new life.

Still, when we examine the themes that continually show up in our image-making, even as we explore new creative options, we may discover clues to an artistic identity; our photo vision if you will.

I gave a slide show for the class combining images from 15 years ago (film, what a concept), digital images from the last year and a half, and more recent iPhone images. All these photo media had distinct commonalities. My unifying themes were and are abstraction, simplicity, and other realities. With "other realities" taking top billing. I've always been captivated by the underlying realities that a camera can see even when we can't. Slow shutter speeds, camera movement, multiple exposure continue to dominate how I "see".

Can you look back and find some of your themes? What attracts you again and again photographically? As Rikki Cooke says, "What's turning your head?"

Here are a couple of iPhone photo art images that turned my head. Or were in my head. Or both.

Livin' in Those Little Latitudes

Digital Diva here and life is heating up in the tropics as I keep playing on my iPhone with Toonpaint, and combining images with the originals in DXP. Here's three more images.

Something fishy is going on here. Oh yeah, the blend mode is difference!

Hula dancing at the seashore on Moloka`i.


Anthurium and ferns.

Tooning Up With Color in Toonpaint

Hi all. Digital Diva back as promised with color added to iPhone Toonpaint images. My favorite method is to use DXP, a double exposure app, and combine the original color image with the Toonpaint black and white. I like using DXP because it has multiple blend modes, which can change the color added from vibrant like the sunflower below...

to just a hint of color as in this pale pink freesia...

to a more half and half blend as in this torch ginger...

to a totally "unreal" but wonderful color image like this inverted vase and flowers using the Difference blend mode in DXP. Just experiment and find out what blend modes work best with with images for you.

At-Tooned to Animals

Digital Diva here. My sister diva, Robin Robertis, introduced me to this cool iPhone app called Toonpaint. And I cannot believe the images it turns out. I shot this insect (large tropical, praying mantis lookalike) at our post office here in Hoolehua, Moloka`i, Hawai`i. It was hanging out in the middle of all the little metal PO Boxes - note numbers next to him/her.


I went on to photograph my pets and get them in Toon. This is our young, handsome chat noir, Frankie, posed on the window sill.

And here is our newest family member, Mele, taking a snooze on the porch. She's what we call a poi dog here in the islands, meaning mixed breed of unknown variety.

Finally, I photographed our "Queen" Po. Po is short for Pomaika`i, which means lucky or blessed in Hawai`ian. Dewitt aka Digital Dude, found her starving and near death on our driveway. As you can see, she's not gone hungry since.

In my next entry, I'll actually show some of the Paint portion of ToonPaint. Wait for it..............
(If you're like me and can't wait, be sure to check out Robin's newest images on my Digital Diva blogsite at iphonediva.com.)

Floral Fixation II

Digital Diva here again. It has now gotten to the point that I can't remember all the apps I've used to create these tropical plant images. I know that Photogene, Photoforge, DXP, and Vihgo were involved to varying degrees. Also EdgePix and Crop N Frame. I just kept piling on and was working so fast I neglected to keep track of the process. I lost myself in the art play. Ultimately, that's a good thing, I think.

Floral Fixation in iPhone Photos

Digital Diva here. I love flowers, especially when you can art them up with iPhone apps. For this shot, I used ArtCamera to invert a shot of pink rose blossoms. then I ran ArtCamera's Picasso filter. Edging/framing and lettering over the photo are from FotoMuse app.

I took a photo of a sunflower head lying on my patio table. (Okay, it was lying there because I put it there, whatever.) Anyway, I optimized it in Photogene with a little extra saturation, ran the Picasso filter in ArtCamera, did edging in either EdgePix (no longer available) or Crop N Frame, then ran the Rusty filter in Vihgo app. Whew!


And finally, took a shot of an amaryllis and arced it in iDroste app. I double exposed that image with the original image of the amaryllis. Then the framing as above - and finally ran the Canvas filter in Vihgo app.

Stay tuned for more of my floral fixation in the future, because I'm surely not done yet! You can find more cool digital art pix from me and my photo buddies on my other site The Digital Diva.

Seeing A Flower Really

"Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time. " quote by Georgia O' Keefe

Digital Diva here - going back to my obsession with this famous artist's flower abstractions. One of the reasons I like to "paint" blooms on the iPhone is to take more time with it, to really "see" them.

Here I've used the GooeyFaces iPhone app on a plumeria blossom and then double exposed the "painted blossom" with the original using the DXP app.

I loved the vibrant colors of this Amaryllis bloom. After painting with GooeyFaces, I finished off the final image with framing using the Photogene app.


I am enamored of ti leaves, especially the pink and green varieties. This shot of ti in my garden was 'mushed' with GooeyFaces, of course, and then framed in Photogene.

Appy New Year!

Digital Diva here. Wishing us all music, memories, and iPhoneography of every kind - have a great New Year's eve and an artistic 2010.



(Apps used were Photogene to tweak photos for color and exposure, DXP to create multiple exposures, and Pic Grunger to put the cracks in the cherub photo.)

Go Antiquing With Your iPhone

Digital Diva here. I love going antiquing with my iPhone. No, I'm not talking about buying furniture here. I love creating an "aged" look to my photos. Fotomuse is a terrific app for this process with it's rough borders and layers.

This first photo I took last week of giant ferns up in the Kamakou rain forest here on Moloka`i. I brought the straight shot into FotoMuse and selected this border and layer with tint to age it.



I shot this tree out at Papohaku Beach on the West end of Moloka`i where the Dude and I had gone to shoot the big waves. The waves were HUGE but they were closing out into total whitewater, so we didn't get many great wave shots after all. Still as long as we have our iPhones we are never at a photographic loss. I turned the tree into a faux infrared with the Camera Bag app. I then used the same border/layer combo in FotoMuse as I used for the ferns. I love the shot and also plan to use it in a future double exposure - its such a great "set waiting to happen" shot.



This photo of a large anthurium blossom with curving ferns I turned into a pencil sketch in Ezimba. I double exposed it with the DXP app with a washed outt photo of ferns in this post. The ferns were actually red and green in color, so the overexposed photo gives some pink and pale green tones. I then brought it into FotoMuse and selected the border. How old can you go???????

Border Line with Ezimba iPhone App

Digital Diva still loving the app Ezimba. Along with myriad special effects, Ezimba features a whole slew of borders - really cool frames for your pix. Using the image from last post, here are three permutations.

This one is called "Border - Raised". I like it.



This wild one is called "Random Groovy Mirror Border" and it's too much fun.



My favorite so far is the first choice in the Borders - it's called simply "Mirror Border"

Lana`i Hawai`i - A Little Slice of Heaven

Digital Diva here. The Dude and I visited the beautiful island of Lana`i just over a week ago. (See Nov. 25 blog post for great iPhone pix video from the Dude of the fabulous Hotel Lana`i.) And as always, we were both making art in our spare moments. Right outside the hotel, looking toward Lana`i City, I shot this iPhone photo. The pathway lined with pineapple plants points to town with the Cooke Island pine trees towering above.

This photo is a record shot - the foreground is dark, shadows blocked up, just not terribly interesting. I can attest that it looked much prettier to my eye.



Luckily, iPhone apps came to the rescue. I used iFlashready three times to open the shadows.


I then ran the HDR filter in Photoforge to recover highlight detail and further open the shadows. I added Vibrance to saturate the image.


I then tried the infrared filter in the Tiffen app Photo FX. (I used Tiffen filters with my film cameras back in the old days - like an old friend showing new tricks.

Next I used PicMix to layer the infrared version on top of the super saturated color version and painted in a little color at about 25% opacity. I like this look - used to do it in Photoshop with my big girl digital camera images.

I was having such a good time, I went back to my saturate, HDR image and oversharpened it for a photorealist painting effect

I then turned it black and white in Photoforge - looks like an engraving with the oversharpening.


I kept fooling around and used Shockmypic on the saturated HDR image for a whole different look.


In Cinema Fx, I used the Egyptian Gold filter on the saturated image.


Last, I used the Color Comic filter found in CinemaFX app for a completely different take on the scene.

And then it was time for breakfast at the Canoes restaurant, where the owner, Fergie, is an iPhone aficionado of the highest order. He posts his daily specials to Twitter and Facebook right from his iPhone every am. We had a blast sharing apps, photos, and iPhone stories. This helped fuel our app - etite. So we ordered and ate the heavenly banana macadamia nut pancakes while we shared.