Latest Works - Flowers

Latest Works - On My Travels

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Hoi An, Vietnam

Hong Kong

Day 232 of 365 Day Challenge

I went with a friend of mine to Repulse Bay today to walk her dog and have a cuppa. I had no idea that at the end of the beach there is a temple with dozens of statues. Wow. I wanted to go bananas and take loads of photos but just took a few and loaded it into my memory bank as a place to return to to have a good photo session.

However, there was one female statue that really resonated with me. Peaceful and graceful. So I took a photo and when I got home I decided to make it look like an old vintage photograph. I used an app for this called My Sketch which I don't often use because it insists on resizing your photo which makes it frustrating to blend back with other versions of the photo. I must find a good sketch app that I like which enables the use of a square photo. I'm beginning to think the best way to do it is to blend a photo with a sketchy texture. Anyhow, I managed it and loved the result.

Apps: Hipstamatic, Snapseed, iColorama, My Sketch, PaintCan, Marksta

Day 231 of 365 Day Challenge

I have two parks that I walk through on my various journeys around Hong Kong and it is a while since I walked through the Botanical Gardens. Lots of greenery but not a lot of flowers that I haven't already photographed. However, there were some pretty red flowers that the sun was shining on so took a couple of pics and messed around with one of them while I drank my coffee at the peaceful Fringe Club.

Apps: Hipstamatic, Snapseed, iColorama, Enlighten 

Day 230 of 365 Day Challenge

Today I only came back with a photo of the inside of one of my regular coffee shops and frankly it wasn't very good so I had to do something to spice it up a bit so I cropped the photo into pieces, and applied grunge on them and then took them into a slightly annoying (because of the ads) but useful app 'Shake ur Life' and created a collage.

Apps: Snapseed, Shake ur Life

Original Photo

Day 229 of 365 Day Challenge

What can you do with just a couple of leaves on the ground?

Apps: Hipstamatic, Snapseed, iColorama, Retouch 

Original photo:

Day 228 of 365 Day Challenge

This was the reflection of a building in a building!

Apps: Hipstamatic, Snapseed, iColorama

Original photo:

Day 83 of 365 Day Challenge

I'm still playing around with my iPhone 6 telephoto lens and took a picture of a little sparrow.  It wasn't entirely focussed so I took it into SketchClub and traced the edges in black. Once I had done this I took the picture into Repix and posterised it. Then I took a texture of mine into iColorama and used the Brushes>Artist option to make a painterly background. I then used this as a background and used Brushes>Bound to bring in the bird and then the background at a lower opacity. I textured it slightly in Stackables and then back into iColorama to add a border.

Day 81 of 365 Day Challenge

I have been messing around with the new Enlighten app which is supposed to be an all round photo editor on the iPhone (later to be introduced on the iPad). I like it as a possible competitor to Snapseed but without layers and good selection tools it still doesn't fulfil the 'all-round' category for me. However, it does have some neat options that aren't available elsewhere.

Photo taken with Hipstamatic and manipulated in Enlighten:

Day 79 of 365 Day Challenge

I'm back in Hong Kong and took my friend to see the Chi Lin Nunnery and Nan Lian Gardens. I find the Nunnery and Gardens very peaceful and it was a relaxing visit.  Here is a picture of the Pavilion of Absolute Perfection in the middle of the gardens.

Apps: Hipstamatic, Retouch, Stackables, Snapseed

Day 67 of 365 Day Challenge

I went through the Botanical Gardens in Hong Kong today and all of a sudden it looks like spring! Lots of different flowers that I hadn't seen before so I was spoilt for choice. So here is today's picture and a couple more that I took all with the Hipstamatic app on the iPhone 6:

Some others:

Day 22 of 365 Day Challenge

I went to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne this morning and took this lovely picture of a little boy and his mother. Can you guess how I got the shot?

Well, in the middle of the entrance hall they had this wonderful bronze roundabout and as I was watching I realised that the people were beautifully reflected in the centre column. This little boy was smiling at his own reflection and I managed to catch it. I only realised a little later how well the shot had come out so I looked around and luckily found the mother who gave me permission to use the shot. Thanks! Email me and I will send you the shot if you would like it.

I used Snapseed to crop it and enhance it slightly. Then took it into Retouch to remove some objects and finally the light created a natural division so in Pixlr (splash option) I removed the colour on the left hand side which emphasised it even more. This must be one of my favourite shots of all time.

Day 19 of 365 Day Challenge

Silk Ball

Snapseed, iColorama, Repix, Artomation, Stackables

Day 18 of 365 Day Challenge

Snapseed, Repix, iColorama

Day 17 of 365 Day Challenge

Going home via the Mid-Levels Escalator on Hong Kong Island, I had my iPhone at the ready for any unexpected shots and as I got to one street level there were a group of people dressed in costumes at the pub called the Yorkshire Pudding. I took a photo from a short distance but as I came up level with them, the chap dressed as a lion turned around and growled at me. Well, like I'm gonna lose an opportunity like that?? Not. So I got one snap before carrying on and although I got some good shots today it just has to be the shot of the day. Just shows you - you always need to have your iPhone camera ready!

Taken with Camera+ and then into Snapseed for cropping and to apply a grunge effect:

Day 16 of 365 Day Challenge

I have been busy indoors all day today and I sudden realised, oh no, have forgotten to go out to get a photo today! So it's back to the challenge of doing still life:

Snapseed, iColorama, AremaC

Olloclip Macro Lens iPhone 6

I have never done macro photography before but have been dying to do it for a long time so was very excited to learn that I could get a macro lens for my iPhone 6. After doing my usual research I decided to go for the Olloclip 4-in-1 which has a fisheye, wide angle, and 2 macro lenses all in one. I haven't tried the other two lenses yet because I am really interested in the macro lenses.

Well, what fun and the results are superb. It requires a very steady hand and a tripod is obviously the best but none of these were taken with a tripod and although it sometimes takes a couple of attempts it's not that difficult. You do have to play with them to get used to how far away you have to be from the subject but then the results are astonishing. At first I used the Olloclip app that you can use with it but frankly I found the native camera app and the other camera apps that I have like Camera+ or even Hipstamatic much easier to use.

This first picture of a grasshopper was a little boring so I jazzed it up on my iPad using Repix, iColorama, and Snapseed.

The next shot was taken using the Hipstamatic camera app. It's actually a tiny flower about half a centimeter in size:

Jane + Ina's 1982

The final pictures have had no processing except reduction in size and metadata:

Poinsettia Stamen

Piece of Coral from the Beach

Cicarda Beetle Head

Bug on the Beach

Who would think you could do all this with an iPhone!

Hipstamatic and the iPhone 6

Hipstamatic is an iPhone camera app which applies filters to the pictures while you are taking them to give them a vintage film look. There are all sorts of combinations of camera and film. Some of the cameras and film come standard with the app but most you need to purchase as packs.

So I decided to buy the app and get a couple of the combinations after reading the June 2014 issue of the Mobiography Magazine which was a Hipstamatic special edition. By the way this is a great magazine especially if you are starting off in mobile photography. Lots of help and tips and inspiration.

I have to say that there are quite a lot of filters that I don't like and I read a lot of the recommendations on the Mobitog forum before buying some of the packs. Unfortunately the makers sometimes only have the packs available for a limited time which I find quite irritating as some of the ones I wanted are not available at the moment. I am sure it is to force you to buy others. Don't get sucked into buying them all. It really isn't necessary and you will probably find you only use 25% of them.

It was fascinating using the filters while you are shooting. You really need to try them out and get a feel. Some I really didn't like and others were good in some instances but not in others.  However, I got some stunning shots that really don't require any further manipulation at all. The titles show the camera and film combinations. Apart from reducing the size and adding metadata only the last picture was slightly enhanced in Snapseed:

Jane + Ina's 1982

John S + Ina's 1969

John S + Ina's 1969

Helga Viking + Ina's 1969

Loftus + DC

John S + Ina's 1969

John S + Ina's 1969

Dog Lovers

I'm a real sucker when it comes to taking pictures of dogs. I was sitting outside a trendy cafe today and next to me was a lovely French lady with her two dogs but I didn't realise when I first sat down that it was going to be such a great location.

This was because anybody walking past who was a dog lover couldn't resist smiling at her lovely boxer and the little chap wrapped in a blanket on the chair. I asked her if she would mind if I took a picture of her dogs and whipped up this quick dog portrait for her in iColorama:

'Animal Attraction'
In the meantime I propped up my iPad on a reading stand and managed to catch some great pictures of passers by. I incorporated some of the ladies to create this picture. The apps I used were Procamera, Snapseed, Superimpose, Laminar Pro and iColorama.

Animal Attraction