Sean Duggan Blog

Idea Paths and App Journies

Someone at my Chamber Door  [iPhone 4]
January 26, 2012
(click in the image for a larger version)

I opened wide the door...
Darkness there, and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token...

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I took this photo after my daughter's 5th grade class performed a play about ancient Egypt. The silhouette is their teacher (in long Egyptian robes) saying goodnight from the door to the school auditorium. After playing with the image in a variety of apps, I pondered what the title should be. A good title is often an important part of the creative process for me. It can add to the image and suggest a context or further meaning for a scene.

After wandering down several different conceptual paths searching for a title, for some reason I was reminded of the lines from Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, where the narrator opens wide the door and peers into the darkness, after hearing "a tapping, as of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door."

One of the things I enjoy most about making images with the iPhone is that it offers a very immediate and compact creative experience that is not weighed down by the considerations or extended time commitments that are often a part of images made with more "serious" cameras. In the case of this image, while I am very pleased with the end result, one of the most satisfying parts of the process was exploring the different idea paths in search of a title and finding the thread that led to the poem The Raven, which I had not thought of for a long time.

For some insight into the fairly simple processing "app journey" of this image, see below:

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Here is the original exposure (cropped slightly to the final proportions). Backlighting is always a situation that has the potential for interesting results, so don't shy away from having your iPhone ready to take pictures at night just because you think it's too dark. It may, indeed, be too dark, but you never know when a door will open or a light will come on to create the backlighting that will lead to an intrigueing image.

 

 

 

 

I started out by using LensLight and added the light beams with the White Rays preset. The great thing about this app is that you have full control over the size, rotation, placement and brightness of the effect you choose (the same developer also has a very cool companion app called LensFlare).

Adding the light rays with LensLight (click in the image for a larger version)

 

The next stop on the app journey was Filterstorm, which is one of my bread and butter "go-to" apps. Don't let the name Filterstorm fool you. This is not really a filter app, but more of a Photoshop-type app. You can apply a wide range of color and tonal effects that function much like those in Photoshop. Plus you can use masks to apply the effects to specific areas of the image. That is what I did for this photo. The light rays from Lens Light were showing up on top of the silhouetted figure of the man. I used the Curves feature in Filterstorm to darken down the shadow areas and remove those light rays on the figure. Then I used the masking tools to paint in the adjustments only where I wanted them. I also applied another Curves adjustment and painted in a lightening effect only on the light rays and backlit parts of the image, as well as added some noise to the entire photo.

Applying local adjustments in Filterstorm (click in the image for a larger version)

 

The final stop was Nik Snapseed, which is an incredibly well-designed and very fun app to use. In Snapseed I made the image black & white, added grain, tweaked with the brightness and contrast some more, applied a sepia-flavored grunge look,  and the final rough-edged frame effect.

Final "flavoring" applied in Nik Snapseed (click in the image for a larger version)

 

If you're interestd in this type of creative transformations for your iPhone images, I will be teaching a half day iPhoneography Creative Processing workshop in Sacramento, California in early June. Be sure to Like my Facebook page, add me to your Google circles (links for both are above left) or sign up for my free newsletter (above right) to keep up to date on the details of that class, which will be posted soon.

The Creative Digital Darkroom on the Monterey Peninsula!

Only two weeks left until my next workshop in beautiful Carmel, California. I'll be teaching a weekend class on The Creative Digital Darkroom: Photoshop Beyond the Basics at the Center for Photographic Art on Feb. 11 & 12. The class is filling up but there are still spaces available so sign up soon if your are interested! Click the class title to find out more about this workshop.

Lightroom 4 Public Beta / My eBook is on Sale

Bear River Rocks  [Canon 5D]
January 2, 2010
(click in the image for a larger view)

It's been awhile since I've posted an image for Time Machine Tuesday, so here's one from two years ago (well, two years and one week ago, to be exact). This was taken along one of my favorite trails that is quite close to my house. An 8-minute drive gets you to the river and then after a 10 to 15-minute hike you will arrive at this spot. I've always liked the arrangement of these two rocks. There's a good balance between them. Finding balance, arrangments and designs in the landscape is one of the pleasures of photographing the natural world.

Real World Digital Photography eBook on Sale!

The eBook version of my book Real World Digital Photography is the official eBook Deal of the Week at Peachpit Press and you can snag a copy for only $9.99! This is a really good price, so if you're interested, head on over to Peachpit Press and place your order before the end of day Saturday (PST) January 14th.

Lightroom 4 Public Beta

Adobe announced the Public Beta for Lightroom 4 late last night (download the beta here). This has been all over the blogosphere and social media landscape, shared and re-shared by seemingly everyone, but on the slim chance that you may have missed it, I am mentioning it here.The 4th version of Lightroom has some exciting new features and improvements. There are good overviews and short demo videos posted at a number of places. Here are a few of them:

Lightroom 4 Videos from Adobe's Julieanne Kost

NAPP Lightroom 4 Launch Center

Photoshop Cafe Lightroom 4 Learning Site

Terry White's "What's New in Lightroom 4 (Public Beta)?"

Upcoming Workshops

I am still in the process of scheduling workshops for 2012 but I wanted to mention three that I am really looking forward to:

The Creative Digital Darkroom: Photoshop Beyond the Basics
February 11 — 12, Center for Photographic Art, Carmel, CA

Creative Transformations with Photoshop
June 18 — 22, Madeline Island School of the Arts
Madeline Island, Wisconsin

True North: Photographing the Interpretive Landscape in Iceland
August 12 — 18, with Focus on Nature in Iceland

I also have a half-day iPhoneography workshop coming up in northern California on June 9th. More details coming soon!

 

 

Holiday Leftovers

Parking Lot Christmas Tree  [iPhone 4]
December 29, 2011
(click in the image for a larger version)

Time for the Next Act

I went to the store yesterday evening, just as dusk was falling across the land. The Christmas decorations were still up in all of the shopping center parking lots. As I returned to my car I looked up and saw this tree decoration on the light pole.

It's an odd time, that span of days between Christmas and New Years.  The memory of Christmas is still fresh, but so is the feeling that it's time to get on with it and move on. A new year is just offstage, waiting in the wings, but the decorations and holiday sets linger, until the seasonal stage hands arrive to take them down and pack them away for another 11 months. This week is an intermission of sorts, between the year that is ending and the one that is about to begin. It's time for the next act.

Creative Digital Darkroom Workshop, Feb 11 -12

And, speaking of the next act, my next workshop is coming up soon on February 11 -12 at the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, California. I'll be teaching The Creative Digital Darkroom: Photoshop Beyond the Basics. For a full description of the class, click the title to learn more. There is a discounted price for members of CPA.

Holiday Mirrors

Ornament  [Canon 5D]
December 15, 2008
(click in the image for a larger version)

Today's photograph is from 3 years ago on December 15, 2008. We awoke that day to find everything covered in about 8 inches of snow. That much snow in December is a rarity for us; typically our major snows don't show up until January. This is a double-mirror interpretation of a large snow-covered oak tree in our back yard (you can see the original image at then end of this post).

I love to play around with image mirrors because they can transform a scene into something unexpected and delightfully abstract. Natural forms and architectural subjects work particularly well with this technique. Even if you have a general idea how an image might turn out when the mirror effect is applied, the results are often surprising. For black and white interpretations of bold, graphic subjects on white, such as this oak tree, inverting the image also creates an interesting result.

I thought that the mirrored version of this snowy oak tree looked like a delicate Christmas Tree ornament or a snowflake. Of course, the case could also be made that it also looks a bit like a strange insect, or a neural network in the brain (and nothing says "Christmas" like a neural network in the brain!).

 

The original snowy oak tree photo

 

"Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin" 2012 Calendar

Twelve months of surreal and mysterious images...
(click in the image to see a larger version)

For the fourth year in a row, I am pleased to offer a calendar of my Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin series. It features twelve selectively sepia toned black & white photographs of still lifes in the landscape created with a wooden pinhole camera and medium format black & white film. In addition to eight of my favorites from the series, this year's calendar also features four new images that have not been published before.

You can view a web gallery of the 12 calendar images, see more photos from the series, learn about the project and order a copy by following the link.

The Nature of Your Own Lens

The Lens  [pinhole photograph]
January, 2011 
(click in the image to see a larger version)

This is one of the new images I have been working on for my Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin series. I photographed it last January in the Florida Keys, but only began to work with the negative a few days ago. It will be included in the Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin 2012 calendar, which should be ready to order in a couple of days. This and one other one from the Florida Keys, are the most recent images I have photographed for this long running series. After an 11-month hiatus, it feels really good to be working with it again. I have several ideas for new images and am eager to follow those paths to see where they lead.

I am often asked what this series is about, which is not an easy question to answer, since there is more than one answer. Each image is different and can lead in a a variety of directions, just as different doors will open into different rooms and passages. These photographs are a bit like doorways. What you find once you enter them depends on who you are and what you see. Apropos that thought, and the concept of seeing, here are some musings on The Lens...

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As photographers, lenses are important to us. We see the world through the lenses of our eyes and we create our images with the lens on our camera (the irony in this photograph is that it was made with a wooden pinhole camera that does not have a lens!).

But the idea of a lens is significant beyond the purely photographic associations. A lens focuses light, bringing our attention to specific areas, magnifying some parts while blurring others. Lenses help us see better, farther, and more clearly. A lens can reveal to us that which is hidden beyond the horizon of natural vision, showing us things we cannot see with our own eyes. Our perception of the world and our journey through it is shaped by the lens of our past experiences, deeply held beliefs, future hopes, dreams, and the river of emotions that courses through us.

One of the most significant concepts that influences my experience with photography, both in creating and viewing images, was expressed perfectly by the photographer and philosopher MInor White when he wrote that "One should not only photograph things for what they are, but for what else they are".

At the most basic level, this image is both a still life and a landscape, a photograph of a lens at the edge of the sea. But beyond that there are other levels. What you see, in this photograph or in any photograph, will depend upon who you are and the nature of your own lens.

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See more of the Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin