Photo of the Day Feature at Moderniphoneographer.com

It's always nice to be recognized for our work.  Back in March I submitted a photo to moderniphoneographer.com and was really pleased when I was notified that it would be featured today on their site as iPhotograph of the Day.

If you'd like to submit your own photo you can click here.

Pixelapprs.com Feature

There are a lot of venues for viewing mobile photography but Pixelapprs.com features a beautifully curated gallery of images rather than allowing uploads. I am honored to have my Portrait of a Man selected.  To submit your image for consideration you can click here.

You Are Invited to the Story of the Creative Exhibit Opening Night

A few weeks ago I purchased a premium membership at see.me. Last week I got notice that three of my photographic artworks will be part of a digital display at The Story of the Creative exhibit in New York City. This is an open invitation to anyone in the NY area. The exhibit will run through September 10th, so if you're in the area, please stop by and have a look!

The Whole Story - Photo by Jeremy Willingham

Recently I had to think about discontinuing my blog due to business and family commitments, but after some encouragement from my readers, I decided to keep going while cutting back a bit on the frequency of the posts.

Here with another installment of The Whole Story is a photo by Jeremy Willingham.  What lies beneath? Keep reading to find out!  If you'd like to submit your own photo to be featured, you can find the details here.

The Photograph

The Whole Story

This photo was taken as a memorial to document the passing of my right hand man, my iPhone4. As a predominantly nature photographer who works on or near the beach, I am drawn to places like this. The ocean was not as rough as seen in this photo the day of his demise, so I figured I'd try to capture a few splash shots. After a few shots that weren't satisfying enough for me, I decided to venture out a little further on to the rocks. They looked dry to the eye but I soon learned the age old lesson that looks can be deceiving. As I stepped across the gap between the rocks, my left foot went out in front of me like a cartoon character stepping on a banana peel. In my attempt to break my fall I let go of my phone and watched it go flying and smash onto the rocks, which sent it hurdling in the air again before landing in the bottom of the rocks as another wave came and swept it away. I yelled at myself as there was nothing I could do to save my friend and I will carry the guilt with me for letting him go. The only solace I find in this is that he died doing what we loved to do together. Capturing the beauty of the world around us. Rest in peace my friend.

The Photographer

Jeremy Willingham - I live on the south shore of the eastern end of Long Island, NY with three awesome kids and the love of my life. Being just minutes away from the Atlantic ocean and my job as a land surveyor I spend a great deal of time at the beach. As can be seen through my Instagram account. 

My passion for photography started when I became involved with Instagram. After discovering what amazing work was being created with the same iPhone I was holding in my hand everything changed. It got me to truly open my eyes to the beautiful world around me instead of taking it all for granted. I'll be forever grateful to Instagram for bringing this new found passion into my life.

Find Jeremy:   500px / iPhoneArt / Facebook / ViewBug / Tadaa / Streamzoo

Federica Corbelli Interview at WeAreJuxt.com

Please check out an interview I did for wearejuxt.com with the fabulous Federica Corbelli!  Click on the image below to read.

Peripheral Visions Of @lubaluft

"I am inspired by subtle things that my peripheral vision intercepts, sometimes I see places or objects and feel like they are trying to tell me something about them, and I am the only one that can talk on their behalf." - Federica Corbelli

Get to know a little more about Federica and her craft, check out this interview conducted by Geri @gericentonze here.

Painterly Mobile Art Monday–No. 7

This feature will now appear only every other week so it’s much harder to select only a few images!  Please have a look at the Painterly Mobile Art Flickr Group to see all of the wonderful entries and if you love editing in a painterly way with your mobile photographs, please join us!

The Grifter by Roger Guetta (above)




Coloured Tears by Sarah Jarrett (above)




The Chip Connoisseur by Mike Bowers (above)

Χάρυβδις ~ Kharybdis by Chad Rankin (above)

Mr. Mister by Clint Cline (above)

A jolly colourful chap by Vivi Hanson (above)

Unnamed Nude by Aldo Pacheco (above)

Marching to the Beat of a Different Drummer by Andrea Koerner (above)

The canal at Vaugines by Solly Avenue (above)

We Need More by Jun Yamaguchi (above)

Gift to His Bride by Anne Highfield (above)

At the barn dance by bgbeve (above)

Shake the Disease (version 2) by Michelle Robinson (above)

Untitled by Jane Fiala (above)

Fire sunset at the lake by Emanuel Faria (above)

To a place of our own justification by Brett Chenoweth (above)

Whistle While You Walk by pgb161 (above)

Flowers by Kerstin Frank (above)

Song of Childhood 5 / Lied Vom Kindsein 5 by Bob W.

Untitled by Gianluca Ricoveri (above)

Eitan Shavit–Capturing Everyday Life in Israel

Eitan Shavit captures everyday life in subtle muted tones.  Each image looks as though it were resurrected from an old photo album rather than snapped in the 21st century.  Below is my interview with this talented mobile photographer.

Pain (above)

Geri:  What is your name and where do you live? 
Eitan:  I’m Eitan Shavit, from Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Geri:  How did you get started with mobile photography?
Eitan:  Before joining Instagram towards the end of 2011, I just used the app to capture photos on my 1^st generation iPhone, apply some filters and upload them later to my Facebook account. iPhone one’s camera was simply horrible, so I was quite disappointed with the results and thought it wasn’t going anywhere.  When Facebook purchased Instagram, the buzz reached me, and only at that time I realized it had a real strong social network feature, and dived right back in.
Last year I've watched an amazing video course Koci Hernandez made for Lynda.com about iPhoneography.  I remember watching it and kept thinking to myself: Hey, this is exactly how I do it!  I was an iPhoneographer before even knowing what it was!  

The man who knew too much (above)

Cashew (above)

Geri:  What device do you use? 
Eitan:  Currently using iPhone 3GS with IOS 6.1, but will be upgrading really soon.
Geri:  Do you have a traditional photography or art background?
Eitan:  I studied photography for two years in art school, but never completed the whole course of studies, as I felt it wasn’t contributing to my knowledge the way I thought it would.

Dark Entries (above)

Self Portrait (above)

Geri:  Who or what inspires your work? 
Eitan:  I think my main inspiration is the Cinema. I had quite a vast collection of movies on VHS tapes, with lots of Black and White movies (mainly foreign): Bergman, Bunuel, Fellini, Kieslowski and others, but also stylistic directors like Emir Kustarica, Peter Greenaway, David Lynch and others, in color.  I’ve observed and absorbed camera movements, camera angles, use of light and shadows, not to mention the great stories, acting and directing that came as a bonus.
And there’s of course the endless stream of images I’ve studied and now on Instagram that opened my mind and eyes to new, exciting things.  Instagram is full of inspiration and the creativity and imagination of the users is overwhelming.

In the Neighborhood (above)

The art of leafing (above)

Geri:  Your work is mainly in black and white.  Do you shoot in black and white with an app like Hueless or do you make the conversion afterwards?
Eitan:  At first all my photos were in color, and every now and then I would use Snapseed to convert some to B&W.  After seeing the works of Koci Hernandez and Elif Suyabatmaz with Hipstamatic, I’ve decided to have a go with it, although it always has intimidated me.  My first Hipstamatic session was at one of the beaches of the Dead Sea.  I was so impressed with the results, that since then I cannot use any other app for taking pictures (with some exceptions for color photos and then I use my favorite camera app 6X6).

Misbaha is a string of prayer bids which is traditionally used by Muslims to keep track of counting in tasbih – source Wikipedia (above)

Prayers (above)

Geri:  Is there a story behind your image The Blind Piano Player – it is very powerful!
Eitan:  In 2012, major cities around the world held a festival called “Play Me, I’m Yours”, where lots of pianos were placed in public parks, bus shelters and train stations, outside galleries and markets etc.  The pianos were made available for any member of the public to play and enjoy.  One of those pianos was at the park near my house, and I had the opportunity to pass by when the woman in the picture was playing. I took a few photos from different angles, and didn’t notice she was blind, as her eyes were closed during the whole performance.  Only when she left, I realized she was blind, and that made the whole event even more special.

The blind piano player (above)

Geri:  What are your favorite apps for editing your images? 
Eitan:  Snapseed, PicBoost, ColorMania, Alt Photo, Camera Awesome, Laminar, AfterFocus.
Geri:  Do you do all your editing on your phone, or do you prefer a tablet?
Eitan:  I’m editing only on the iPhone, but now that my wife has an iPad, I’m planning a takeover!

The Fisherman (above)

The Thin White Line (above)

Geri:  Please share a little bit about your editing process.
Eitan:  Every single photo is edited differently, that’s why I don’t ever remember how the process went. Luckily I save all the edited images, so I can figure out the process by the way the photos are sorted. It usually starts with Snapseed and then it goes to one or more of the apps mentioned above. If I’m not happy with an edit, I will try another one and another one until I’m satisfied, and then I’ll compare all the edits and choose the best one. It’s now obvious, from my experience, that when I’m not satisfied with a photo uploaded to Instagram or EyeEm, it will be my most popular one.

Spots on the bottom of the earth (above)

Turned to Stone (above)

Geri:  Have you ever exhibited your work?  If not, any plans to do so?
Eitan:  I’ve had some photos exhibited locally and not long ago at the Format Festival 2013 in Derby, UK, but not a full exhibition.  I’m planning a joint exhibition with my wife.  She’s a poet and lyricist, and we’re planning an exhibition of her poems side by side with my photographs. 
Geri:  Is there anything else you'd like to add?
Eitan:  I’m a constant observer. My eyes are my camera, and now the iPhone is the film that allows me to capture what I see.  This is so futuristic when you realize the iPhone only exists for 5 years and Instagram just over two years!  Thank You Geri for being so supportive and for your endless contribution to the iPhoneography community!

The Great Gig in the Sky Part II (above)

Find Eitan:  EyeEm / Instagram / Facebook / Flickr / About Me
All images in this feature are copyrighted property of Eitan Shavit published on iART CHRONiCLES with the consent of the artist. 

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Create an HDR Effect Using One Image

I have been promising a tutorial on achieving an HDR effect using only one image – here it is!  For normal HDR processing, you need to capture an underexposed and overexposed photo of the same subject preferably using a tripod or other stabilizing device and then combine them using an HDR app or software on your computer.
The method shown here, although it involves a few steps, requires only one photo.
I started out with the great photo on the left of a a vintage truck by morgueFile photographer Mary Vogt.  If you haven’t visited morgueFile there are 1000’s of photos with terms listed on how they can be used.  The image on the right (below) is the “after” photograph.

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Step 1
Open your image in Photoforge (I sure hope you already have this great app because it is no longer available in the USA App Store since it was purchased by Yahoo!)   Choose Exposure adjustment and lighten the image to about +1.50 and Save it to your Camera Roll.  The actual amount of adjustment will vary with individual photos.

Step 2
Using the History button (looks like a clock) on the bottom tool menu go back to the original image and adjust the Exposure again.  This time decrease the exposure to about –1.90 (this will vary with individual images).  Basically what you’re trying to do is get the details that were blown out in the original by purposely reducing the exposure.  Save this version to your camera roll.

Step 3
Open up iCamera HDR app (I see this app is no longer available in the USA App Store – not sure what’s up!) Tap Load a Photo and pick the overexposed version that you saved to your camera roll.  The app will then give you a choice between HDR photo or Single Photo.  Select HDR.  You will then be prompted to Please select another photo.  Choose the darker version.  iCamera HDR will then align the images and process them.

Step 4
When the two images are combined into one image, select Tone Enhancer on the bottom menu and slide the Strength to about 80.  Leave the Fill Light set to 0.  Proceed to Step 5.

Step 5
On the menu to the right of your image, select Brightness and adjust to –30.

Step 6
Adjust Contrast between 2-10

Step 7
Under White Balance, adjust the Temp slider to 10 to slightly “warm” the image.

Step 8
Adjust Saturation up between 3-10

Step 9
Adjust Blur/Sharpening up to about 10

Step 10
Save the iCamera HDR adjusted image to your camera roll

Step 11
Open the iCamera HDR version in Filterstorm and under Filters select Vignette.  Make sure Circular Vignette is chosen.  Adjust the Vignette Radius to 0 (the whole image will turn black).  Then bump the Vignette Brightness slightly to –60 (if you want a darker finished image you can leave the Brightness at –70). Click the checkmark at the bottom of the Vignette adjustment to apply changes.

Step 12
Back to the Filters menu in Filterstorm and this time select Curves.  Adjust the Curves up until the image is brighter without losing the contrast.  There is no exact setting for this – you just have to eyeball it.  Rather than tapping the checkmark, this time we are going to mask the brightness into the image so tap Mask instead.

Step 13
To Mask in the brightness, select the paintbrush icon on the right and a menu will pop up at the bottom left.  Adjust the brush settings.  I used a Diameter of about 150, Softness 100% and Opacity around 28%.  Start to brush in where you want the highlights.  I brushed several areas on the truck, the clouds and a few in the grass.  Click the checkmark to apply changes.

Step 14
Save the Filterstorm edited version to your camera roll.

Step 15
Open the Filterstorm version in PS Express and make an adjustment to Reduce Noise (setting to about 40) and tap the checkmark to apply changes.  Then Sharpen to about 20 and tap the checkmark to apply changes.  Reducing the noise and then sharpening sounds like a contradiction, but it works.  Save this to your camera roll.

Step 16
Open the PS Express version in Snapseed and adjust Brightness, Contrast, Saturation and Structure to your liking.  Resulting image shown below.

Step 17
Still in Snapseed I used the Selective Adjust Tool and added points where shown to adjust the Brightness, Contrast and Saturation to really make the truck “pop”.

Step 18
The final step in Snapseed was to apply Style 2 of the Vintage filters.  It’s only fitting for this vintage truck, right?! 

Below is the final edited image.  If you try this tutorial and post your results to Instagram or EyeEm, please tag me on them so I can see your results.  My username on both venues is @gericentonze.  I hope to see your work!


The images below were processed using similar steps