One of the reasons I love to carry my iPhone with me all the time is because otherwise I wouldn’t have pictures like this one, because I probably wouldn’t have my D800 with me as most stores seem to get upset when you come in with a professional camera, but usually could care less when it comes to a cell phone camera. This is a shot of Damion at Ft. Campbell Commissary as we were checking out today. He’s gone with me several times before, but today as we were waiting in line he noticed for the first time the duct work up in the ceiling and was very fascinated by them.

When out with your children, keep an eye out for those moments like this that make for another great memory.

Shot with my iPhone 5s with the standard camera and post processing was done in Snapseed.

Sometimes you plan and setup to wait for a picture… and you wait, and wait, and wait. That’s how it was with my plans to photograph a CSX Maintenance of Way train that was going to pick up the old rail that was replaced through downtown Madisonville, Ky on the CSX Henderson Subdivision. It’s really an interesting process to watch, but there was a problem with a connector that attaches to the old rail and by the time they got the problem worked out they decided to put the train into the yards at Atkinson in Madisonville for the night. So, this is my picture of the train and for the day! Look real close and you can see the speck of the train way down the tracks. Sometimes that’s how it happens.

Photo was shot with my iPhone 5s with the Hipstamatic App using the John S lens and Ina’s 1969 film.

Well, they’ll always be girls to me no matter how old or how many kids they have. This is a photo from today of my nieces Tracy and Ashley with their daughters, Journey and Elaina. The moms are actually my great-nieces and their daughters are my great-great nieces, and that’s a lot of greats. Anyway, this picture came about today when their mom, my niece Jeanne, wanted a picture of all her grand-kids and try as I may this afternoon Damion, the oldest just wasn’t in a picture taking mood (really needed a nap) and so while I shot some with my D800 I did a few with my iPhone and this is the one I like the best. I shot it with Hipstamatic, but I didn’t really care for the square crop and so I cropped in Photoshop during the post processing.

I used the Lowy lens and Claunch 72 Monochrome film and used Topaz Adjust to add a little bit of soft blur.

There’s been a lot of activity by maintenance crews along the Henderson Subdivision of the CSX railroad through downtown Madisonville, Ky and I’ve been working on capturing some of the crews at work. This is a shot of one of many welders that were working on welding rails as part of the track upgrades through the area. I shot several photos of him working on a section of rail, but when he leaned over to use a bar to adjust a catch basin for the molten metal use to seal the joint between the track and the crossing I knew I had my shot for the day.

Photo was shot with my iPhone 5s with the Hipstamatic app with the Libatique 73 lens and Ina’s 1969 film. Post processing was done in Photoshop.

Today after church we stopped at sis and Damion’s favorite after church eating place called Silver Star. Damion loves the grilled cheese sandwiches. Me being the photographer I am was taking pictures of him as he was eating when all of a sudden he looks to his right and goes Ooooo! We’d been eating for a few minutes and he had just realized that there was a little girl sitting in a high chair in the booth next to us. Of course they talked back and forth in that secret baby-talk language for a short time before he went back to eating. Sometimes pictures just happen, of course it helps to capture those moments when they do. By the way, in this pose, doesn’t he look like Spanky in Our Gang?

Shot with my iPhone 5s with the Hipstamatic App with the Clauch72 film and Lowy lens. No post processing.

When photographing the daily life of your, or someone else’s children, pay attention and try to get details of the little things in their life. I captured this age old scene, but one often overlooked when it comes to photos, of my niece Elaina, totally wrapped up in the tag of one of her toys. Capturing things such as this make for great memories when looked back on later in life.

Photo was made with my iPhone 5s and post processing was done using Photoshop CS6 and Topaz.

When looking for things to photograph you shouldn’t overlook details in things around you as you might pass up a nice photo such as this door on the old Louisville and Nashville Railroad Depot in Madisonville, Ky. This was the door where the freight used to be stored and it made for a nice detail photo today.

Photo was made with my iPhone 5s using the Hipstamatic App with Claunch 72 Monochrome film with the Lowy lens. Post processing was done in Topaz and Photoshop 6.

Today I was given the honor of photographing the funeral of retired Army, Lt. Col. Donald Laffoon, at his son Donald Jr.’s request. I found it a very humbling experience.

I first photographed and met Army, Lt. Col. Laffoon in August of 2013 at his home in Madisonville, Ky, while working on a series of portraits I’ve been doing on veterans from Hopkins County.

He entered service at the age of 18 in December of 1943 and served until August 1971, 28 years later. He saw combat during World War II, Korea and Vietnam. During World War II he served in Germany and during his first tour in combat as a corporal he was the point man that led a patrol all the way to the Eagles Nest, Hitler’s home in 1945. He was truly a member of “The Greatest Generation.”

Among his many military honors are the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart Meritorious Service Medal, World War II Victory Medal, Korean Service Medal with five Campaign Stars, and the Vietnam Service Medal with three Campaign Stars.

He fought and served his country, not for fame or recognition, but because he felt it was the right thing to do. What better legacy could a father leave for his sons. The world is a better place because he was in it.

Photo was taken with the iPhone 5s and post processed using Photoshop CS6.

I just left the AT&T store after upgrading to the iPhone 5s and was taking my sister home when we crossed over the railroad tracks here in Madisonville, Ky and I saw that CSX Maintenance of Way crews were out in force starting to upgrade the tracks through town and redo the crossings. I almost made my sister wait as I stopped and shot my first pictures with the 5s, it’s not like she’s had to do it before, but she only lived a couple blocks from where the work was going on. After dropping her off I made my way back to the parking lot of the newspaper where I used to work and I captured this photo for today’s challenge. I’ve had a love of trains and railroads ever since I can remember. Not sure where it started, but I do know when I was little and we lived in Fletcher, Ohio the steam trains ran just down the street from our house. I like to think that’s where it started. Anyway, if you have something that you totally enjoy then that’s probably what you should be taking pictures of.

So far, I’m in love with the quality from the iPhone 5s. The camera is higher in resolution than the 4s and that’s the reason I upgraded mostly. I understand the video quality is outstanding also, but I’ve not used it as of yet.

Photo was shot with the iPhone 5s with the built-in camera and post processing was done in Photoshop CS6 and Topaz.

I just couldn’t resist this photo. I was out today with a friend and we were waiting for a train to photograph at a crossing in Kelly, Ky and I had noticed these porta-johns sitting in a field when we arrived and kinda thought they were interesting from a visual standpoint. However, when my friend payed a visit due to a nature call, I knew I had my picture for the day.

Photo was shot with my iPhone 4s using the Hipstamatic App and Claunch 72 Monochrome Film with the Lowy lens. Post processing was done in Photoshop with some dodging, burning and sharpened using Topaz.

We had a board meeting after church today and Gracie took care of Elaina for most of the meeting. I’m not really sure which one was enjoying it the most though. One of the things I really like about my iPhone is that it is always with me, so when pictures like this present themselves I can capture them. People often ask me what is the best camera to use and my reply is always, the one you have with you. Even if the quality isn’t perfect and perhaps you can’t blow it real big, but at least you’ll have a picture to capture that special moment in time such as this one with the two girls smiles!

Photo was shot with the built-in camera on my iPhone 4s and post processing was done in Photoshop.

You just really never know where you’ll find a picture. Today my sister and I went to see the new movie “Non-Stop”, which we both enjoyed a lot. As we were leaving the theater I decided to shot a photo of one of the lights on the red wall along the hallway. I love the graphic look of the photo and the bold colors, which is what attracted me to the picture in the first place, plus the square within a square within a square didn’t hurt the composition either!

Photo was shot with the built-in camera on my iPhone 4s using the square format. Post processing was done in Photoshop and Topaz Adjust.

Today’s iPhone photo challenge picture is a panorama that I shot this morning on my exercise at the Madisonville, Ky city park. It’s a great place to walk, jog or run that’s as close as you can get to the country, but still be in the city. This view is probably about 200 or so degrees. The path at the left is where I came from and to the right is the direction where we were headed. The weather was cold, but the clouds and the early morning sun was begging me to take a photo, but it was hard to come up with any single photo that gave a true feeling of how the scene looked until I remembered that the iPhone has a panorama feature that allowed me to capture what you see here.

If you’ve never used it it’s one of the options that are available when you use the built-in camera. You have Video, Photo, Square and Pano. Slide your finger across and select Pano and when you press the shutter button you start moving your iPhone in the direction of the arrow on the screen and the phone captures a sweeping picture. Be sure to keep the arrow on the line on your screen to insure the best picture. Instructions are on the screen below the line. Many folks probably don’t realize that you can stop the sweep anytime you want by carefully pressing the shutter button at any point.

If you click on the photo you can see a larger view of the picture.

Post processing was done in Photoshop with some dodging and burning along with Topaz Adjust.

Well, the title of this post should give you a hint of what I’ll be talking about. I inadvertently deleted all the photos from my shoot today, thinking I had already downloaded them. Now, I can’t ever recall doing this before and try as I may using three different recovery programs for the iPhone I wasn’t able to retrieve the deleted photos where I could download the full resolution files to my computer. Well, I could with one program if I wanted to pay $69 and so instead I decided to turn this moment into a teaching one.

Always, always, make double sure your pictures are on your computer, iCloud, GoogleDrive or somewhere before you delete them from your iPhone. The one program that found copies of the pictures I shot with my Hipstamatic Camera App could restore them from there, but that was going to run $69, and the recovery program didn’t see anything in my Camera Roll. It also saw all kinds of other data such as address book entries, ect, but nothing from the camera roll. If your interested in a program like this of the three I Googled this is the one that worked the best. It’s Wondershare Dr.Fone for iOS and is available for both the Mac and Windows.

So, how did I get the photo you see here? The iPhone has the ability to do a screen capture on your iPhone. To do this make sure what you want a screen capture of is on your iPhone Screen and follow these two steps.

1. Hold down the Power Button on top of your iPhone 4s (I’m sure it works on the others as well).

2. Press the Home button on the front of the iPhone and you’ll hear a clicking sound to indicate that the screen has been captured and saved to the camera roll.

So, Hipstamatic does save copies of the photos, as do some other camera apps, in it’s own camera roll, but I couldn’t find any way to export these images back to the camera roll. So, instead I did the screen capture of the photo and then after I exported it to my computer I opened it up in Photoshop, where I did an image size to make the photo larger so it could be used. Now, when you do this you do loose some quality, but when you don’t have anything else to work with, it’s better than nothing. Also, Photoshop does a pretty good job of sizing up an image as long as you don’t try to make it too large. I’m sure there’s some programs out there that will do a much better job, but I used what I had.

Now, I could have taken out the icons and black screen from around the capture by cropping and most folks may or may not have been able to tell it was a screen capture, but since I wanted to make this a teaching and learning experience I decided to leave it the way it was captured.

I only shot about six photos with Hipstamatic and a lot more with other camera apps, which I think might have been better than the one I’ve chosen here, but those other  apps don’t have an internal camera roll, so I work with what I have.

I did some burning in on the sun in Photoshop and also applied some touch-ups using the Topaz Filter set for this final photo.

During my walk this morning at the Madisonville, Ky city park I captured this interesting silhouette of fellow photographer and friend, Ron Elliott, as he attempted to warm his hands a bit over a burning stump that the park was working on removing along the trail. The temperature was about 19 degrees with a pretty good wind when we passed this spot and when he bent over and I saw the silhouette he and the burning stump was making I new I had my picture for the day. I really like shooting silhouettes as they are usually very clean and easy to read.

Today’s photo was shot with the Hipstamatic App with the Lowy lens and Claunch 72 Monochrome film. I did do a little post processing in Photoshop to work on the shadows and highlights in the picture.

Today’s travels brought me past this old station wagon sitting in a yard here in Madisonville, Ky. I like the way the old tire was just laying on top of the hood and the tarp that used to cover it was wasting away. I also love the grill work on this thing… they just don’t make them like this anymore. I also think I may have found a new lens and film combination in Hipstamatic that I’m going to really enjoy, which is what I used for today’s picture.  The film is Claunch 72 Monochrome and the lens is Lowy.