I think I have passed this building everyday for many years and until today I never really noticed the bold graphic design that the siding made and the clouds in the sky helped to balance the top off the building for a nice photograph.

Contrasting from yesterday’s black and white photo, this one screamed color at me when I first drove past it. Of course I came back. Bold and bright colors can help make a impact in your photography so always be on the lookout for places where you can use them.

Photo was shot using the HDRpro App and then processed in Snapseed for the final image.

Today I caught my nephew Damion just visiting with his uncle Davie. Not sure just who enjoyed the visit more, me, Damion or Davie. I decided that I wanted to do this photo in black and white so the color didn’t distract from Damion squatting down on the floor. We all live in a color world, but sometimes a photograph works much better in black and white.

There’s many black and white apps available for the iPhone that actually shoot your photo in black and white and while I have several of them I shot this photo originally in color with the phones native camera. After looking at the color version I decided to process it as black and white.

Most of the post processing was done in Snapseed, but I did bring it into Photoshop and do a little tweaking in the highlights and shadows.

Today’s iPhone Challenge picture was shot at First Christian Church here in Madisonville, Ky where I have been a member since I was about 2 or 3 years old. I go here every week to “Recharge my batteries for the week ahead.”

My photography has always spilled over into all aspects of my life… church and my faith are just two of them. I video the service as many of you know each week and anyone who has followed my photography know that a lot of my photos have come from my life here in this house.

I thank God for the creative talents he as given me and I only pray that I have and will continue to do these talents justice.

I’ve had people, that haven’t found their faith, ask me over the years how I can believe in something or someone that I can’t even see or photograph? It’s not any different than the wind… you can see the effects of it all around you, but you can’t actually see the wind itself. For me God is the same way. I may not be able to see or capture a image of him on my camera, but I continue to capture his presence in the many people I encounter along my photographic journey.

Peace to everyone on this day and I pray that you have a place to recharge your batteries!

Today’s iPhone Challenge photo is the view from the chair I spent most of my afternoon in as I worked on installing and setting up a new computer for my sister. The one she’s been using for several years was one that I built and it started to develop issues that were going to not really be economical to continue upgrading.

I got so wrapped up in the process that I almost forgot about shooting my daily challenge photo and decided to look around the room to find something that made an interesting photo for me and this is what I came up with.

It was shot using the HDRpro Application on the iPhone and then I processed it using Snapseed and applied the HDR Scape filter to it before adding the border.

Sometimes when I head out to search for a scene that inspires me enough to take a picture, I have no idea where I’ll end up or what I’ll be shooting. However, today I knew I wanted some sort of picture that shows the frozen water that has taken over most of the lakes and ponds since the Arctic Vortex pushed all the cold air through-out the region. So, I decided to head to Earlington’s Loch Mary Lake to see what I could find there.

I walked along the shoreline looking for something that said “photograph me” and I found this one area that had shrubs and other things when I spied this little leaf sticking half in and half out of the ice and I knew I had what I was looking for. I ended up taking the case off my phone, turning it upside down and putting the phone right on the ice so I could get a real low angle with the bring clouds in the background to illuminate the leaf.

Post processing was done all in the phone, using an Apps called Dynamic Light and the border was added using Snapseed.

One of the basic rules of composition is leading lines and it’s one of my favorites. Add a set of wobbly railroad tracks and anyone that knows me knows I’m in heaven. The only thing that could be better would be a train coming toward me in the photo, but the steam billowing out of the power plant at Sebree, Kentucky helped to make this picture for me.

I always like the look of this plant and on my way back from Richmond, Ky today I decided to jump off the parkway to see if I couldn’t get a good shot of the steam. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your viewpoint, I couldn’t find a spot I liked closer to the plant. So I pretty much gave up the idea of getting a shot and headed on over to US 41 to head on toward the barn and perhaps a different photo for my iPhone challenge.

As we crossed over the CSX railroad crossing leading up to the plant I glanced down and saw this photo. I didn’t get much more than a quarter of a mile up the road when I turned around and went back to shoot this photo.

Shot with my iPhone 4S using the HDRpro App and processed using the Snapseed App.

Well, that’s what if felt like today anyway, the arctic that is. I hope today’s picture gives that feeling perhaps.

I went to Nashville today to pick up my niece Chrystal who was returning from a Christmas visit to her son, Brad and his family, in Colorado.

This being the first day of the Arctic Vortex that has brought extreme cold further south than it has in a very long time I decided to head to Music City early so I would have some time to shoot some “Urban Landscapes” for a “film” challenge I’m doing this year also. (Those challenge pictures will be posted the end of end of each month.)

I’ve been to Nashville a lot over the years, but today my sister, April, and I wandered around areas that I’ve not been to before as I was looking for things that said “Urban Landscape” to me. That’s also where this photo creation came from.

It’s a scene along the river just down from the Titan’s Stadium and with the temperature being 7 degrees at that time, not counting the chill factor, I really didn’t spend a lot of time shooting this scene on my iPhone as I couldn’t wear my gloves and operated the touch screen very well. It’s on a dock that runs along the river under a walk bridge and the wind was whipping off the water pretty good so I shot about two frames of this scene.

I kinda had the idea of processing the image the same way as yesterday’s image and was really interested in how the sun and clouds were going to turn out. I’m pretty happy with the end results.

I used the native camera, an App called Painteresque and another called Snapseed, all to produce what you see here.

Approaching Storm

This year’s iPhone photography challenge is as much about venturing out from my normal photography to see what I can produce creatively with the iPhone and the many Apps that I use. Tonight’s picture was done with a couple different Apps, or actually three. The native camera, an App called Painteresque and another called Snapseed, all to produce what you see here tonight. The title above pertains to one of the processes the Painteresque App goes through.

First, I’ll be honest and say I totally forgot about shooting my iPhone photo for the day until I looked up from my computer and noticed that it was almost dark outside! For me, the dark and the iPhone are not two things I like to put together as I hate to use flash and with the iPhone the darker it gets the more noise you get in the photo unless you use flash.

The wind and snow had started to fall and so I thought perhaps a shot of the trees in my yard against the last light of the day might provide for an interesting photo. So I shot a series of the tops of the trees that I liked and made my way back into the house to thaw out.

I liked the way the trees looked, but I wanted a more blurry, movement type effect and so I thought I’d see what I could do with the App called Painteresque and after trying several different style effects I finally settled on the one called Painteresque 1. It was close to what I was thinking in my minds eye, but not quite. I saved the photo with the effect applied, opened that one back in the App and then applied it a to the image I had saved to get this final photo that I’m happy with.

The only thing I did in Snapseed is apply the border. The watermark was applied in Photoshop where I cropped it to the right size to post to the web.
I’m really pleased how this one turned out and I’m excited to try some of the other effects as the year goes on and also some of the other many Apps that I’ve not really played with that much that I’ve bought.

Photography by Jim Pearson, (c) 2014

My sister and I went by Kroger tonight and while walking through the store it seemed that there were isle after isle of shoppers. For a second we couldn’t understand why there were so many people there shopping at 3 in the afternoon, and then it hit us… there’s a winter storm threat for our area!

It amazes me to this day how people stock up so much when there’s a threat of an incoming storm, but I guess having lived through the Ice Storm of 2009 where most folks in the region was without power for up to two weeks or more, it’s a little more understandable.

We weren’t two of the storm shoppers however! We just stopped by to pick up a few things, or perhaps a few more things after we realized the weather was moving in.

Being in the military for 24 years and living everywhere from Norway to Alaska it just doesn’t seem to bother me as much as it does most folks I guess. Anyway, it provided my picture for the day.

Photography by Jim Pearson, (c) 2014

As if I don’t have enough photography challenges for the New Year, I’ve also decided that I’m going to post a picture a day that I’ll be shooting with my iPhone. There’s no specific theme, just what I find daily that I like along my path.

I’m a sucker for clouds and every-time I see a nice formation I just have to pull over and find a spot that makes for a pleasing picture for me. This photo was shot off of KY 70 as I headed into town to take some pictures of my great-great niece Elaina for another challenge that will be posted next Monday. I just love the way the clouds were just rolling across the sky.

I did all the post processing with this picture using the Snapseed Application. Hope you enjoy and please feel free to share with the world!