Ian Watson: Crit 3 and 4 recipes

For some reason, it doesn't look like my third crit recipe is on here, even though I'm pretty sure I posted it. Oh well. This week, I'll be doing a double recipe to make up for it.

CRIT 3: THE LONG EXPOSURE

Phone: LG G3
Model number: VS985 4G (Verizon)
OS: Android 4.4.2 (KitKat)
Captured in: Camera FV-5 Lite
Edited in: VSCOcam

I was actually playing with doing long exposures while hanging with a few friends at lunch. I managed to capture my one friend freaking out over something while people were biking and walking by. I was holding the phone incredibly still while using the table as a base.

After, I loaded it into VSCOcam and did minimal editing to exposure and contrast, to make it a tiny bit darker.

CRIT 4: THE SELF PORTRAIT

Phone: LG G3
Model number: VS985 4G (Verizon)
OS: Android 4.4.2 (KitKat)
Captured in: Vignette
Edited in: Vignette

This photo was a bit of a fluke, truth be told. I was in the strangest bathroom in the basement of a very fancy hotel in NYC. Since I hadn't ever seen a bathroom as nice, I decided to take a strange, almost surreal photo in Vignette in the mirror. I used the Holga style Vignette filter as it took the image, which resulted in the shot you see above. I did no editing in post, and for the life of me I could not get another image from that shoot to come out in a way that I thought was as good as this.

Chi Hwan Moon- Crit. 4: Memory/Vintage Recipe

I used an Iphone 5s to capture this photo. I wanted to capture a familiar moment that would evoke a memory from the past for my audience.  In the world we live in today, it's hard to see people just drinking coffee. We either see them engaged with their devices or with a computer in front of them. Sitting down for a coffee without any devices is rare to see and I felt that sitting down to think about where we are heading and how we are living our lives is an important activity from the past

I used VSCO cam to edit this photo. I used the black and white filter, faded the photo and lowered the contrast. I was against using filter that were overused in instagram so I wanted to use subtle methods to imply the vintage/memory theme of the photo.

Garrett Foster- Crit. 4: Memory/Vintage Recipe

The smartphone I use is a Verizon LG Lucid 2 4G LTE.

My picture of the week did not take that much editing this go around. I upload the photo into Snapseed and applied the Retrolux filter. I then hit the scroll effect button until I found a filter that I liked. I then adjusted the filter settings as follows: Brightness: +32, Saturation: +1, Contrast: +75, Style Strength: +90, Scratches: +100, and Light Leaks: +75. As I explained in my self evaluation, I wanted to center the barrel but also frame it in a way the showed the rusted out hole in the other side.

Veronica Miller Crit 4

Iphone 5s- VSCO Camera App

Both of these photos tied as my photo of the week, which I'm actually pretty surprised about. I guess you guys picked up the nostalgic feels I was trying to capture this critique. :) VSCO is no doubt the best camera app! It allows you to not only add a great assortment of filters to give your photos an added feel, in this case vintage, as well as control the brightness, contrast, highlight and shadows of your photos. If you haven't downloaded it yet, do it-it's free and offers additional free filters! I also used whitagram app to frame the second picture and give it a more vintage frame.

Kendel Seigler: Crit 4, Memory/Vintage

iPhone 5s iOS 8.1

apps used: iPhone editor, Fotor version 5.2.0.388

What I really enjoyed about taking this photos were the elements surrounding the main subject. The vintage bike is positioned in front of a wall that mirrors the "vintage" them and the dirty crate + cone represent "trash" that denotes this might be a forgotten area. The neglected foliage also adds to this. To capture this image, I focused on the immediate area and chose not to include a wider frame because there's a newer construction right outside of the frame that would have taken away from the tone. I did have to crop a bit using the iPhone editor to make sure I only included the essential elements. To make the photo look more vintage without adding a campy filter, I desaturated the photo in Fotor. I didn't make it completely black and white because the complimentary colors are important. Both the bike and brick wall are red. The foliage, cone, and crate are all green. So even though this is still a color photo, it can be seen a quite "duo chrome."

Michael Wojcik Crit 4 Memory/Vintage

iPhone 4s
apps- Google Snapseed, Polamatic

This week the Polamatic app came in handy. It will be able to take any photo from your phone and turn it into a digital polaroid. What impressed me the most about this app was how old you can make photos actually look. All the way down to scribbling text and the multiple polaroid borders there are to choose from. The top photo is my POW and the others are some that got some votes as well.

Michael Bergin Critique 4 vintage/memory

For this weeks POW I knew that it was the perfect shot for the theme of vintage because the subject is immaculate. For editing the picture I added a vintage filter that added a shading of purple to the picture because I wanted the darkness in the upper right corner to not be so bland and boring. This technique I have seen in many vintage photographs and it dates the image significantly because in pictures of old many times during the development process the intense portions of black in the photo would fade and become tinted just as I recreated in this photo. I then increased the contrast by 22% to bring out the edges of the photo which also in conjunction with the filter added an ever so faint glow around the subject which was Nice.

All images were taken on my Samsung Galaxy S4 4.4.2 KitKat and edited using the PixlrExpress app version 1.6.1 and Camera FV-5 Lite. 

Dan Casarella Recipe C4

Smart Phone Recipes C4 – Vintage/Memory

iPhone 5S
App: Snapspeed

This photo wasn’t my photo of the week but it did get a few votes in my critique. Overall for this unit one of the themes I was going for was forgotten or lost love and this is one of my favorite pictures going for that. I found this carved in heart on a dock and took a picture of it from the side. I used the SnapSpeed app and enhanced it with light and vintage filters that increased the lighting and detail.

Kati Keller recipes 4- memory/ vintage

Hey guys, the phone I use to take these photos was the Samsung Galaxy S4 with Android version 4.4.2 KitKat. The app I used to capture and edit these photos was Snapseed version 1.6.0.


This was the POW. My house if full of lots of clocks, but I picked this one because of the shape and details of it. The room was actually pretty dark with minimal light coming from the window behind me. I used a vintage filter from the Snapseed app. I then brightened it a little and then added texture to the photo to make it have an appearance of an old photo.


For this photo I was actually using the phone and midway conversation I thought it might be an interesting photo. This was a spur of the moment photo. I again used a vintage app from Snapseed and I made the center brighter and fading out to the perimeter. This was taken in a room with a lot of natural light coming from in front of me.  

This picture was taken with the iPhone 6. I framed it so the lights were as far to the left as I could get them without cutting the glow from the light out of frame. Once I took the picture I opened it the VSCOcam app. From there I put the filter M5 on it. Once the filter was applied I brought the exposure down to -1 and brought the temperature up to +6. I then took the contrast down to -3 and the fade to +5. I brought the vignette up to +12 and the saturation to -4. 

For this picture I used my iPhone 6. I tapped on my phone where my friends head was so she was in focus and everything else was kind of blurry. I then snapped the pictures and opened it in the app VSCOcam. Once is VSCOcam I put the filter P5 on it. Once the filter was applied I lowered the exposure to -1 and brought the contrast up to +1. I brought the fade up to +2 and the vignette to +7. I then brought the saturation down to -3.

Holly Ferguson : Crit 4 Vintage/Memory

Hi everyone! For this first picture I wanted to share how I shot is my POW. I shot this picture with my Galaxy S5 smartphone and used the vintage filter on the app Snap Seed. For this picture I focused on incorporating the sky and the road equally with the houses and cars meeting in the middle. I also took this picture on a day that was not totally sunny to allow for a drearier look to make the picture look more vintage and old. I really like the way this picture turned out, but the filter really helped to make the picture look more vintage.

This is the next picture I want to go into technique detail about. This picture I was trying to capture memory more than vintage, yet the stuff in this cabinet is very old and is considered vintage. The main focus of the picture is the cabinet and a little of the table and chair to the side. This is all intentional to express memories of eating dinners around that table and always seeing the cabinet and all the little things inside. Looking at this picture brings back memories of being with my family and enjoying a meal together.

Chi Hwan Moon: Crit 3 Extended Seeing

Tedious Studying

This was the POW for this week's Extended Seeing topic. This photo was taken with an iphone 5s and I used an app called long expo. I used a Mac with photoshop CS6 for post processing. This photo was taken when my friend was writing a paper and was tediously finding supporting articles for her thesis.

Before taking the photo, I knew that I needed to keep my photo as steady as possible. Since any movement of the phone when taking long exposure would ruin the whole photo, I placed the phone on the desk. I wanted the photo to show stationary objects except the hand so that the movement of the hand could be accentuated.

I think that many people commented on this photo because the subject matter of the photo is tedious studying. Since, everyone in this class are students, they must have seen this photo and remembered when they have studied like this.

Pow- extended seeing

This is my POW. I used my iPhone 5s and the app Slow Shutter to play with the long exposure. I wasn't a huge fan of the app, it was a bit tricky to get the hang of and at times didn't capture the shot I had in mind. I was bummed I paid for it- it didn't seem like a high quality app I usually get when I make an app purchase. I honestly believe slow exposure is meant for SLR cameras until Apple or Samsung can figure out how to do shutter control on their own phones' camera. This shot was a lucky shot and I'm thrilled with how it came out. I took it on the floor at the MOMA in NYC behind an instalation. One woman was staring at the artwork while people moved in and out of the gallery behind her, creating the movement in the shot. 

Kendel Seigler: Topic 3, Extended Seeing

Phone: iPhone 5s

Software: iOS 8.1

Apps Used: Fotor (version: 5.2.0.388)

To capture this image, I used the panorama feature on my iPhone camera. I wanted to get the highest vantage point I could reach in order to capture this shot of the North Philly neighborhoods (as opposed to a typical shot of the Center City skyline). This was taken on the top of the Liacouras Garage at N 15th and Cecil B Moore. I believe it was taken anywhere between 4:30 and 5 PM. I chose this time because I wanted the sun to be lower in the sky, but still complete daylight. In the left lower corner, you can see a bit of the Center City skyline; this is placed to note that this neighborhood is near a city. I enhanced the colors a bit in Fotor to really bring out the blue sky.

Kati Keller: Crit 3 Extended Seeing

The phone I use to take this photo was the Samsung Galaxy S4 with Android version 4.4.2 KitKat. I did not use any apps to capture these photos.

This was the POW that was selected. The self portraits for this assignment were pretty tough and I was constantly trying to get an idea of how to take one. This photo I started at my feet with the camera and I leaned over like I was going to touch my feet. While keeping my body still I turned the camera outward( away from my legs) and captured the other side of the room then my hair then ending at my face. I was not sure if it was going to work when I was doing it, but when it was finished I was satisfied. I did not edit this photo at all and it was taking around noon which allowed a lot of natural light.

The second photo was taking around 11 at night during a rain storm. I was standing at my door watching the rain fall when I thought this would make a great photo. The wet ground and cars really reflected the street light well and if you look close enough you can even see the rain in the light. This was my first successful night time photo. I did not edit this photo either, but I did take a few before I got the panoramic perfect and the calmness of the environment.  

Michael Bergin Crit 3 Extended Seeing

When I was editing the photo that ended up being the POW I knew there was something special about this picture due to it being rather impressionistic in nature. The original scene was a close up shot of some kind of fluffy plant pod similar to that of a dandelion. The feathery parts of the seeds were blowing in the wind and the sun was setting behind It so I thought it would be a great photo just in general but an even better use of long exposure as the movement of the seeds would be captured as they were caught in the breeze. Everyone loved this photo and in the end I did too. The great thing about it is Unless anyone reads this no one will ever know what the picture was actually of or meant to be Of. In the end the picture came out looking as though a bunch of crows are taking flight and you can even see the movement of the wings as if They were taking Off. The sunset completes the picture Even though It's more of an ambient element in the final image it Still provides a very nice backdrop. To capture all The movement of the scene I used a five second exposure setting.

All images were taken on my Samsung Galaxy S4 4.4.2 KitKat and edited using the PixlrExpress app version 1.6.1 and Camera FV-5 Lite. 

Dan Casarella Recipe C3 - Extended Seeing

Dan Casarella

Smart Phone Recipes C3 – Extended Seeing

iPhone 5S
App: Microsoft Photosynth

This wasn’t my photo of the week but for me this was my favorite photo, both to take and view. I found the Pano feature on the iPhone a little too constrained so I wanted to try something different with a little more freedom. I downloaded the Photosynth app which gives you the ability to take 3D panorama shots. I went onto my roof to try it out. The app doesn’t strain you to one line or point of view, so you can follow your own path. It’s great to be all inclusive, the downside is that you get the black borders if your shot is skewed. For this picture I started my aiming my phone at the roof then slowing extending my arms so the camera shot the garden. 

Michael Wojcik-Crit 3

Phone: iPhone 4s- ios 7.1.1 

Apps

  Panorama feature

  Slow Shutter- $0.99 in app store. 

  This was my photo of the week. I wanted to capture what I saw with my eyes, but as if I had two sets of them. One set looking down the road and the other in the bak of my head. I didn't use any filters or cropping. I thought the green tint worked well with the incandescent lighting. These lights are terrible for creating anything dynamic but they can offer a quiet and eerie feeling to a photo. The fact that nobody was out adds to it as well. 

The next image also had some votes for POW, but the above one had more. I prefer this image to the one people voted for. For this I used a slow shutter app and set it to the bulb setting, which means I had control of when the picture started and when it stopped. This photo took a few tries on a few different occasions. When I eventually ended up with the image below, (which is a trolley zooming by). I decided not to touch it. I liked the fact that its hard to tell what it is, but its still pleasing to look at. On another hand I think if people knew it was a trolley it might make more sense. 

Caitlin Serbin-Crit 3: Extended Seeing

This image was chosen as the picture of the week. This image was taken at night while driving. For this image, I used slow shutter speeds. The shutter was set to 4 seconds, and the iso to 100. This allowed for the image not to be washed out or too dark. The phone was balanced on the dashboard in order to bring the windshield wipers into focus and keep them in focus. This section of road was good for this image, as it was a dark rural area near my house, with few lights to overpower the image. It also curved gradually so the car did not shake too badly or twist too much. After the image was taken, I adjusted the levels to deepen the shadows, and used a strong black and white filter. 

Holly Ferguson - Crit 3 : Extended Seeing

For this first picture, it was the picture chosen for the pic of the week. This is the grill of my Dad's show truck. I used the panorama mode on my phone and did not edit it at all or use any apps. I chose to stand in the center of the shot and stay stationary, and just move from right to left. I really like the way it turned out by looking like the truck is bent. That effect is something I did not know how to do until experimenting with the panorama mode on my phone. 

This next picture is one that I chose to talk about because it is my favorite picture out of all my shots over the past few weeks. I used slightly the same technique from the top picture, but instead of being centered I was off to the side and tried to replicate what someone would actually see with their eyes if looking down the row of pumpkins. I also really like how the shadows from all the pumpkins is coming toward you, which makes the picture feel like you are really there. 

Lastly, I wanted to address that I did not take any slow shutter speed pictures. I attempted to take some, but I could not find an app that I liked enough to use. I also did not like any of the shots that I did capture throughout my experiments with the apps. I do not like to post any pictures that I do not truly love and do not think others will enjoy either. 

Kristen Ciambella: Crit 3: Extended Seeing Recipe

This picture was taken under a bridge in Bristol, PA. The first thing I did was stand in the center of the columns holding the bridge up. From there I rotated 90 degrees so the columns were on my left and right. I turned my phone horizontally and took the panorama picture. I started on my right side and made a rainbow motion to capture the column on my right, the underside of the bridge and ending with the column on my left. I then imported the picture into Aviary and in the Enhance section I picked the 'food' option. I then went into Adjust and brought the brightness down a little. I also brought the contrast and warmth up a little bit and toned the saturation down slightly as well.

Garrett Foster- Crit. 3: Extended Seeing Recipes

The smartphone I use is a Verizon LG Lucid 2 4G LTE. The Os is Android 4.1.

For this assignment, I tried out a multitude of new apps. Photo Studio by KVAD Group is terrible primarily because certain features are free and certain features cost money and the app. does not let you know which features are free and which ones cost money until you are done adjusting the effect and hit "apply." I found a new app. called Photo Editor by Aviary that's very good. This app. is exactly the same as Photo Editor Pro by Zentertain (which I've been using since day one of this class), except with less pop-ups, a more polished look, and more sharing options. I highly recommend it for it's "Enhance" and "Effects" features. But at the same time, if I took a photo using the Camera FV-5 app. and imported it into Aviary, then it would not import into Snapseed for some reason. This was frustrating, because I like to Enhance and/or add Effects in Aviary and then do further/more detailed editing work in Snapseed. So if I took any pictures using Camera FV-5, I would have to edit it in Photo Editor Pro (instead of Aviary) and then load it into Snapseed. Camera FV-5 is the app. that I downloaded to be able to adjust shutter speed. The camera on my smart phone does not allow you to adjust the shutter speed, so I had to try out a ton of apps. to find one that worked/worked well. I found that for my phone, there are no shutter speed apps. for free. So first, I paid $3.95 for an app. called Speed Shutter which is the worst app. ever. It does not save the photos it takes directly to your phone, you have to view them through the app. But every time you hit "view images" the app. crashes. I reloaded the app. and pressed view images at least 50 times and it was always the same result (even after restarting my phone). So I never got to see any of the photos I took with this app. The next app. I bought was Camera FV-5 for $5. This app. is good, but not great. It allows you to adjust all sorts of features on your camera phone (including, but not limited to, shutter speed). It also takes higher resolution photos than my standard camera app. (less pixels, but more grain). Despite all of these positives, you can only really slow down the shutter speed a little bit. It's capable of slowing down the shutter a lot, but anything slower than a step or two and the image becomes completely unusable by any means.

This is my photo of the week:

 

This is a panoramic photo taken at the end of my driveway.  I started the panoramic capture with the camera pointing at my feet and then slowly tilted the camera upward. After my feet were out of shot, I began walking forward while continuing to tilt the camera upward. I found this created a strange effect where the image is stretched in an abnormal way, making things in the distance seem more distant than they actually are. I imported the photo into Aviary and applied the "Enhance: HD" feature to it. This sharpened the image and made the shadows more prominent. I then applied the "Effects: Clyde" feature. This turned up the contrast and created a vignette around the outside of the image. I then imported the adjusted image into Snapseed. Here I applied the "Tune Image" feature. I adjusted the image as follows: "Saturation: -100," "Contrast: +60," "Brightness: -27," and "Warmth: +20." My goal was to make the path ahead seem long and unpleasant. I left my feet stationary and motionless, as though the person whose point of view we're seeing through is hesitant to begin the walk down the unpleasant looking path.

 

I took this photo using the Camera FV-5 app. To adjust the shutter speed, you click the large "S" on the camera screen. A menu appears that reads: "Exposure; Controlled exposure; Open shutter." It then gives you a few options: "Auto; Short; Long; Long+; 1"; 2"; 5"; Custom." For this photo, I found 1" to have the best results. Anything faster did not really capture the flame's movements, while anything slower resulted in a blurry, unusable, and over exposed image. I found when photographing pretty much anything with this camera app., shooting slower than a 1" shutter speed resulted in an usable image (but there is a strong chance I'm doing something wrong). I then imported the picture into Photo Editor Pro. I applied the "Enhance: HD" feature. Again, this sharpened up the image. I then applied the "Effects: Clyde" feature, which gave the photo a vignette and turned up the contrast. I then imported the picture into Snapseed. I applied the "Tune Image" feature and adjusted the image as follows: "Brightness: -48," "Saturation: -100," and "Contrast: +13." I then applied the "Tilt Shift" feature with the following settings: "Blur Strangth: +100" and "Transition: +35." I did this to make my thumb and the background out of focus as to draw attention to the lighter and the flame.

Garrett Foster Topic 2 Recipe

The smartphone I use is a Verizon LG Lucid 2 4G LTE. The Os is Android 4.1. These are the camera specs: Resolution: 5+ megapixel, auto-focus, LED flash/ Time Catch, face tracking, panorama, HDR, scene modes, ISO control, and timer. For all of these pictures, I used the apps Photo Editor Pro and Snapseed.

This was voted my picture of the week. This is a photo of the old barn on my property. There is a fence around it, which you can't see because it's so overgrown with plants. The hole in the foliage, allowing the barn to be seen, is where a gate used to be in the fence. For some reason, the plants did not grow as high or thick where this gate used to be. I took this photo so the gate hole is centered and the overgrown plants create a natural frame around the barn. The barn is slightly off center (to the right). The natural lighting made the overgrown plants appear dark (accenting the dark purples and greens) and everything beyond the overgrown plants, through the hole, very light (accenting the golden yellows and highlighting the barn).

This was the photo before editing:

 

First, I put this picture into Photo Editor Pro. I added the feature "Enhance: Illuminate." This turned up the contrast, turning the foliage in the foreground darker and everything in background lighter. It also accented the shadows. It also sightly saturated the photo. Then I added the feature "Effect: Cruz." This saturated the photo in a way that accented the dark purples and greens of the overgrown plants, while accenting the bright yellows and greens of everything beyond the foliage. Then I put the photo into Snapseed. I used the feature "Tune Image." I turned the brightness down to -40. This gave the photo better contrast while also slightly saturating it more.

Chi Hwan Moon Crit 2 Color/passion

This is my POW for this week!  I must say that the recipe for this photo is always having a camera around.  It was lucky for me that I had a smart phone with a pretty good camera on it.  In addition, another recipe would be always keeping an eye out for interesting angles, spaces and lines.

One strategy I use when taking photos is imagining how the camera would see the light in the environment.  Based on my experience the camera captures light differently and therefore, captures the environment differently than the eye.

This is the bathroom of Barton Hall.  I was stepping in to the room and was surprised by the light coming in through the window.  I took a couple photos at first but then notices the mirror on the right.  Then I took a couple more photos experimenting with the placement of the mirror. As I experimented I saw that if I angle the camera just right, I can make the bottom of the window on the right look like it is continuing through the mirror.

I took a bunch of photos and experimented with many compositions and later chose one to post process with the VSCO Cam app.  I used a iphone 5s to take this photo.

Veronica Miller Crit 2 Color/passion

This is my POW! I love this shot and used VSCO camera app on my iphone 5 to enhance the depth and intensity of color in this shot. VSCO is definitely my favorite tool and I just found out that not only can you edit pictures you take using the app, but you can upload pictures that you took outside the app's camera. I also like to take the pictures I edit in VSCO and upload them in Afterlight, which is an awesome app that gives you a ton of filter options and let's you control the levels of the photo. To make my photos pop I add a little more contrast and brightness and added a complimenting filter. 

Ian Watson Recipe 2: Color/Passion

I actually had two photos tie during the POW voting, and while I picked the one with the bicyclist as my POW submission, I included recipes for both. They're both freakishly similar, so you're really not missing much if you don't feel like reading both.

Phone: LG G3
Model number: VS985 4G (Verizon)
OS: Android 4.4.2 (KitKat)
Captured in: Default Camera app
Edited in: VSCOcam

I don't remember if I've mentioned this online in any official category, but the phone I shot my previous crit and the first half of this crit with, my LG G2, has been broken since May or so. I initially thought it was an issue with the digitizer on the touch screen, but it apparently was actually a swelling battery. Given the G2's inability to be opened to replace the battery on your own, I cashed in on my upgrade plan and upgraded to the G3, so I'm still getting used to how powerful it is. So far, I enjoy it.

I saw this event much like I saw my last POW: I was waiting outside, specifically for the 43 bus this time, and saw this guy on a bike riding my way. I loaded up my camera, framed the shot as best I could in the few seconds before the biker got close enough to photograph, and then I took a single shot. I waited until the biker was in about the middle of the frame, as I wanted them to be on the right side of the frame in the final product, and given the speed of which they were going and the amount of time it took me to actually click in to fire the shutter, it ended up perfectly.

As for editing, I loaded the image up in VSCOcam when I was riding on the bus. Since Berk asked us to not do too much post production on the images, I simply bumped the contrast up one or two points. No filters, nothing too serious. Just pure image.

Phone: LG G2
Model number: VS980 4G (Verizon)
OS: Android 4.4.2 (KitKat)
Captured in: Default Camera app
Edited in: VSCOcam

Much like the first image, I didn't do too much with this after the fact, though I did take it a bit further. There's this girl in my Queer Theory class who always wears incredibly bright rainbow clothing, and one day a few weeks back I found her in this interesting getup. As interesting looking as the rest of her outfit was, the waist-down was what I deemed to be the most important part. She stopped so I could photograph her, I made sure she was standing half on light tile, half on dark tile, and took a number of shots. This was the most successful.

While I did edit this in VSCOcam and play with the contrast a bit again, I did apply the C1/Vibrant filter, though instead of using it full force (somewhere around +10 or +12, I believe) I only set it to +2, as to avoid making it look overly edited.

Kendel Seigler: Crit 2, Color/Passion

Phone: iPhone 5S

Apps used: Fotor + iPhone editor

This photo came in second for POW voting, so I thought it would be best to do a recipe for it. While it might not seem it, this shot was quite difficult because sunflowers are very tall (and I'm very short) and they were beyond a fence I couldn't go over or around. To get this shot, I had to go through my car's sun roof and kneel on top of my car (I probably looked really weird doing this) and align myself as best I could with the flower.

There were quite a few sunflowers in this garden, but I chose this one because I thought it had character. The half grown (or half died) petals really spoke to me and the bee (undoubtedly enjoying the pollen) really added a nice touch. I made a point to take the shot when he landed on the flower instead of just buzzing around it.

Because the flower was so far away, I chose to take the photo, then crop it, rather than zoom in with my camera because I thought that would sacrifice quality. I enhanced the colors slightly with Fotor and then cropped using the iPhone's built in editor.

Michael_Bergin_ CT2 Color/Passion

Even though this is not my POW, it is still one of my favorites from the shoot. i love the contrast of the soft features of the feather to the hard jagged lines of the leaf even down to the urban grittiness of the concrete. For this shot i didn't want a lot of bright colors because it took away from the deeper impact of the details within the shot. As a side note i like to associate fall with colder weather therefore the picture needed colder colors. The original leaf was very bright orange but i felt like that wasn't the most important part of the picture so i brought down the saturation and boosted the contrast to bring out the detail lines and the dark dots on the leaf. Increasing the contrast also brought out the shadows throughout the picture but specifically in the lower left of the leaf. i also really treasure how the focus of the photo trails off as you get farther away from the camera. it gives perfect detail to the leaf, the concrete and the shadows, but trails off just enough that you can tell there's an edge and other leaves but it doesn't demand attention it just co exists in the background.


Then for My POW i felt that the image is really pulling your focus up into the canopy of the tree since there are no branches for most of the trunk. So to enhance that, i enhanced the focal point to be right in the middle of where all the first branches coincide and removing some of the detail of the trunk with a bit of blur outside of the focal area, thus drawing the eye to a more detailed portion of the shot. The original colors of the shot were kind of muted so i increased the vibrancy and saturation just a tad and then increased the contrast to bring out more of the shadows along the trunk and keep a sort of shady appearance.

All images were taken on my Samsung Galaxy S4 4.4.2 KitKat and edited using the PixlrExpress app version 1.6.1

Kristen Ciambella: Recipe 2: Color/Passion

This is my POW. Some of you asked me where my pictures of the prison where taken and they were done at Eastern State Penitentiary. It's a really fascinating place and a great photo op. I highly recommend checking it out since it's so close to campus. This picture was taken with the iPhone 6 IOS 8.0.2. I turned my phone horizontally and framed the picture so I had the door on the left side and the stairs on the right. Once I framed it properly I took the picture. Once I had the picture I opened it in the app called Aviary. Once in the app I lowered the saturation to -5 then I proceeded to lower the temperature to -4/-3. I also brought the highlights up to 3 and sharpened the image to 2. The last thing I did was bring the grain up to 1. 

Michael Wojcik Recipe 2 | Color/Passion

I feel this was my POW because of the richness in the colors and the detail on the cucumber. I use an iPhone 4s and shot it on my camera application, then edited in a free demo version of photoshop on my phone. I brought out the saturation only slightly, (about 2 bumps) on the reds and greens and then I messed with the levels and exposures to create the shadows, and tints. The reddish background was a result of a incandescent lightbulb in the backyard where the veggies were. I feel this helped make a certain tone to the photo and told the viewer what time of day it was.

Julie Yi. Recipes 2, color/passion

This photo was hands down my POW. I also really love this image. I have an iPhone 6, 8.0.2 ios, and used the app called "Camera +." I took all of my photos using the regular camera on my cellphone and then edited it through this app. It was especially hard for me to be able to get such a clear photo of these wine glasses because it is extremely dark in the restaurant that I work in. Some came out blurry and some you couldn't tell what it was. It took me a couple images to be able to get the lighting and angle right. 

Once I got the right angle, I now had to edit my photo. There are different scenes that I can choose from that alter the lighting. I didn't want to make the image too bright and lose the ambiance so I went for "concert." It highlighted the right parts and kept the other parts still dark. Then I went in and adjusted the saturation. I lowered it a little. I didn't want to alter the image too much so that's all I did! 

Dan Casarella - Recipe 2

iPhone 5s
iOS 8
App: PicShop

For this photo I really wanted to capture a unique view through the sculpture. There were many shades of green to capture around the scene. I took shots from multiple angles and this was the one that was I liked the best. I thought the wear at the bottom contrasted nicely with the side walk and the sculpture over taking the frame gave it a nice point of view.

For editing I downloaded a new app called Pic Shop which had a lot of different editing tools. I didn’t want to change too much of the color because I really liked the way they all blended together so I mainly just played with turned down the contrast so that the different colors didn’t over power the subject.

Joe Dolinsky: Recipes 2 - Color/Passion

Hey all. For this assignment, I really tried to build on a lot of the commentary I got from the last critiques. There was a lot of feedback that I got and subsequently tried to incorporate into this critique. I took some pictures that I thought were really good, and the commentary on them seemed to echo that. For all my shots, I used my trusty old iPhone 4. The grizzled veteran.

I had two photos that seemed to generate a lot of consideration for POW. Here's the first:

I caught this at sunset at Race Street Pier a few weeks ago. I really love this part of the city. As far as scenery goes, you can't really go wrong over that way. I walked to the end of the pier and crouched down to make it look like I'm right on top of the water. I put the bridge into one of the thirds of the frame. I took the photo with VSCO Cam which has a feature that tells you whether or not your photo is level. I wanted to make sure the Camden side of the water was level and that app is really helpful with that, as well as for small edits and the like. I didn't use any filters for this. Natural lighting. It was really just the perfect time of day.

Here's another that was popular.

This had a lot to do with framing. I wanted to get most of the mural in the shot but also showing that it was the side of a bakery. So I knew I needed to get both the sign at the front of the shop and most of the mural in the frame. It involved a lot of stepping back further and reshoot until it was just right. The color of the mural is incredible on its own, but the green from the tree, the blue and white in the sky and the line on the bakery awning really added to it. As far as getting the mural in the frame, I used the natural line of the tree as a boundary to the left. I had to include the tree trunk otherwise it wouldn't have looked right. Again, VSCO Cam here. If you don't have it downloaded, check it out. Really helpful.

Thanks for all the feedback.

Joe

Kati Keller Recipes 2- Color/ Passion

Hey guy, This assignment was interesting and I felt like I got to really share myself with you from this assignment.  The phone I use to take this photo was the Samsung Galaxy S4 with Android version 4.4.2 KitKat. The app I used to capture and edit these photos was Snapseed version 1.6.0.



The first photo is the POW. I love volleyball and play once a week in a league.  For this photo I had to wait until people were not playing. This helped me with timing a photo. I wanted to do it in the gym because I knew the lighting would be bright. I ended up laying on the ground crawling after a ball that kept rolling. I didn't notice the people in the background of the photo until after I took it. I messed around with the blur filter in the app and I enjoyed how it looked so I ended up keeping it blurred around the object. I put the 'drama 2' filter on it made the colors really stand out from the black. After that I raised the saturating a little so the background wasn't too dark.




The next photo is of my crayons. I like to draw and color on occasions and being a business major it is very refreshing. It was a new box that I had just opened a few days before the photo. I did not arrange the crayons in any order for this photo. I did put them by my window to gather any light there was on the overcast day. In the drama editing section I took the saturation down about 40 this made the colors seem dingy and not as vibrant. I then had to raise the filter strength because the top row was pretty much all dark. Oddly this didn't effect the bottom row but only made the top row visible.




Last is the picture of a pinwheel. I have a few outside of my house. I enjoy sitting on the deck and just watching them spin. I took a few photos of this one because I was not sure exactly how to capture it. I liked this because the pinwheel was not centered and the green from the grass and plant really made the photo feel earthy. I didn't edit this photo at all because I felt it showed what a pinwheel is: simple.