The Step by Step Workflow of Skip by Andy B

I first came across the work of Paul Brown earlier this year. For me, Paul (also known as Skip from skipology.com) stood out from the crowd thanks to his artistic signature style combined with his choice of still life and street photography subject matter. This was also re-enforced by the detailed tutorial guides he often publishes on his blog which take readers through the creative step by step process he follows to produce his work.

Paul is a UK mobile photographer with quite a few credits to his name. As well as being an active member of the iPhoneography community, he is also a founding member of groups such as the ‘New Era Museum’ and the UK Lincolnshire based group ‘Instachimps’ and has had his work exhibited several times at ‘mObilepixatiOn’, ‘Pixel This’ and ‘My World Shared’.

I find Paul’s work fascinating as his approach not only showcases a finished piece of work but also tells the story behind its production. For me, this adds a third dimension to what could otherwise be viewed as a 2D image. My aim here is to find out more about Paul, his work, how he goes about creating such eye catching pieces and the inspirations that drive him.

AB: Andy Butler PB: Paul Brown

AB: Describe your introduction to iPhone photography

PB: iPhone photography was something I’d never really heard of 2 ½ years ago. I know now that there is a thriving community but when my wife bought me an iPhone all I really knew was it came with a camera. I’d never had a phone with a camera and my old analogue Olympus OM10 had been gathering dust somewhere in my man cave for years. Terms like iPhoneography and communities like JUXT, AMPt, etc and all the specialist Facebook and Google groups were waiting for me to discover.

As soon as I took my iPhone out it became an iCamera. My joy and passion for photography was reignited in the blink of an eye because I had this small gadget in my pocket. Every single day I’d take photographs. On the back of it I bought myself a DSLR but all that did was emphasise why I enjoy iPhoneography so much and indeed why my old Olympus had been gathering dust. Portability – both in terms of the capture and the edit. It revolutionised my coffee shop experience, tapping away editing images! I sold my DSLR and bought a Fujifilm X-E1 a wise decision for me but still my iPhone is my main camera.

It was a steep learning curve. Apps I take for granted today like Instagram, EyeEm, Hipstamatic, Snapseed, Camera+ (and a whole host of camera replacement apps), Filterstorm, etc (basically all the ‘original’ apps that were around back then and are still popular today) were all just names to me and each one needed to be learned and understood. It’s the same for everyone just starting out who gets bitten by the bug.

AB: Your work has a distinctive artistic style to it. How did this style evolve from one of taking straight photographic images to developing them into something more painterly that would be at home in an art gallery?

PB: Thank you, those are very kind words. Like most people I suspect I regard myself as a work in progress. Therefore, when my work gets described as a certain style, whilst that is true it is also only the case at this point in time. As I have said before I personally would describe my style as eclectic and inconsistent. One thing that is very consistent though is that in general I like to try to capture or create an atmosphere rather than a scene. I’m not saying I always succeed!

In terms of style evolution, I guess there are a whole host of influences. iPhoneography led me to social media and it’s amazing how much of a gravitational pull the iPhoneography community has. You find people and people find you and gradually learning and influences from within the community creep in. Some styles appeal at a point in time and you head off down that path.

On a more practical level though I looked at some of the expensive faux ‘canvas’ still life images in some chain stores and started thinking why would I want to buy that when hundreds or thousands of other people also have it. I loved the style and some of it was beautiful but I hated the consumer aspects associated with it so I played away trying to create and adopt that style for my own taste. That is why if you read through any of my workflows you will always see my first stage is to sort out the resolution in case at some point I decide to get it printed (or someone else does).

AB: Where do you draw your inspiration from?

PB: As I say I get my inspiration from a whole host of different places but I would add that I’m unashamedly introverted. I spend a lot of time thinking and really living in my own world. My mind is always ticking away. I don’t doubt that my thoughts are heavily influenced by the world around me but in the end a lot of inspiration comes from within.

The fuel for that though comes in the main from the amazing iPhoneography and wider mobile photography community. With a few exceptions it is such an open community and I firmly believe we all knowingly or otherwise draw inspiration from each other. You never know where or who it’s going to come from.

AB: Your work is a mixture of street photography and painterly still life portraits. Do you find your mood dictates your subject choice or that you gravitate more naturally towards one subject more than the other?

PB: I can feel the psychologist coming out in you now Andy! I think this gets to the core of me as a person and my motivations as an iPhoneographer.

First and foremost I love the results of street photography but I don’t always enjoy the process of capturing. The risk of conflict and confrontation however unrealistic is always in my mind. There are also many elements you can only partially control and others that are completely out of my hands. Not great for a control freak like me! However, the rush I get when I capture a shot that I love is always rewarding. It’s like scoring a goal in football, an adrenalin rush that you only get from combining what skill you’ve developed over the years with the luck of being in the right place at the right time and everything clicking into place.

I guess my still lifes are the opposite, very safe, controlled and predictable. I think of them as my fall back. I love the process of creation and converting the initial capture in to something different. I am very much in my comfort zone. There’s no buzz that comes with street photography but it’s a style I enjoy and the process is less stressful and more in keeping with my introverted personality.

Why choose one over the other? You are exactly right Andy. Street photography doesn’t come naturally to me. I have to work at it or really be in a confident frame of mind. If I can’t get there then I’ll tend to switch to still life work. It’s great to have found such opposite styles that between them give me a whole range of emotional responses. There are few days that I’m not inclined to work with one or the other.

AB: You are an active member of several iPhone photography groups including being a founding member of the New Era Museum and the Facebook group ‘Instachimps’. How has being a part of such communities helped you in your development as a mobile photographer?

PB: Combined with social media they’ve influenced me massively. It was these communities along with the work and teachings of their members that convinced me that painterly or textured work was entirely possible with an iPhone and its apps. They are a constant source of inspiration. There is absolutely no doubt that they have helped me mould my style. They’ve also influenced my app purchases and clearly having the right tools is a big part of translating the vision in your mind to the screen. Most of all they give me support and confidence.

AB: You are well-known for your workflow tutorial guides. Could you talk us through the process you follow to create one of your images?

PB: I will admit to be being a little uncertain on the type of image to share, especially as I tend to think of JUXT as very pure photographical images and my eclectic style contains a bit of everything. In the end I will share an image that many would probably recognise as my style even though possibly not a traditional JUXT style. I think perhaps that is what this question is really all about.

Stage 1: The initial capture

My aim in general is to try to get good light and a clean background. I don’t have any specialist equipment to play with so depending on the subject and light I will either use a plain wall or a translucent window as background. In this case, the delicate nature of the subject meant that the diffused light from the translucent window was ideal. This is especially effective with any subject with a translucent quality such as leaves and petals as the backlight really enhances the colours. The problem of course is silhouetting because the backlight is much stronger than the lighting of the subject. ProCamera (along with many other camera replacement apps) provides for independent and lockable focus and exposure points. I therefore lock exposure in an area away from the subject to over-expose the background as much as possible and expose the subject as accurately as I can. The subject itself is too small to set exposure accurately.

Stage 2: Filterstorm

Crop and resize if necessary. This iPhoneography image was captured with an iPhone4. The maximum resolution on the shortest side is below the minimum 2,000px that I always aim for. Although the only crop is to change to an aspect ratio of 1:1, I also increase the image size to 2,000px square. I always do this as the first stage of the edit process so that future edits are applied at the final resolution. This is beneficial because filters and textures will be applied to each individual pixel and as such any possible quality issues caused by the resize will be rubbed away to some degree by future edits. I aim for a minimum of 2,000px on the shortest side to allow for printing at a reasonable size. I now have an iPhone5 and resizing is not really an issue as I only tend to crop for aspect changes and the minimum resolution is within my target.

Stage 3: Snapseed  – Drama Filter (Bright preset and adjust saturation back to normal levels – Drama filters reduce saturation).

My target now is to create my base image. This is the cleanest version of the image and will be used as the basis for all future edits. Very often I will introduce selective adjustment spots to adjust brightness, contrast and saturation at various points to completely clean the background area. In this case the Drama filter alone was used. It will initially be used to create a texture which may well result in almost total destruction. It will also be used where necessary to reintroduce detail using layers and blending and masking techniques.

Stage 4: Snapseed – Grunge Filter (The initial stage in the texturing process)

Normally I will randomly flick through Grunge settings until something approaching what I’m looking for appears. Then if necessary I will fine-tune the effect by manually adjusting individual settings and textures.

Stages 1 – 4 are a very standard part of my still life texture blending work flow. From this point it becomes a bit more of a bespoke process depending on the image and the look I want to achieve. For this image I opted for the following processes:

Stage 5: Snapseed – Retrolux Filter (applied to further enhance the texture)

Stage 6: Mextures

I have created a small number of predefined textures made up of a number of layers of textures and light effects available within the app. It can be seen that this texture was applied with minimal transparency and resulted in almost total destruction of the image.

Stage 7: Superimpose

The detail of the image is reintroduced by importing version 6 as the background and version 3 as the foreground. The two layers are combined using ‘Multiply’. This reintroduces the detail of the image and at the same time allows the underlying texture to show through. Playing around with blending methods at varying transparency levels is useful at this stage.

Stage 8: Modern Grunge

The image is almost totally destroyed again with the introduction of a strong Modern Grunge preset with some manual adjustment of specific elements. The idea here was to make the image look like it has been splattered with paint.

Stage 9: Superimpose

The paint splash effect can be controlled and detail reintroduced by blending version 6 with 8. Version 6 is imported as the background and version 8 is imported as the foreground. The two layers are combined using lighten with zero transparency (standard setting). Although not required in this case, the blend can be manually adjusted by applying a mask if any of the Modern Grunge texture needs removing from important areas (think of this as partially restoring a painting). I find that a brush set to maximum size and smoothness with the ‘soft’ box selected gives excellent results.

AB: Finally, where can people connect with you online?

PB: I am Skipology – My blog links to most of my networks at http://skipology.com I can also be looked up via my about me page at http://skipology.me. If anyone wants to connect as a result of reading this feature please drop me a note with a tag on whichever network. I don’t want to miss connecting with fellow mobile photographers but sometimes I do miss things. I won’t miss a direct communication / tag though.