by Bridgette | Sep 5, 2012 | Showcases
Welcome to week 3 of #Decim8nday’s Decim8 This.
Every Sunday @Decim8nday will post an original / unedited image submitted by our guest editor of the week.
Decim8ors are to:
> Screenshot the image and save to their camera roll
> Decim8 the image using any singular or combination of effects
> We ask that no other apps are used and that images are processed only with the Decim8 app
> List each effect used and hashtag it with #Decim8nday and #Decim8nday_( guest editor’s username)
> Post by Tuesday, 9:00 AM PST for a chance to get featured here and on @Decim8nday Wednesday!
On Wednesday we’ll announce the guest editor’s top 3 images!
This week we welcome fellow Decim8or @buzz777 as guest editor!
This is his original photo…
and here are his selections:
1. @lotti_k
2. @blortblort
3. @thewhitedove
Buzz weighs in about this week’s highlights:
1. @lotti_k
Super result using agency. I love the -drag- effect. Less is sometimes more and subtle decimations are often very striking.
2. @blortblort
This is a blinding outcome using Xexox and Brainfeed3r which seems to shake like a speaker on max-volume!!! This blew my mind!
3. @thewhitedove
Took my ole Urei Soundcraft mixer to an altered state using #Agency then through one of her preset / saved combos which used both Veth and Bitboy – very striking and brought to light some of the console detail.
The Cr8ors of Decim8nday [ @_suzanne_ and @david_baer ] thank you, Buzz, for participating this week – we hope to do it again in the future!
Stay tuned as we welcome Victor, @vsalus, as guest editor for week 4.
by Rebecca Cornwell | Sep 2, 2012 | Showcases, Sunday Blues Edit
Ernestine
Last Sunday I was so busy. It seemed as if there were more blue images than ever before. I stumbled on this image of Ernestine and I thought there was a familiarity in her face. Do I know her? I don’t, but like me David has recently spent a lot of time with images from the past. There is a way that I look into the eyes of the person in an old photograph that helps me understand myself. The universality of humanity. David is a very creative and open experimenter. You will find something in his stream that helps you understand yourself. Happy Sunday!
David: First of all, many thanks to Rebecca for shining this spotlight on my work. I feel honored, especially since her weekly Instagram gathering of photos, the Sunday Blues Edit, has been an inspiration for me, as have her own photos.
I’ve taught writing & literature at Ripon College in Wisconsin for 25 years. I am also a poet, with six collections of my poems published. Photography as an art form has been a lifelong interest of mine, but up until about five years ago it was mostly as viewer, not as creator of anything besides snapshots. I didn’t get serious until acquiring my first digital camera in 2007, which was an entirely unimpressive 3 megapixel point-and-shoot. But soon enough I was hooked, moving on to a slightly better point-and-shoot, and finally my iPhone4.
I’ve also been married for 37 years to a wonderful visual artist–who paints and draws, does printmaking, and sometimes makes photos. Though I’m serious about my photography, I’m happy to call myself an amateur; my wife remains the real artist in the family. Still, it’s not much of an exaggeration to say the iPhone changed my life. I discovered Chase Jarvis’s book The Best Camera Is the One That’s With You at a local library, and that was that: I’ve been more or less obsessed ever since, spending part of most days shooting or editing photos on my phone. I’ve been active on Instagram for about a year now.
Slowly but steadily I’ve been learning about apps and editing, reading blogs on mobile photography, visiting photo web sites, and, of course, exploring the Instagram community (where I am @doctorjazz). Honestly, I’ve been having a blast moving into this very different creative realm. As many have said, mobile photography is addictive, and can help you see the world in new ways. It certainly makes moving through each day more interesting, I find.
In all the arts I tend to love theme-and-variation. As my collection of editing apps has grown along with my skills, I’ve explored a number of different themes repeatedly. My photo “Ernestine Took Her Greatest Secret to the Grave” comes from a recent series I did based on public domain 19th Century portraits, mostly from the Library of Congress: tintypes and daguerreotypes and so on. It’s the first time I’ve tried creating my own images using photos I didn’t shoot myself; so it was exciting to see if I could make them my own. It’s not for me to judge the quality of the results (12 pics posted last week on Instagram), but I will say a couple things about this image, with the usual disclaimer that I work fairly improvisationally, and often only figure out what I want a photo to “say” in the process of fooling around with various apps and approaches.
The haunting thing about portrait photography in particular is that there is always a mystery involved. Often, even when viewing of snapshot of myself at a younger age, I find myself wondering “who was that person?” The past is past, and much remains unknown and irretrievable. In the case of the 19th century portraits I was looking at, even when we have a name for the person photographed, we often have no story. Yet the faces have such presence, such vitality. The woman I am arbitrarily calling Ernestine is vivid and beautiful to me, but if I want to know anything more, I will have to supply her story myself. Part of me wants to, while part of me wants to respect her privacy and whatever mysteries she took–as we all do, I suppose–with her to the grave. I imagine the repeated partial faces behind her (achieved with Decim8 and a number of other apps) all have different versions of the story to tell. Rising from this welter of broken selves Ernestine emerges whole, in the center of it all, with no comment on anything. Here and gone, as we all will be in time, gone into the wild blue yonder.
Please take some time and visit this incredible artist at @doctorjazz on Instagram
by Anna Cox | Sep 1, 2012 | Showcases
When was the last time you stopped to examine the way the light falls across the floor or how a petal connects to the stem? My guess is, it’s been awhile. When starting the still life lounge, #stilllifelounge Jen (@ikebana_jen) and I took into account the beauty of the mundane. The objects you see everyday but pass over for cityscapes or similar grandiose shots. The lounge is a place where we slow down and take in the details. The small things the force you to take a closer look at everyday objects. Out of our tag has grown a beautiful community of photographers that like to rest in the mundane also. Every week we introduce a new subject and take the time to encourage one another. We do hope you’ll stop by and smell the roses with us soon.
Our subject this week was shadows
This weeks highlight is from Chad Rankin, @sirreal
To float away would be a wonderful way to travel. Like a balloon aloft in the sky or a boat lost at sea. To go on a journey with only your thoughts and imagination to guide you. To float away for only a hour would be a glorious way to spend the day.
This is what I imagined my wife (@mysticmermaid) had on her mind when I captured this shot.
I liked the Surreal Solace she appeared to be in while enjoying a swim. I took the shot and edited it with my iPod. I choose B/W because I didn’t want the color of water to lead the viewer to think she was just floating in water. I wanted it to appear as if she may be levitating out of the water.
by Bridgette | Aug 29, 2012 | Showcases
Welcome to week 2 of #Decim8nday’s Decim8 This.
Every Sunday @Decim8nday will post an original / unedited image submitted by our guest editor of the week.
Decim8ors are to:
> Screenshot the image and save to their camera roll
> Decim8 the image using any singular or combination of effects
> We ask that no other apps are used and that images are processed only with the Decim8 app
> List each effect used and hashtag it with #Decim8nday and #Decim8nday_( guest editor’s username)
> Post by Tuesday, 9:00 AM PST for a chance to get featured here and on @Decim8nday Wednesday!
On Wednesday we’ll announce the guest editor’s top 3 images!
This week we welcome fellow Decim8or @lauriekeiko as guest editor!
This is her original photo…
and here are her selections:
1. @fear_this_beard
2. @njskedder_ru
3. @smmmm
Decim8nday guest editor @lauriekeiko raves about her faves this week:
1. @fear_this_beard
L225 & Veth is one of my go-to combos, so this one caught my eye. I love the pattern it created here – looks like a mermaid tail, which fits in with the ocean theme of the surfboards.
2. @smmmm
This one looks like a modern art painting. Love the vibrant colors and it was done with four effects I very rarely use. It’s inspiring me to want to experiment more with Blitbomb, Doctor Ocular, Fingerblib and 01 Rectine.
3. @njskedder_ru
Love the strong graphic nature of this one, created with Brainfeed3r and Interface. This is something I would love to have on my wall or made into a textile.
The Cr8ors of Decim8nday [
@_suzanne_ and
@david_baer ] thank you, Laurie, for participating this week – we hope to do it again in the future!
Stay tuned as we welcome
@Buzz777, “The Bu man”, as guest editor for week 3.
by Rebecca Cornwell | Aug 26, 2012 | Showcases, Sunday Blues Edit
I’ve followed Lynne, @playtime11, on Instagram almost for as long I can remember. Her photos of a far away land intrigued me. Tasmania seemed as exotic as a place as I could imagine. I loved seeing pictures of where she was and her family and the increasingly her edits. Experiments maybe, but beautifully conceived edits with a true artist’s eye. Last week as I looked through the tag, I felt completely jumbled. I don’t think it was the images but where I felt myself. At some point my eyes rested upon this image of Lynne’s and I was transported. Transported away from chaos and into the cool misty land where she lives. It was quiet and calm and I chose to rest there for a long time. Take some time with this image and rest. I promise you will leave it with a greater peace. Happy Sunday.
Lynne: Tasmanian aboriginal friend of mine once told me that in aboriginal ‘folklore’ Tasmania holds a similar place in the imagination of Australian Aboriginals as did ‘Avalon’ to the Celts. To this day I am not sure of the validity of this story as my friend has a mischievous glint in her eye and is a wonderful teller of stories. But I retell it, as this image was taken on a magical misty day in the Tasmanian highlands at a place called Dove Lake, a place where my friend spent much of her childhood with her grandfather, and this is her country.
I used Hipstamatic #blankofreedom13 film and #loftus lens as this combination I believe produces the closest to the ‘true’ colours of all the Hipstamatic combinations. The Loftus lens withs its blurry edge helped to accentuate the magic of the mist. All I did was point and shoot, the edit was just a matter of cropping the small colour strip from the bottom right, such was the mood of the day.
Photography has always been an interest, but I had never really spent much time ‘doing’ it until I discovered IG and Hipstamatic.
I am a biologist / ecologist by trade and prior to owning an iPhone most of my photographs were landscapes or wildlife shots taken on slide and print film, I realised getting a good shot wasn’t easy. I wanted to know how ‘good’ photographers capture light and how they produced high contrast black and white, because I definitely couldn’t do it. I didn’t ever get round to learning.
Skip forward many years till about a year ago, I was home with a baby, and I bought an iPhone. I would take it with me when walking, snap shots and was instantly addicted. For me the iPhone is a fantastic creative toy. It’s beauty is you have it with you all the time, and there are all those apps to play with. My favourite for shooting is Hipstamatic the combinations are myriad, but the trick is to choose the right one for the conditions. I think this appeals to the scientist in me. I am not a ‘photographer’ just someone having fun, I look at all the great work on IG and other platforms and am so inspired. It’s like having your own private art gallery that you can carry around. I am easily distracted by the technology, and find it difficult to stick to any artistic style.
I am a beginner and am just learning photographic and editing skills, so the content or subject of my images is secondary, whereas with many of the iPhone artists whose work I have grown to love I believe they have mastered the skills to allow the content and subject to be the most important factor and that is what makes their work so fascinating.
You can see more of Lynne’s incredible images both edited and not at @playtime11 on Instagram
by Bridgette | Aug 26, 2012 | Showcases
I was debating between featuring this and two other photos from Joe’s most recent posts. What drew me to this were of course the footprints, but even more so, the story behind it. I was curious as to who the person was in the distance and why he chose to post this particular scene. I’m a huge fan of black and white photography and have been a follower of Joe’s for quite some time now. If you continue to scroll through his gallery you’ll see his amazing captures of animals in the Great Smoky Mountains – including my personal favorite of a female deer in Cades Cove.
“Let me start by saying that I’m not a beach person. I don’t like the sand and I’m deathly afraid of the ocean and drowning in it. I’m also not a morning person – my greyhounds are my morning alarm clock. Those are two of the reasons that I love this image – the entire composition is out of my comfort zone. A morning beach scene? Not usually on my list of things to do.
I had struggled with whether or not to post this image in color or black and white. While I liked the color image, when I started playing with monochrome tones I just found it so much more interesting and it seemed to take on a whole different view. That’s my wife (@samiforzano) walking away from the camera. We had gotten up to see the sunrise and we were on the way back to the car when I stopped to snap this image. To quote Bob Ross, it was a “happy accident” – the footprints running parallel to the incoming tide, a couple of small (okay, tiny) waves lined up and my wife walking almost out frame. It wasn’t until we got home that I realized I had captured a moment.
I love making photographs. People will argue whether or not mobile photography has ruined the art of photography. I’d say no it hasn’t. I think it has allowed talented people to have an outlet for their creativity who maybe couldn’t afford, even prosumer camera gear. I still shoot with my DSLR. I’ll probably never stop shooting with my DSLR. But I have my iPhone with me everywhere, and that makes all the difference in whether or not you can capture a moment.” – Joe F.
Camera used: native iOS camera app
Processed with: Snapseed and Photo fx Ultra
You can find Joe on Instagram, tumblr & twitter
by Anna Cox | Aug 26, 2012 | Showcases
When was the last time you stopped to examine the way the light falls across the floor or how a petal connects to the stem? My guess is, it’s been awhile. When starting the still life lounge, #stilllifelounge Jen (@ikebana_jen) and I took into account the beauty of the mundane. The objects you see everyday but pass over for cityscapes or similar grandiose shots. The lounge is a place where we slow down and take in the details. The small things the force you to take a closer look at everyday objects. Out of our tag has grown a beautiful community of photographers that like to rest in the mundane also. Every week we introduce a new subject and take the time to encourage one another. We do hope you’ll stop by and smell the roses with us soon.
Our subject of the week was lamp light
This weeks highlight is from
Karen, @panomama. This is what she had to say about her work:
Wandering through a cavernous small-town bar with great artifacts and fantastic live rockabilly, I found this old lamp askew in the window of a deserted room. I was enchanted by the ambient light bouncing off of an old white car parked outside on the street. The room was dark and the fall-off of light on the lamp was just beautiful. When it came time to edit the shot I discovered a filter that mirrored the checked oilcloth on the table. Though I cloned out the car in this version, with bright light filtering through the window, it was the patterned reflection in this edit that evoked a visceral response in me. Light Whispers is the result.
Please join us this week as we explore light further with our subject being shadows.
by Bridgette | Aug 22, 2012 | Showcases
We’ve changed things up over on @Decim8nday!
Instead of Decim8ing your own photo, we are now selecting guest Decim8ors to submit a raw image to Decim8 every week.
The idea is to screenshot the image and process through as many effects as you like. The image will be posted on Sunday and everyone will have a chance to tag their Decim8ed image by Tuesday, 9 am PST.
We will announce the top 3 images here and on Instagram every Wednesday – picked by our guest Decim8or.
This week we are kicking things off with the cr8or himself, Kris Collins a.k.a @movax!
Here’s Kris’ original photo:
And here are Kris’ selections:
1. @chik_pea
I loved this result because it speaks so much about what the glitch thing is all about.. Totally transforming the source material into something completely different and yet still interesting. We went from a warm, glowing, hard-edged object to a round, cool, organic looking shape. Plus this image would look cool as hell for a fabric print for the next level of glitch-fashionistas out there. Honorable mentions to @stellalipschitz and @laurikeiko for their wild images that would make killer patterns for stage wear for MIA.
2. @toast_
A legit contest should come from a sampling of the populace, so this image is a winner due to the fact it got the most likes (except for the image by @bridgettesxo – but she’s involved in creating the contest, so she had to be eliminated.. Sorry Bridgette, we’ve got to avoid corruption in important matters such as these!) But in addition to the fact it got the most likes, I enjoyed how this image retained the glowy, architectural properties of the original while introducing glitches that totally worked with it. Another honorable mention in this style was the image by @anto29860.
3. @digisinge
This image totally reminded me of some kind of abstract cybernetic worm from a Sega Genesis game or something.. Pretty much hitting on all my glitch-art pleasure points! Working with L225 to nice effect. Similarly, I was also digging some of the L225 effects being done by @busylittle1way.
The cr8ors of Decim8nday and I thank you again, Kris!
Stay tuned next week as we bring in another another guest Decim8or – cr8 & Decim8!
by Anna Cox | Aug 19, 2012 | Showcases
When starting the still life lounge, #stilllifelounge, Jen (@ikebana_jen) and I (@annacox) took into account the beauty of the mundane. The objects you see everyday but pass over for cityscapes or similar grandiose shots. The lounge is a place where we slow down and take in the details.
Here is this weeks highlight:
This wall caught my eye early one morning. I liked how the early morning sun was just catching the leaves making them glow against the brick It was on the side of a parking garage in the old town part of Wichita, Kansas and I thought how perfect for the #stilllifelounge and even better, it was a P, my initial.
I ran it through Snapseed for cropping and color correction and blended it with a version from Glaze to intensify the color and finished it off with a frame from Phototoaster.
-Paula, @luapajean
Please join us every week for a new subject.
by Rebecca Cornwell | Aug 19, 2012 | Showcases, Sunday Blues Edit
Some artists have a style, a signature to their work that is undeniable their own. When I see Skip’s images grouped in with other artists, I always know that it is one of his. Beautifully complex, they command you to look deeply to figure out how these works came from a photograph. Where is the tree? Or the Building? Or something I can recognize? I know it’s in there. I am fascinated by the Decim8 app. There are a handful of artists whose use of the app is completely unique. Skip @skip_jones is one of those. Using photographic images from his surroundings, Skip weaves each into a completely transformed abstraction. Always a thing of complete beauty, with rich colors and complex pattern, his photographs become works of art. I chose this image from last weeks tag because I couldn’t not choose it. Look deeply, maybe you will see the original puddle with algae.
Skip:
As a painter, I would use photos as source material.
I studied artists like David Salle and Gerhard Richter. People who were using classic technique, juxtaposed with modern narratives in their large-scale painting.
Photos provide perfect records of light over forms and the shadows that described depth. Basing an under-painting on photos improved my draftsmanship and lent physicality to my work.
Then, after using Hipstamatic for the first time, seeing the dirty saturation, I realized paintings seemed contrived.
I wanted to create the source.
Now, I crave the immediacy of editing while sitting in the shadows of a building I’ve just photographed.
I appreciate the authenticity of mobile photography, the photo journalistic element in capturing your world and posting the evidence.
You can see all of Skip’s magic on Instagram @skip_jones
by Bridgette | Aug 15, 2012 | Showcases
Welcome to week 7 of Decim8nday gr8s!
#Decim8nday is a unique tag used every Monday as follows:
• Photographers are to Decim8 one of their last 12 images and tag with #Decim8nday and #Decim8.
• Effect(s) used must be listed as well as any additional editing processes.
Next week we will change this things up and will have a special surprise in store – so stay tuned!
Here are our selections:
1. @serheyho84
2. @mcquake01
3. @anna_stl
About the #decim8nday cr8ors:
“Look up, look down—notice stuff.” is what reads in Suzanne’s Instagram bio. She’s a science teacher and a photography enthusiast who only a year ago shuddered at the thought of editing a photograph—much less using her phone as a creative tool. Suzanne curates #Decim8nday with David Baer and now has her hands on as many editing tools as she can handle. Find her on Instagram at @_suzanne_.
David is a Silicon Valley based guy, who does electrical work by day, but spends most of his free time in iPhoneography related endeavors. Decim8 has been one of his favorite editing apps & the #Decim8nday tag was created with Suzanne to explore more with Decim8 and the Instagram community. Find him on Instagram & twitter at @david_baer.
by Rebecca Cornwell | Aug 12, 2012 | Showcases, Sunday Blues Edit
Praise For Sick Women
Women’s strength and marginalization is a theme I consider all the time in my own work. As a single mother to three girls, thoughts of the female world always seem to come to the forefront. Sometimes its battlefield, when you think you’ve won there is a mountain of history sitting behind you that still keeps antiquated ideas rooted in the culture. Looking at the tag last Sunday, an image by a longtime IG friend, Heather @poppybay spoke to me about these ever-swirling thoughts. The image of the blindfolded/blinded woman is one I’ve used myself with frequency. She stares at us with all of her beauty, almost judging, but she’s hooded. She can’t see but she does. She knows all.
This beautiful piece will haunt you for a long time.
Heather: I was the kind of child who could lie in the grass for hours, talking to the trees, making up whole new worlds in my head. Having come from a family of artists, a sense of imagination wasn’t unusual, but I didn’t imagine myself as a visual artist. As I’ve gotten older, my desire to linger, let my mind wander, hasn’t gone away, but the responsibilities of the adult world don’t leave room for such things… until I found mobile photography.
Even after I discovered my passion for film and then digital photography, there was a technical coldness that I just couldn’t shake. The iPhone, along with tools like Snapseed and Image Blender, have opened up a new whole world of expressiveness and versatility. With these tools, I generate an altering of reality, manifesting of my dream-life, expanding and exercising of my creativity. The weight of my dslr has hung less and less around my neck as, through mobile photography, I can go out and create in my own space, wherever I find my inspiration.
I recently found myself alone in a small Chinese teahouse tucked away behind a garden in my neighborhood. The experience of solitude was unusual and precious. Being alone, I looked around for self-entertainment and found a nook of used books under the cash register. A beat up copy of Gary Snyder’s RipRap was in the mix. Flipping through the pages, I came across the poem Praise for Sick Women. It inspired an image that would pay homage to the mythology behind Gary Snyder’s poem, finding strength and glory even in history’s weakest assessment of women.
The female is fertile, and discipline
(contra naturam) only
confuses her
Who has, head held sideways
Arm out softly, touching,
A difficult dance to do, but not in mind
Excerpt from Praise for Sick Women
by Gary Snyder
You can see more of Heather’s very strong and thought -provoking work on Instagram @poppybay
