Day 89 of 362 Day Challenge

Was in Central Hong Kong today to meet friends and decided to stop by Exchange Square to take some photos because the reflective surfaces there are fantastic. Lucky me, there is a new art installation there at the moment so got this interesting picture:

Day 83 of 365 Day Challenge

I'm still playing around with my iPhone 6 telephoto lens and took a picture of a little sparrow.  It wasn't entirely focussed so I took it into SketchClub and traced the edges in black. Once I had done this I took the picture into Repix and posterised it. Then I took a texture of mine into iColorama and used the Brushes>Artist option to make a painterly background. I then used this as a background and used Brushes>Bound to bring in the bird and then the background at a lower opacity. I textured it slightly in Stackables and then back into iColorama to add a border.

Day 81 of 365 Day Challenge

I have been messing around with the new Enlighten app which is supposed to be an all round photo editor on the iPhone (later to be introduced on the iPad). I like it as a possible competitor to Snapseed but without layers and good selection tools it still doesn't fulfil the 'all-round' category for me. However, it does have some neat options that aren't available elsewhere.

Photo taken with Hipstamatic and manipulated in Enlighten:

Day 67 of 365 Day Challenge

I went through the Botanical Gardens in Hong Kong today and all of a sudden it looks like spring! Lots of different flowers that I hadn't seen before so I was spoilt for choice. So here is today's picture and a couple more that I took all with the Hipstamatic app on the iPhone 6:

Some others:

Day 46 of 365 Day Challenge

Chinese Year is on Thursday and there are displays and decorations everywhere here in Hong Kong. There were lots over Christmas but I think they do this even bigger. I will be posting a lot of pictures on Thursday of all the decorations but today's picture was taken in the IFC Mall using Hipstamatic with a slight alteration in Retouch.

Hipstamatic and the iPhone 6

Hipstamatic is an iPhone camera app which applies filters to the pictures while you are taking them to give them a vintage film look. There are all sorts of combinations of camera and film. Some of the cameras and film come standard with the app but most you need to purchase as packs.

So I decided to buy the app and get a couple of the combinations after reading the June 2014 issue of the Mobiography Magazine which was a Hipstamatic special edition. By the way this is a great magazine especially if you are starting off in mobile photography. Lots of help and tips and inspiration.

I have to say that there are quite a lot of filters that I don't like and I read a lot of the recommendations on the Mobitog forum before buying some of the packs. Unfortunately the makers sometimes only have the packs available for a limited time which I find quite irritating as some of the ones I wanted are not available at the moment. I am sure it is to force you to buy others. Don't get sucked into buying them all. It really isn't necessary and you will probably find you only use 25% of them.

It was fascinating using the filters while you are shooting. You really need to try them out and get a feel. Some I really didn't like and others were good in some instances but not in others.  However, I got some stunning shots that really don't require any further manipulation at all. The titles show the camera and film combinations. Apart from reducing the size and adding metadata only the last picture was slightly enhanced in Snapseed:

Jane + Ina's 1982

John S + Ina's 1969

John S + Ina's 1969

Helga Viking + Ina's 1969

Loftus + DC

John S + Ina's 1969

John S + Ina's 1969