Painters can paint a scene entirely from their imagination but photographers always need to start with a real scene and edit it to suit their mood and style. Imagine! is the first photo I've made that has been entirely created from iPhone apps. I started with a blank white screen and added elements from several iPhone apps to create the final image. The final exists in the real world as a 20 x 20 metal print.

Here are several reworked images from the 2014 Manitowoc County Fair. All original photos were taken with a Canon DSLR and edited with Adobe Photoshop CC. Remixing provided by iOS apps; Snapseed, Tiny Planets and Jazz-the App.

County Fair time is here again and, as usual, I made a trip to the Manitowoc County Fair to do a little photography. Here is a collection of photos from the fair. All are taken with a Canon DSLR and edited with Adobe Photoshop CC. I'll be adding some iOS "app'd" versions soon!

Every year, during the last week of July, the EAA in Oshkosh holds their annual EAA AIrVenture event. On the weekend before the event, the Sheboygan County Airport gets a visit from a squad of T-28 airplanes. The purpose of the visit is to practice formation flying before the EAA event. The planes usually draw large crowds to the airport to watch the flights and maybe even meet one of the pilots!

I had an opportunity to take photos at sunset on the night that the planes arrived in Sheboygan. The airport gave us a tarmac pass and allowed us to walk wherever we wanted. The planes were not flying anymore that evening so we had free run of the entire place. We took advantage of the beautiful sunset to capture some great images of the planes as they awaited the next day's "air adventures".

All photos were captured as Camera RAW and Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 was used to enhance the natural color of the sky. Further enhancements were provided by Snapseed on the iPad.

Just as the weather was warming up this season, I had an opportunity to explore an old barn along the shore of a lake. The structure was mostly stone and brick. The barn is now mostly used for storage. I found many interesting things both inside and outside of the structure,

Mashup is a new series of photographs. The images were created in Photoshop. No iPhones or iOS apps used this time. Each image consists of two to six individual photographs opened into layers. I used various layer merges and smart object stack modes to create a collage image from the layer stack. Further enhancements to brightness, color and contrast were then applied. Several photos below appear in various versions of the same image. Please take a look and tell me what you think in the comments below.

Last year at about this time, I took my iPhone to the Manitowoc County Fair to get some photos. One thing I could not capture with the phone is the change in the scenery after darkness descends. Cell phones just can't handle taking photos in darkness and tend to create a blurry image. This year I (mostly) left the iPhone in my pocket and attempted to capture the fair using my Canon D-SLR. Keeping an eye on the SLR shutter speed and ISO settings allowed me to capture sharp images of the lights in darkness. The camera also allowed me to use the zoom lens to capture just want I wanted to see. Most of the photos shown below were captured with the Canon and received further "apping" using Photoshop and iOS apps.I still used the iPhone to capture one of the images below. Can you spot it?

Tiny Planet is one of those 99 cent apps that can really make your day. It takes a photo and creates either a planet or rabbit-hole  You can't really predict what this app is going to do, you simply load a photograph and press the button. The result is either terrible or amazing. If the result isn't quite what you are looking for, you can use Tiny Planet as the basis for the photograph and bring it into other apps until you get the result you are hoping to achieve. As with many other iOS apps, you might not have a specific result in mind but "you'll know it when you see it".

Eastern Spiral Arm actually began as a photograph of a building in downtown Manitowoc, WI. I thought that the overall look of the building was interesting so I photographed it, not sure at the time what I was going to do with it. I imported it into Tiny Planet which gave it the basic form factor of the spiral. After that, it took a trip through many more apps. (not trying to keep secrets here, I just don't recall the apps that I used to create the entire final product). I thought the final product might be the seashell (pictured bottom right side below) but it took one last trip through Glaze to finish the job. The final result, Eastern Spiral Arm has been exhibited at the Sheboygan Visual Artists membership show and will be opening soon at Gallery 224 as part of the Photography exhibit.

Back in January I read a Facebook post that my friend, Fond du Lac artist, Mel Kolstad had just finished doing an interview for the Fond du Lac Reporter for their Artist Next Door series. The post mentioned that they were looking for others to participate in this bi-weekly series. I volunteered to be part of an upcoming interview and because of my recent success with Fox Cities Magazine they decided to take me up on the offer. The meeting for the interview and video was scheduled for early February. Now, I'm sure you still remember our February weather conditions. Several times each week, the highway department was telling us to "Keep off the roads unless you must travel!" This was making the trip to Fond du Lac more unlikely than a trip to the moon. Finally, it was March, and we had a break in the weather. I made the big journey to Fond du Lac to tell my life's story to Taima Kern of the Fond du Lac Reporter. I was impressed that she neither laughed or cried during most of it. Even more amazing is that she was able to write a great story and produce a excellent video from an interview consisting mostly of my usual assortment of bad jokes and random Star Wars quotes. So click on the links below to read the article or view the video. Oh, and before I forget, "May the Force Be With You!".

Video from Thursday, April 11
Feature article from Sunday, April 14

This month I thought I'd take a break from telling you about my stuff and instead tell you about several exciting book and magazine projects in which my friend, fellow Howards Grove resident and Sheboygan Visual Artists member, Erika Block is involved.Erika is the leader of a creative organization called “Creative Studios” that specializes in advertising and marketing services. Her business is located right here in the heart of Howards Grove, Wisconsin. Creative Publishing, a division of Creative Studios handles book and magazine publishing. Creative Publishing is marketing their first three books this spring. 

It is in this atmosphere of creativity and ambition that Vir·tu·os·i·ty magazine was born. From the very first issue, Vir·tu·os·i·ty was designed to be compete with national publications. In fact, that was Erika’s goal from the start. Erika didn’t think small about content. Vir·tu·os·i·ty features the work of nationally known and emerging artists in areas such as music, books, art and photography as well as articles related to the business side of creativity. The quarterly magazine features a full-color format with minimal ads and top notch articles. If all of this sounds interesting, you can order both single issues or subscriptions in either digital or print formats from her website at www.virtuosity-magazine.com. Print versions can also be purchased from select independent bookstores and galleries.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.