Baby Anu

Yesterday, I drove my grandma and my mom to see my cousin’s baby who had just flown in from China the other day. Here, Anu is showing her great grandma the stick she’d been playing with. She’s only a year and a half, but shes really really big. It was funny watching her reaction to walking barefoot on the grass. I guess there isn’t a whole lot of it in China. I hear its mainly used for dogs to do their business.

On the drive to my cousin’s house, grandma was asking us questions about Dementia and if we thought she has it (she does.) She asked for examples of other things besides memory loss. She seemed to be pretty lucid a few times yesterday and when she was, she was curious about her health. She knows her memory is fading.

At dinner, we were talking about the day. She said she thought someone was coming to see her earlier. That’s because the day before, she kept talking about a nurse that was coming by to evaluate her. I reminded her that she had a whole house full of people that morning with two of her daughters, a caregiver, and a nurse. She couldn’t remember it at all. You could see the fear and frustration in her eyes as she was on the verge of tears. It’s an emotional thing to witness, as you can imagine.

Dinosaurs

In the town of Huasna, there are a few dinosaurs out in the hills. There’s not much else out there besides horses and cows. We did find a couple of cool things out on a dirt road. There was a burned down house and a very old car that a field had started to swallow up.

These photos were taken with Perfect B&W. I’m going to write up a review of the app soon. Don’t buy it yet. There are some issues and, at this point, I can’t recommend it. I used the Ansel filter on the first photo. Apparently Ansel turns the sky completely black in all photos. The 2nd and 3rd photos were edited with some of the other b&w filters in the app. They really aren’t my style at all, but thought I would share anyways.

 

Black and White Sunset

I’m back from being on the road again. The engagement shoot was fun and effortless. The couple was awesome to work with and amazing in front of the camera. Unfortunately, I totally forgot to snap a few shots with my iPhone, so I can’t share any of those until I edit the Nikon images.

In the meantime, I found this one from Joshua Tree on my camera+ camera roll. Sometimes I totally forget about photos on that roll. I shot and edited with that app. With the lighting the way it was, I had black and white in mind from the moment I set up the shot. I was going for the same effect as this one from a while back.

Crater Lake

It was cold and the snow was deep. We didn’t bring any snow gear on this trip because we thought we were going to be on the coast the whole time. That didn’t stop us. I was knee deep in snow at some points.

The whole time I was looking at Wizard Island, I was thinking of my oreo truffles. I know you see it too.

Both images were shot with camera+ and edited with Snapseed.

After Our Nap

Why does Sunday seem to be the best day to nap? Rider and I had a pretty nice nap yesterday and woke up at the same time. I had to grab my iPhone and take a pic because he was being cute. A minute later he resumed being a jerk and started biting my crotch.

A New Kitten

My brothers cat has been missing since Friday. I guess hes already moving on because he brought this guy home last night. He shares the same mom as the missing cat, so he has some similar features. I think I’ll be capitalizing on his cuteness while hes still little because, lets be honest, everyone loves pictures of kittens.

Shot with camera+. Edited in Snapseed.

The Exam Table

I spent quite a bit of time waiting in this room on friday. There were signs plastered everywhere about turning your cell phone off. I reluctantly did….for a while. Then I got bored and challenged myself to find an interesting shot in this hell hole waiting room.

I wanted to capture the mood I’m sure everyone feels when they see this exam table. Cold. Uninviting. A little depressing. Sure, the composition is slightly off, but thats what happens when you’re trying to get a quick shot in before a nurse or doctor catches you using your phone.

The doctor worked really hard to try and figure out whats going on. Unfortunately, this pain I’m having in the upper right abdomen is difficult to diagnose. The first tests came back normal, meaning theres no infection. Now there are more tests and a CT scan to take care of this week.

One Flower

Last year I took on the challenge of taking 500 photos of one subject with my old Nikon D60. This is the orange flower I chose out in the garden. It looked interesting and I thought it would be pretty easy to take a lot of pictures of it. It didn’t take too long before I was out of my comfort zone of taking my usual pictures. This is what a challenge is for, pushing you beyond your comfort zone and forcing you to try new things.

I shot from my normal distance and I also shot from as close as my lenses would allow.

I used the two lenses I had at the time, my 18-55 and 55-200. This one below was with the 55-200, shot through a chain link fence. This is probably my favorite shot from the whole shoot. Normally when I’m shooting a flower, I don’t think about moving away from it and shooting through something, but look at those results!

Heres a similar angle with a much different edit.

I also tried a kinetic shot. I had recently heard about kinetic photography and was experimenting with that technique. For this one in particular, I believe I was zooming in while pressing the shutter. It certainly adds some interesting motion to the image.

I felt like I was running out of ideas towards the end, so I switched to manual focus, just to try something different. At one point when I was adjusting, I went almost completely out of focus and saw something interesting happen. The photo turned into a painting.

Since I’d done a whole lot of shooting with the flower open, I wanted to call it a day and come back in the morning when the flower was wet and still not open.

Don’t be scared to try anything you can think of and don’t worry about how you look when you’re doing it. When I first got my Nikon a few years ago, I wasn’t comfortable being that guy that always had his camera around his neck. Eventually, we all have to get to a place where we’re ok with looking like a weirdo crawling on the ground with a camera.

Promo Code Winners

And the winners of the Hueless promo codes are…

AngelineM
DarkAnd
Santackas416
Edith Levy
Brandie

Congratulations guys! To collect your promo code, you can email me at d.pasillas@yahoo.com or contact me through kik messenger where my id is d.pasillas.

If you’re a fan of Hueless, you can go like their facebook page here.

Hueless Updated & Promo Code Giveaway

Lets get straight to the part you’re probably most interested in. The developer of Hueless was kind enough to give me 5 promo codes to give away. That means if you didn’t buy the app already, you can get it for everyone’s favorite price…FREE!

All you have to do is like David Pasillas Photography on Facebook, if you haven’t already, and leave a comment on the wall there. If you don’t have facebook, you can always just comment below. The winners will be announced by 10am pacific time on Monday.

Now lets talk about the update…

Hopefully you took the time to read my review of Hueless the other day and thought it was a pretty sweet black and white camera. Well, it was just updated with 3 more features that the users requested, including:

• Square shooting: switch back and forth between full-frame and square aspects by pinching in and out on the live viewfinder preview.
• Rest & Release shutter: Some photogs like to rest their finger on the shutter button and lift when they want to capture. Hueless, as you know, will cycle between regular and expanded shutter buttons if you keep your finger on the button. Hueless now has a preference that will disable the button modes and allow photogs to rest their finger on the shutter button and release when they want to shoot. The switch is available in the iOS Settings app Hueless pane.
• Launch Center Pro integration: We have had a lot of requests to add support for this. Not sure if you have tried it out, but it’s a neat utility app. You can get it here.

I shot some more with the square format. I actually really like this format for this camera. Now I can shoot in the more natural landscape orientation without being limited to that layout.

App Review: Hueless

There was a time where I only shot black and white film. If you shoot enough black and white, or constantly convert your images to black and white, you begin to actually see the world in a new way. I remember I use to be able to look at the scene in front of me and immediately see what it was like in black and white. Then I went digital and got into HDR, which is more how I see the world today.

Hueless is a great black and white camera app. Instead of having to imagine what the world looks like in black and white, this camera will give you a live preview. Not only that, but it has a couple of features that practically lets you edit while you shoot. Theres a slider on the left of the screen that acts as exposure compensation, effectively allowing you to brighten or darken your image before you press the shutter. If you ever want it to go back to 0, just double tap the slider.

The other great feature of Hueless are the colored filters, which is the icon in the top left corner. If you’ve ever been in the darkroom, you know what these are good for. Try experimenting with the different colors while shooting and see what a dramatic difference they can make. When you select a colored filter, there will be a slider on the right side that allows you to adjust the opacity of the filters.

If you feel like the screen is too cluttered, you can always just tap on the Hueless film roll in the bottom left corner and your view will be unobstructed.

The sharing features seem a little odd to me. You can email, tweet and post to instagram, but only if you allow location services. If you don’t you won’t have access to the camera roll in Hueless. Thats not really a big deal though because all of the images are also saved to your main camera roll.

Examples

None of these are edited with any other apps. I imagine you could get even more out of your photos if you touched them up just a little more. I know my examples aren’t the best I’ve ever included in an app review. I haven’t had time to shoot with this app as much as I’d like, which is why I included Keisuke’s photos as well.

You can overexpose images on purpose by increasing brightness before you shoot.

Below are examples from Keisuke Takahashi, a fantastic iphoneographer in Japan. I met him on Tadaa, where his username is TokyoGyango. Here is his flickr page.

Conclusion

Hueless is great for black and white photography. Its simple to use and post processing isn’t always necessary if you set things up before you take the shot. As with most cameras and apps, this may take some practice before you really master it. My only gripe with the app is the location of the shutter button when holding it in portrait orientation. It just feels awkward. Overall though, Hueless makes for a great black and white camera.

Rating: 5/5

Price: $1.99

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G, iPad (3rd generation) and iPad Wi-Fi + 4G.Requires iOS 5.0 or later.

***Full disclosure, I did not pay for this app, I asked for a promo code so I could review it. I’m not being offered any compensation for this review. ***

Free App: Dramatic Black and White

If you want a good app for black and white conversion, pick up Dramatic Black & White while its free.

I reviewed this one a while back, here.

Purisima Door

The room I was in, at La Purisima, was very dark, and the light poured in from outside in such a way that brought out the grain in the old door. I’ll let you in on a secret, some of the sweetest light can be found on the edge of darkness. Thats all I’ll say about that for now without giving too much away haha. I’ve got to keep a few secrets if I’m actually going to  do workshops in the future.

I’m still thinking of what the focus of my workshop would be. 75% DSLR 25% iphone? Keep them separate and do two different workshops? I’m still in the early stages of toying with the idea. Who knows, maybe I’ll collaborate with another photographer and do an on location workshop somewhere beautiful

Guadalupe Dunes

 

I was out in the middle of some sand dunes yesterday working on a photo project. I’m sooo sore today from the 2+ mile walk in the sand while carrying 15lbs of gear. This particular beach doesn’t get a lot of visitors and hardly any make it out to the spot I went to. There were lots of cool patterns in the sand carved out by the wind.

Below is a sneak preview of what I was working on with my Nikon. Some more elements will be added from other exposures to create something cool. The vision popped in my head yesterday morning and I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. Sorry, you’ll have to wait a while to see the finished result.

La Purisima Mission

I didn’t plan on going to the mission. Mostly because I didn’t even know it was there. When I drove by and saw the sign I had to stop and check it out. I could almost feel the history when I stepped into the old buildings. Its the most extensively restored mission in the state. The buildings are all staged to look the way they probably did back when the mission was still in use.

If you’re ever in Santa Barbara wine country, go check out the mission in between wine tasting. I recommend it over the pathetic waterfall thats nearby. I’ll have to share a pic of it later to show you how sad it was.

Heres a BW version because I feel like I couldn’t get the color version as vibrant as I wanted.

I also took some pictures of the mission with my D7000 that I hope will turn out well. I need to get motivated to edit today since yesterday I couldn’t. Its kind of hard working on iPhone stuff and Nikon stuff at the same time. Hopefully I won’t be forced to choose one or the other anytime soon.