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Michael D Housewright
  • Housewrighter
  • Imagery
  • Video Production
  • About Michael
  • Contact
  • Housewrighter Musings

iPhone Photography Workshop - San Francisco

Learn How to Create These Images

Hey San Francisco, I am hosting an iPhone and Creative Imaging Workshop April 13 and 14, 2013 in your city. My drear readers and followers of Bliss I would love to meet some of you face to face at this wonderful iPhone photography course taught by uber-talent Sam Krisch.

Follow this link for all the details. If you have wondered where I have been for about a week I have been planning and developing this amazing program.

Sam is responsible for my rebirth into photography and through his course I have been able to find my voice in photos. After 37 years of academic pursuits I truly learned more from Sam in a short weekend than I did in any class I had taken through the course of my CV. This weekend workshop will make you a better photographer and that translates to any medium iPhone or otherwise. If you do not live near the bay area use this as an excuse for a visit to one of the world's most beautiful cities and photograph it.

I hope to see you April 13 and 14!

Happy Photographing,

Michael

tags: @Blissadventure, Adventure, April 13 and 14, Histamatic, The Blissful Adventurer, San Francisco
Wednesday 02.06.13
Posted by Sarah Finger
 

San Francisco Solitary Trees

Buena Vista Park

San Francisco Solitary Trees

On consecutive walks in the city

I came upon separate solitary trees sharing their light and oxygen with me.

I found reflections of self in these lonesome trees

and knew no way to take them in my car or even across the street

So I shot them, not with cannon or laser but handy little phone

Edited them quickly and now they are never alone.

From the initial image I saw promise

some paint and Spackle dotted here and there

a few lens filters for texture

now I have them with me

my solitary trees posted here on the web of information for all to see

Share my days I wish so often could be

with each of you blissful readers

while you likely cannot come with me

you may take your own bit of joy from

my San Francisco Solitary Trees

tags: @Blissadventure, Adventure, Buena Vista Park, California, Hipstamatic, Land's End, Michael Housewright, Photography
Friday 01.25.13
Posted by Sarah Finger
 

Post-Process Evolution

Stage 4 of the Process

Post-Process Evolution is a short photo essay documenting the process by which I transform an image into my creative vision. The first image above is Stage 4 of the process and I displayed it here first because few people would have opened the post had I used the Stage 1 image as my lead photo :-) In essence, I am offering a little insight into the magic I use to mess up my images. Feel free to experiment messing up your images and there is a world of discovery good, bad, funky, and unique waiting for you. (Messing up images I borrowed directly from the teachings of Sam Krisch)

I begin the discussion by saying all work was captured and processed here directly on my iPhone 5 and that no animals were harmed in the making of this post.

The shot above was taken in the early afternoon inside the Cafe Venetia at the Palo Alto Cal-Train Station. This bank of glass brick receives little light with a noon-ish sun and so this plant which appears to me as an ancient semi-petrified grapevine has only a bit of light illuminating its craggy branches. (Hipstamatic Jane Lens Pistil Film)

Here in stage 2 I load the image into Snapseed, the magical photo editing app now owned by Google and a whopping 3 bucks from the app store. Snapseed is my favorite club in my bag and it has allowed me to transform my work into my dreams.

With Snapseed I increase the ambient light buried in the digits of code and immediately the window appears to be illuminated as well as the vine. I crop out the Hipstamatic border here because I have further plans for this image and the border would not function in those plans. All of this is done with finger strokes along the touch screen of the iPhone through Snapseed.

In stage 3 I take the processed image from Snapseed and run it through an app called Old Photo Pro I think the intention of this is app is rather self-explanatory and the wonder of it is it allows one to tune the degree of age, edges, and intensity of the program. Here I wanted to give the entire image an antique look as if from silent movies. The light from the windows is now ethereal and the dreaminess along the wood on the bottom left draws the eye pleasingly to the vine which now seems to have a bit of face in the twisted section midway up the stalk.

Stage 4 of the Post-Process Evolution is really a final point if I wanted to keep the image somewhat in the realm of realism. I took the image from Old Photo Pro and re-processed it in Snapseed to lift the window to afternoon direct light and wash out a bit of the saturation. I added a frame back to the image (which I really do not like) to show what kind of finished product is possible in Snapseed.

I saw something in the image from Stage 1 though that I really wanted to explore. The final 2 stages are the results of this experimental vision.

With the help of an app called Symmetry  I took the image from Old Photo Pro and mirrored it along its Y axis. I liked the dimension now in the window which appears to be a lamp and the vine is now an identical piece of sculpture. Symmetry is a little tough to manage and it can get rolling on you pretty good as you are scrolling so take your time with this one. I was not in love with this image and took it one step further to the effect I was seeking. You can see why I needed to remove the border as it would have thrown off the symmetry and ruined the illusion.

In this final stage of my Post-Process Evolution this grapevine has become  a sinister sculpture or the skeletal remains of some otherworldly creature on display in front of this back-lit glass brick. Antique, macabre, and curious I enjoy looking at this creature and am happy with the results of the process.

One of the most important things to keep in mind with all iPhone photo processing is to make certain all the apps used are set to process and save to the photo roll at the highest possible resolution. Any diminished resolution will create "noise" and other unwanted results in your images.

 

 

tags: Images, Michael Housewright, Snapseed, Sam Krisch, Photography, @Blissadventure, Symmetry
Sunday 01.20.13
Posted by Sarah Finger
 

San Francisco Friday Photos - Camera+

Sutro Tower - Sf

San Francisco Friday Photos Camera+ are images I took using the Camera+ app on my iPhone. I captured today's images on walks in Buena Vista Park and the Dogpatch neighborhood. The image above is the famous Sutro Tower atop Twin Peaks at Sunset. I was inspired by the David Lynch series Twin Peaks to process this image. (Camera+ - Snapseed - Photo Toaster)

Afternoon light made this fence align at an opposing angle from its own shadow. (Camera+ - Snapseed - Photo Toaster)

A familiar shadow watches over this rider on the San Francisco rapid transit deep underground. (Camera+ - Snapseed - Photo Toaster)

Pampas Grass thrives where factory life has ceased. (Camera+ - Snapseed - Photo Toaster)

Warning signs are a cold play and rather redundant. (Camera+ - Snapseed - Photo Toaster)

The windows in the distance appear as the flames of Hell awaiting. The phenomenal light from the ceiling and the end walls gave this abandoned factory a haunting quality. I could sense munitions were constructed here in WW 2. There is something so sensual about hell on earth. (Camera+ - Snapseed - Photo Toaster)

I love how this shadow reminds me of a praying Mantis enlarged on a canvas screen. This was the building behind the fence from above. (Camera+ - Snapseed - Photo Toaster)

The Blissful Adventurer self-portrait on a BART train and exhausted. (Camera+ - Snapseed - Photo Toaster - Glaze)

 

 

tags: @Blissadventure, California, Camera+, DogPatch, Images, Juliet Housewright, Photography
Friday 01.18.13
Posted by Sarah Finger
 

2012 Year in Review Haiku

Here is The Blissful Adventurer 2012 Year in Review Haiku. Haiku was one of my most successful creative expressions here in the blog world in 2012 I want to share some of the best of the best with you all today for my final blog of 2012; easily the most successful year I have a had as a storyteller.

The cheese had no origin

but its Cheesy-ness

was undeniable

He saw his way out

of the cold and he knew the

evidence would melt

Joy is frequently

defined by images of life

although they can lie


The lazy girls talked
at length while stirring the cups
of their past short joy

just when he thought he

can't go any further she poured

herself into him

cutting corners was

not the way he liked to live

his life under the bridge

The source of our pain

is often the thing that makes

us the most happy

the only truth was

he had been wronged and someone was

going to pay for it

An ever swirling

breeze brushed the open window

while animals stared

So much madness

in the streets of life and only

so little solace

(Photo by Juliet Housewright from her upcoming blog SCHMEE JOURNEYS)

her final hope clung

to her clutching hands as the

tornado touched down

eyes have a way of

telling stories that perhaps

even the mind does not

She smiles on the walk
to deliver a simple
message of sure pain

Spaghetti with Clams - Le Marche

filled with old workers

this fluorescent spot of life

cooks food as god wants

Photo by Schmee

Feet seem happiest

when dappled lights and warmth find

a place to alight

here he comes riding

lands that were once his now not

because he is now dead

goaty goaty goaty
standing on the rocky slope
needing sunglasses

For final thoughts on 2012 I want to share a Facebook chat I had with George Weaver Yesterday. George is the author of the beautiful "She Kept a Parrot" and the photography blog "The Fuzzy Foto" This chat is why I am here and why I love this work.

George L Weaver Michael, it is people like you who unite us all in a world community. I never dreamed that neurosurgeons, artists, photographers, world travelers, and professional writers like you would visit an old woman from a provincial little town in Texas. People from India, Turkey, Japan, Germany, South Africa, Ghana, Colombia, Israel, Canada, Australia, and many other countries. And, they sound just like neighbors and friends from down the street! Some of my best blogging friends are down-the-street Americans too.

You folks are sophisticated world travelers and all are phenomenally talented and informed ... but all of you talk to ME. Can you imagine? Through your continual encouragement, I have come to know these people who have taught me about the world, and in the process, they've taught me something more important ... that we all belong to one human family. We are all the same. 

My life as a hermit has been limitless this year. The world is literally at my fingertips as trite as that may sound. I was always shameless, but you made me fearless, Michael. And I thank you. 

I am "blissfully" looking forward to 2013 and all of the discoveries the new year brings! 

Happy New Year to you and Schmee!

Michael Housewright Travel in all forms has been since the beginning of man the way in which we know what makes us so alike even though at middle distances we seem so far apart. In 2012 I learned for the first time in my life how small the differences are and how vain it has been of me to consider that some place where I was born makes me deserving of such privilege.

Your travel in this blog-world is the most enlightened way in which to experience the internet as it allows the distances to be shrunk and people to be reduced to their common archetypes.

Connecting: that is what I do and try as I may at times to hide in a closet, or on an island, or simply to exist selfishly, I simply cannot. I said to myself some 20 years ago in college that my life's work would not limit me in my constant pursuit of experience, adventure, and human connection. I have at times failed to remain on this path and the pursuits of other things seemingly more comfortable, attractive, or exciting have hindered my course.

I want more than anything for 2013 to be a time of greater embrace and attention to these parts of me that I know only increase my scope and especially my reach. I without thinking of it always want the best for my connections. I love stories of friends successes and of introductions that lead to lifelong friendships. This kind of thing happens with some pretty amazing frequency and I hope that never changes. So long as I can travel, I will. So long as I can write, I will do my best. So long as there is breath in my body I will love my connections and tell their stories.

Here is the annual report on The Blissful Adventurer WordPress blog - I am reluctant to share this as I do not think blogs are the place for perceptions of competition. At the same time I want to share with those who are new at this how much success one can have in only 1 full year of serious blogging. January 1 of 2012 I had less than 50 followers.

 

tags: Blog, Blogging, Europe, Italy, Images, Humor, Hipstamatic, Foodies, Food Porn, @Blissadventure, The Blissful Adventurer
Monday 12.31.12
Posted by Sarah Finger
 
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