Picture Show App

Erosion
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

I'm kind of flipping out right now over the seemingly limitless possibilities of my latest new iPhone picture app, "Picture Show" which one of my fave flickr photographers turned me onto. I am beyond thankful.

Picture Show has been one of the few picture phone apps (I have about seven) that actually rival Hipstamatic in my opinion. Hipstamatic won app of the year on iTunes this year. I think Picture Show is a really close second. Of course I haven't taken it out for a walk yet. So far all the shots I've taken with it have been interior.

I guess the feature that really puts it over is it's ability to take one shot and put it through a varying combination of filters, color settings, noise and light leak levels, frames, either those of your choosing or by using the random setting and just seeing what happens. Random comes up with some truly amazing stuff. I mean I can spend a good half an hour just processing one shot several times and saving only the ones I like.

Last night while I was taking this series of Zoya, I experienced something deeper about the process of making pictures that I've always known I loved but was not fully conscious of. Light and color take you on a journey whether you know it or not. And the creative manipulation of light and color can take you to so many different places inside of yourself so may different moods and emotions. Picture Show really allows for a crossover from the photographic medium to a sort of painterly or multi-medium expression. It lets you play a lot. And I love to play,
: )

"There is only one idea" -Prince

Originally uploaded by Zanalee

I saw Prince at the Izod theater in Jersey last Friday with my best friend from high school and now all I know is I want to see him again. And I will.

I can't really describe how amazing a performer he is. I just know that I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to see this man do his thing live and to see him happy and healthy and full of a giving loving spirit paying homage to his heroes on stage and giving of himself what God gave him.

I've been listening to Prince since I was eleven so it's really an understatement to say that his music is embedded forever in my emotional DNA. My mom was the one in our family who loved him first. His music, his spirit, his multi-facted Gemini soul have been constant touchstones to my understanding of my own self. So when I look at him, I feel eternity ringing back. Sounds real good.
: )

"There is nothing else to want."

 

I have to say that recently, for me, working in an environment where it has become increasingly difficult to know who to trust (because we are so clever at being phony and outfoxing ourselves and each other, a fact I never dreamed would ever become my everyday reality) this quote shot out at me among so many other amazing quotable passages from James Baldwins "The Cross of Redemption" which is a no less than stellar collection of candid and previously unpublished essays and writings by Baldwin.

For a man long gone from the physical plain, he never ceases to continue amazing and enlightening me as if he was, and is still here, everyday, every time I pick up this book and open it. He is fearless and brutal and beautiful and loving. And he is clear about that. Very few artists come along that can break open the tight shell of human apathy and pour out it's content so irreverently, and with such unapologetic fierceness and concern for humanity. Sometimes that's all I need to get  by.

Thanks Weekend!

by David Saintus

My Thanksgiving weekend has been just wonderful! Family, kids, games, good food and drink, music, laughing and buying my first piece of art with Francis. This untitled piece by David Saintus, a great friend of Fran's mother caught my eye and dragged me into it last Friday. David is a local artist in Spring Valley, Rockland County and he periodically brings his pieces over to Fran's house for him mom to look at and purchase whenever he is town. I have admired the pieces of his she has hanging in her house for years. I was so glad to be there when he showed up with his artwork so I could ask him a little about how he worked, but I didn't get a chance to ask him too much because I was too busy looking at all the canvases and wood stretched paintings on the floor and lying against furniture, bursting with lush color and beauty. He gave Francis and I and incredible deal and we took it. We split the cost and took the paining home that day.

I've always had a thing for paintings done on a black canvas. In this one, the traditional country landscape sen often in Haitian painting like these is set against a stunning autumnal midday scene. You can see the light of the sun just beginning to fade in the background and all of these women who appear to have been working in the fields are coming home in the foreground or disappearing further of in the background, going home beyond the horizon. It's just breathtaking the way the colors in the painting interact with light. In the morning with all the light streaming in through the living room windows this morning, it was just brilliant. We plan on framing it soon but for now, it looks amazing just as it is.

When I have weekends this good, I have to say, I cannot even fathom that I have to return to that office. I doesn't ever seem real to me. The only thing that feels real to me now is the smiling laughing faces of my family on Fran's side, all the good food we ate, the great laughs and conversations we had and the love in between.

Dali Film Stills

 

"Witness" The Line up

Wandering around one of my flicker accounts this weekend (yes I have two) I saw this amazing technique done by flickr member, allstrippeddown. I'm a movie nerd and love taking pics of film stills in some of my favorite movies but it never occurred to me to use my hipstamatic app to do it. The "Dali" lens in combination with the Salvador "Dream Canvas" lens really adds another set of dimensions to this ongoing collection of moments in films that I personally find iconic. The stopping of time reveals many things.

Perhaps life is not...

From "The Cross of Redemption, Uncollected writings of James Baldwin"

Hipstamatic Lenses (My Faves so Far)

Roboto Glitter

 

 John S.

Bettie XL

Kaimal Mark II

Dali

The Lucifer lens is characterized by deep dark moody purplish tones and I haven't had the opportunity to use it very often. The Dali lens which just came out a few weeks ago is one I'm still getting a handle on. It really pushes the boundaries of the Hipstamatic format translating images and composition to more of an "art" form by using producing random double exposures and deep dreamy tones. You don't get a lot of control here but it's fun just to shoot and see what happens. The least impressive of the lenses in my opinion are the Helga Viking and the Jimmy. I still have yet to understand the look of the Helga Viking. It just doesn't really seem to have a distinct character to me, at least not yet. And the Jimmy lens just makes everything way too yellow for my taste. But I will continue to experiment with both all my favorites of course. And as always I will continue explore the work of other Hipstamatic addicts for inspiration and tips.