If you have an iphone and you like photography, you NEED these apps

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The iphone is an incredible device.  Its gone far beyond a phone.  Its a hand-held computer and for an artist, its a tool, an extension of the minds vision.  I use it in many applications, my favorite two being music and photography.  I have dedicated an entire section of my blog to photographs I have taken with my iphone 4.  http://johnriveraurbanmusic.squarespace.com/urban-art/  Will it replace the point and shoot?  The debate is ongoing but the numbers don't lie and the numbers are indicating that it will.  It is so much easier to have your camera, your walkman/boom box, your phone, your calculator et al, in one thin, smooth, sexy glass container.  Its all there, and the iphone's specs are very impressive with one caveat.  Here are the specs for you geeks:

5.0 Mpixels (2592 x 1936)

1/3.2" back-illuminated CMOS sensor

4:3 aspect ratio

35 mm film camera crop factor: 7.64

Low ISO 80 (or better)

3.85 mm lens focal length

f/2.8 lens aperture

Autofocus: tap to focus

   The caveat is 'digital zooming'.  I don't really think it works, there's too much 'noise' in it, in other words, its grainy. 

    Now,  these specs are very respectable, and by itself, the iphone can take a good picture.  But there are apps which make this camera, a GREAT camera.  They are a 'must have' if you want to be an exceptional iphone photographer.  And I'm going to tell you about 3 that I think are really cool, useful, and in my case, invaluable.  

                                                                 The Apps

   The first app that I want to talk about is Pro HDR.  Its $1.99 at the App Store.  Which cracks me up because people talk about 'app money' like its money spent on a TV or something and a $12 app (OMG!) is an astronomical fee.  But I digress.  Pro HDR allows you to take a pretty good facsimile of an HDR photo. HDR stands for high dynamic range imaging.  cool.  Ok, what it does it take two pictures, a light one and a dark one, and then blends the two, combining all the range of light in the image.  You can take a direct shot using the app instead of the iphone camera, or you can load from your iphone photo library.  Once the shot is taken or chosen, you then have 5 tweaking options- brightness, contrast, saturation, warmth and tint. So though the app gives you a pretty good HDR image, you can change it just like you have your own personal photo studio.  Which brings me to app 2.

    ProCamera, $2.99.  The price raises the eyebrows of savvy app customers.  I suppose the difference is jumping from a Chrysler 200 to a Mercedes.  But only in the 'price' :).  They're both great apps. Actually ProCamera is too complex to go into here with any detail.  You have 2 modes, expert and regular.  Its a fantastic app.  You can adjust the 'white' balance, which is basically exposure, as well as the focus by dragging 2 boxes around with a finger swipe.  Once you get the desired look, you use the white balance button and it locks in.  You can take the shot by touching any area on the screen as well as fast multiple shots.  You can also shoot video with the exposure you desire by using the same locking boxes.  There is also an album option where you can load pictures from your album and apply cropping, rotation, color and light adjustments and effects like sepia and other vintage modes.  There are so MANY things you can do with this app, its really like having a professional studio at your fingertips.  As a matter of fact, there is so much you can do with it that they have created another app called iCademy which is a user manual for ProCamera!  

   The last app I want to mention is AutoStitch.  A bargain at $1.99.  This is how it works.  Lets say you are in downtown LA, or in the outback of Australia.  Perhaps the Gobi Desert.  For my example I'll use LA. You want to take a shot that encompasses a sweep of the city buildings but one shot won't get it.  So you take 5 pictures, each one overlapping where the last one leaves off.  Then you fire up AutoStitch and go to your library and load the 5 shots. You hit the 'stitch' button and it creates a panorama.  A beautiful panorama if you've got a good eye! You can then crop it by touching the crop icon.                                                                                               

   Of course all the photographs you create by using these apps can be saved to your phone library or you can email them or upload them to facebook.  They all have these options.  Your artistic imagination is the only limitation to what you can now do.  I'm now going to take you behind the screen in the Wizard of OZ and tell you how magic is done.  In the picture at the top of this article, I originally took 5 shots of LA with ProCamera.  I saved them to my camera roll.  I then loaded them into AutoStitch where I created a cityscape panorama.  I then cropped it and saved the crop in my camera roll.  I then loaded that into Pro HDR and adjusted the exposure.  Saved it again in my camera roll.  Then I loaded that into ProCamera and used the lab to further adjust the contrast and then put it into one of the effects to give me the final high contrast black and white city panorama!  A lot of work, yes, but worth it.  You can view a high quality enlargeable version in Urban Art.  What used to be a series of darkroom processes, or a series of lens on a digital SLR and then using a professional lab or Photoshop can now be done in the palm of your hand.

   Iphone- not your dad's phone.  Or the flip phone you had 5 years ago.  No, its finally playing in the big leagues.  And if you get these apps, so can YOU! 

   If you like this, hit the facebook like button! 

Believe In Yourself

This is a promotional video for my song Believe In Yourself on my new CD, Urban Night.  Its a song about never losing faith in yourself and always trusting your inner self to lead you right.  Its jazzy and I"ve got some great guys playing on it.  I hope you like it as I did in making it.  You can find Urban Night at CD Baby and here is the link: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/riveraj

Why do people blog?

I've had my site, Urban Life, for a couple of months now and I've done a bit, well, more than a bit, of research into blogging.  The first thing that amazed me was the sheer immensity of blogs.  First of all, I never considered my SITE a blog, I thought it was a website.  But so many people are calling it a blog, I suppose it must fall into that category.  Back to the immensity.  There are literally thousands of blogs on the World Wide Web. Blogs on every subject imaginable.  And so it started an internal conversation as to why do people do it?  Why are there so many inane posters?  What makes a successful blog and why am I having a conversation with myself??  We'll forget about the last one.  

   My blog/site is a collection of modalities and interests loosely formed around an Urban theme.  As I've said before, cities fascinate me, excite me and infuse me with energy.  But lets be honest, YOU don't care about what motivates ME.  You care about YOU.  And that is normal.  So, to the first question, why do people blog?  I think there is an innate urge for humans to express themselves.  To get out what is inside and have it recognized by others.  Some want to snatch a minute semblance of fame, in whatever form they can find.  Any man or woman can be published in this day and age.  What used to be a diary is now a public journal.  And the old ubiquitous 'submission rejection form letter' need not apply when one is self-published.  Content be damned.

   Which brings me to the second question.  Why are there so many inane posters?  So many inane blogs?  They say many are called but few are chosen.  And they also say the cream rises to the top.  Be it as it may, I site as exhibit A, the number one social network site on the planet Earth, Facebook.  It never ceases to amaze me the sheer massive amount of mundane thoughts emitting from the 'send' button. This is how it works.  A person has a fleeting thought, it could be about anything, they're sitting at their computer, they type it up, hit 'send' and the entire world for perpetuity, knows it.  A person is say, vacuuming their rug and for some uncanny reason, they feel the need to 'share'.  And they do. Its a compulsion.  But what is really fascinating about this compulsion to share the mundane, is that everybody comments on it!  They feel the need to share in the mundane, to embellish upon it, to cheer it on as it were.  I have no idea why.  And so many blogs are the same.  Blogs about what makeup someone is wearing and what truck someone is driving.  Interesting.  Now I don't claim to be a Yoda or someone imparting deep pearls of wisdom every time I sit down in front of my keyboard and put pen to paper as it were.  Or whatever its called now days.  I don't meditate before I write and wait for the bolt of lightning to split the stone tablets.  But I do try to give something interesting and useful.  And that brings me to the last question I asked myself while walking the streets at 2 AM.  What makes a successful blog?

   If you don't teach, you won't reach.  Its that simple.  People love to learn.  They want to be able to look at something that they will get a take-away from.  Now I realize that may contradict my previous paragraph. Yes, the facebook posts about someone's day watching the paint dry will get 20 comments, but you can be assured that they're the posters closest friends and relatives.  And even that still amazes me.  However, to have a successful blog that hundreds, even, who knows, thousands of people will visit, you must teach.  How to cook a fish.  How to change a hard drive.  How to format a disk.  How to pick up someone in a bar in 10 minutes or less.  Its all about teaching and what YOU can do for THEM. And, within that context, you can showoff what you do.  In a photographers blog, there may be many beautiful shots of sunsets on Bali, but if there aren't posts on how to take those shots, you can count on your family and friends to be your fans and that's about it.  The secret to success is doing for others.  Making people's lives a little brighter, a little more enlightened.  Giving them something that they can use and THAT will make them come back for more.  And while they're at it, they just might look at your pictures and give you a thumbs up.  

   So, back to the core question, why am i having conversations with myself... NO, not THAT question.  Why DO people blog?  Because it fills the need to escape anonymity.  And in a big city, as unlikely as it may sound, anonymity is a real reality.  Millions of people walking down the sidewalks and no one stops to say hello.  Sometimes people don't even know their own neighbors.  A blog gives a person a chance to escape that aloneness.  Also, most everyone wants to stand out, to 'be somebody'.  One only has to watch Jerry Springer one time to see the lengths some go to achieve their 15 minutes. But its deeper than that.  People want others to see that they have something to say.  Something to contribute.  

   I blog because I must create.  And I feel I have something to say that may make others think a little different about something.  I blog because I want to teach whatever I have been passionate about in my short time and might have some minute expertise to share.  I blog because I want to share, I want to connect.  As an artist, I want people to see and hear my art, and hope that it may give them a smile. And in this Urban Life, I want to share the endless complexities and wonders of these man made canyons we call CITY.  

   Why do YOU blog?  Why do YOU write, if you do?  I would like you to tell me, right here and now, what YOUR thoughts are.  Because if nothing else, I'm forever curious.