Downtown Greensboro Tall Buildings from Stairs of Elm St. Parking Deck

Today I got a reminder from Facebook that I had posted this iPhone image a year ago.  I was in downtown Greensboro, NC,  and wanting to get some architectural shots. These are challenging with the wide angle lens of the iPhone as buildings can be distorted . This image was taken with the 5s HDR mode.  I was going up the stairs of the parking deck off Elm Street.  It was about noon - 1 PM on a Sunday and not many people around. I did not have the SKWRT app but liked this shot and was recently thinking about taking it again. Pushed exposure sliders and sharpening to get the effect I wanted with PSE 11.    

Fringe Tree Blossoms Close Up -also B & W conversion

Lately there has been a lot of hype about having a Fringe Tree in your yard and it is considered a native plant as well as an herb.  I like the petals of the blossoms as a close up and may use later for a texture background when I start doing more artisticdigital images.  The one on the left is the orginal in color.  The one on the right I converted to B & W "vivid" in PSE 11 but did additional contrast to make the leaves more black.  Will definitely be one I keep the images in my texture folder.

Erynn & Logan Viewing Fish Tank @ Sciquarium, GSO, NC 4/10/2015

Grand children were here last week. We went to the Sciquarium, Greensboro Natural Science Center on Friday.   I previously posted a picture of the penguins.   I am posting an image like I saw done by Greensboro Daily Photo, but I took with the iPhone 5C.  You have very little control of the fish movement since fixed speed and this is a low lighting situation.  I did increase the shadows and midtones, and cropped slightly in PSE 11.  Sharpening would not help this image.  Logan is stamding in the middle and Erynn is to his right.  When I took this image no sharks were swimming past the glass.    

Spoons Coffee Cup Sculpture - Carolina Theater, S. Greene St. Greensboro, NC

My PC computers are not working well or perhaps the operator/photographer needs to read various manuals.  Needless to say that was more of a challenge than taking the photo. The photo on the left is the original image.  The image  on the R I posted to FB with post processing I did not have a lot of editing choices that I could do in a single application and I do not PSE on my Macbook Pro.   I started with Exposure app (vintage) and then finished cropping hue & tint adjustments, vignette, and clarity in PS Express app.  Unfortunately in straightening the cup, the bricks are not level.  I am blaming on distortion issues.  This coffee cup sculpture is located near the Carolina Theater in downtown, GSO, NC.  There are 6 more sculptures to post later.  I had to go back after the first attempt because sunlight was too bright. I do not get the highlight blinks with bright highlights in my iPhone 5s. This time it was overcast. I may post an inverted image under comments later. It will look surreal. So this time I really had to edit on my iPhone and post to Facebook.  I have never really liked how iPhone/iPhoto handles images.

Wanted to show the filter "invert" image of this coffee cup. I did solarize first in PSE 11, then chose invert filter.  As you can see the areas that were dark in the other photos have reversed to light and the bricks which were lighter have now become darker. It gives a surreal effect like something you might see in the movie Avatar.  

Coffee Cup Collaborative Walk - Education

I had read about The Greensboro Coffee Cup Collaborative Walk which features sculptures of coffee cups representing different life venues. Check out the URL:
http://www.gpsmycity.com/…/greensboro-coffee-cups-collabora… The  downtown library has one for education which was between the libarary and that parking garage off Church St. Even though I took this one with cloudy conditions, I wanted to play with some in-camera apps for my posting today. I used the native camera app.  Then I enhanced with PS Express app in my iPhone 5s. I cropped, changed the lighting, and applied some filters which actually made the cup look gold instead of copper. Will try again on a sunny day. There are more sculptures in the Greensboro Coffee Coffee Collaborative Walk-- most of them downtown  and considered a walking tour except for the one at the Greensboro Coliseum. I will try again for a sunny day. with the close up it is difficult to judge the size. I am guessing maybe 10" x 10". Finding a plain background is not going to happen in this urban area. I would have loved to have had a stepstool to take the cup from the top like a "bird's eye" view. Stay tuned for more postings.