The Gryphon's Feather Studio

Give your computer photo editing moves like your iPhone's!

Ever wish you could edit photos on your laptop or desktop as quickly and easily as you do on your iPhone or iPad?  You can! 

My inbox had an email from the Nevercenter folks this morning advertising a HUGE sale on their CameraBag 2.5 app for Mac & Windows.  

It is normally $20, but is on sale for a very limited time for $8.  

Nevercenter also has a free, 15-day trial version, so you can check it out before purchasing.

I'm not affiliated with Nevercenter in any way.  I've purchased their apps for my computer, iPhone and iPad.  The original Camerabag app was one of my favorite iPhone apps when I started shooting with an iPhone in 2009.  It was the third app I purchased, and a version of CameraBag has been on my phone ever since!  Their apps have been winning awards for years.

The computer version is available for Mac & Windows (PC) systems.   It offers 150 filters, and the ability to create  and share your own, as well as access the shared filters of other users.  There are a number of great features, but the best part is you can keep it simple! You can just apply their filters, and play with your photos!  Or, if you are interested, you can go in-depth with creating filters and using the photo editing tools. The computer version also supports the use of RAW image files, if you shoot your images in that format. 

 

In my opinions, one of the best thing about Nevercenter's products is the information they include in the "Support" section of their website. I took a quick screenshot of their website from my phone.  You can see they have tutorials and videos for whatever level of experience you have using these sorts of applications.  I clicked on "Getting Started with..." which led me to a page that even explained how to open the app.

 

I had CameraBag 1.5 on my laptop. When Nevercenter updated to 2.0, the update was so huge, and offered so much more, you had to purchase the update.  It wasn't expensive, but I didn't want to spend the money at the time.  When I finally wanted to update, the offer had expired.  I didn't want to pay $20 for the new version, so I just kept the old, which of course, I didn't use as much. 

But, $8?! Heck, yeah!  That's a hella deal! (it's what? 60% off?) I thought I'd pass the info along to all of you, just in case you might find $8, for a terrific piece of photo software, appealing! 

If you are using a Mac, then you already know about the Mac App Store.  You can buy it there for $7.99 using your iTunes account.  If you are PC/Windows, you can buy it directly from Nevercenter, and use the sale code SPRINGSALE when you check out. You can pay via credit/debit or Paypal.  I used the Mac App Store. What? It's a penny cheaper there!  Just kidding, using the Mac App Store was easier - just needed to enter my iTunes password instead of entering all my address and billing info into the Nevercenter site checkout form.  (yes, I AM that lazy.)

You're welcome!

a morgue of my own

I have my very own morgue. I actually have a few, filled to bursting.

Do you have a morgue?  If not, you should.  Every artist should have a morgue of their very own... 

No, not a collection of dead bodies, although the study of those served Leonardo da Vinci well; didn't they?

I am speaking of the sort of morgue many of us had to keep in various art classes- the sketchbooks we filled to bursting with reference images, postcards of paintings, quotes, bits of poetry, photographs we liked, photographs we made, scribbled sketches so we could recall some idea, something we saw, images clipped from magazines that drew in our eye because of the color palette, the aesthetic sense, the visual appeal, the intruiging idea... glorious visual fodder all jammed into a book. 

The name, morgue, for these in a sketchbook or binder form that art, theatre, stagecraft, design people... and others keep as a reference file came our way via newspapers who kept extensive files, and sometimes rooms, full of reference materials, they called morgues.

(the one on the left is a handmade journal - with braile paper, and corrugated cardboard covers.  It only has quotes and poetry inside and is full now. The center book is a graph paper lab book, and the right hand side is Michael's cheapest black hardbound sketchbook with some paint on the cover, and a good bit of gaffer's tape on the burst-open spine.)

I still keep these movable visual feasts, and I would guess that many of my peers do also.  Since I'm not turning them in for review for a grade these days, I am broader in what I include: clothing, shoes, jewelry, book reviews, & musical performers that have caught my attention, websites I want to visit, apps for which I need to check out reviews, products to try, art supplies to research, paint cards from the home store done around various color palettes, pictures of stuff I wanted to remember that I've taken with my iPhone, ideas for activites to do with the littles, vacation dreams, things to look up at the library...  You know, all that stuff you find and stuff into a manila file folder, that will never again see the light of day? 

For a few  years, I used books that were 6x9 or so, but I found the small size limiting sometimes.  I had to fold stuff up to get it in there, so I moved to back to the 9x12-ish size I used in school.  I kept far more notes, to do lists, grocery lists, phone numbers etc, in the smaller size ones- something I miss, and am trying to recreate digitally on my iPad.

I also browse magazines, pull articles I want to read, and staple them along one edge of a page, creating a sort of personalized, homemade magazine of my own. I like to go through the discard pile at the library, too.

If you are finding yourself in need of some visual input, but can't go anywhere to get it, having a book full of things you like to look at, things that struck your fancy, is a great way to have an artist date without leaving home, or while stuck, say, in a waiting room somewhere.  I have been finding my morgues invaluable of late. 

I pulled out my stack of things to go through - my torn out pages, my clippings, images, & magazines, and spent some enjoyable time sorting, tearing, pasting.  Some old toy and kids' clothing catalogs, dog-eared children's magazines, safety scissors, and a dollar store composition book, entertained Sunny for an unusually long time.

I like to drop one in my tote bag for those times I am hanging out in the doctor's office waiting room; I use that time to read those magazine articles I've stapled into my morgue, and to make notes on the clippings that interested me, so I can remember why I clipped them to begin with (which can be strangely obscure sometimes), or what I saw in the image/product/object that attracted my eye (color, shape, texture, line, emotion, imagination...).

I didn't choose the most interesting pictures of the inside pages to show you. Rather than post my morgue pages for you to read and browse, I really wanted instead to give you the idea to make, or return to keeping, a morgue of your own. 

 

 

 

ART & SOUL PORTLAND!!!

 

REGISTRATION OPENS TODAY FOR ART & SOUL PORTLAND 2011!!

I'm teaching several workshops, including two very new ones!  My classes include Natural Beauty, The Big Time Book, iPhone-ography, and iPad-ology!  Yep!

I've put together videos for the iPhone and iPad classes, as well as one for The Big Time Book class.  Enjoy!!

 

 

 

The Light of Anticipation & Celebration - The Weekly Holiday Assignment

 Oh, the gift of faces lit up with the joy of anticiaption and celebration!! I love photographing joy, don't you?  Remember the anticipation of the holiday? The sheer excitement of it?  What an irreplaceable feeling!  What a gift!  Light shines from inside people this time of year, bringing us closer to what we are truly to be. 

Your archive assignment this week is to choose images that illustrate: 

1. the anticipation of holiday joy. Look for the excitement in the photos, the power of knowing something joyous is to come.
2. celebration- the joy of being together. It is time for gatherings- family, friend, colleagues, schoolmates.

Your photo assignment is to photograph the faces of your family and friends as they anticipate and  celebrate.  You are assigned to photograph laughter, hugs, shrieking, smiles.  USE YOUR ZOOOOOOOM.  Step FIVE steps closer!!  You are not assigned photos of the shoes people are wearing!!!!  In other word, get closer to your subjects heads.

Your journaling prompt is to gush on about the positive nature of anticipation- it is good for you to journal about excitement in an excited way.  Write illegibly if you feel odd about it, and just let it flow!

 

 

The Light of Home - Weekly Holiday Assignment

There is a magic in that little world, home: It is a mystic circle that surrounds comforts and virtues never known beyond its hallowed limits.

Robert Southey

Home.  We take it for granted most of the time, yet without it we are lost.  It can be our compass rose, our nest, our shelter from the storm, our place of rest.  And, if we ponder home, it is not our address, not the wood, the stone, the block, the drywall... that makes our home.  What our makes our home is, of course, the people inside the house, and the way we have arranged the gathering of things we treasure to make a place of comfort, and of refuge.  We are grateful, within an instant of pondering it, that we are so fortunate as to have a home, with heat and water and doors and windows.  We know; we are blessed.  Let's honor that blessing by celebrating that blessing, by lifting that idea right into the Light.

This week your archive assignment (meaning delve into all those stored/archived images)  is to look for images that speak to your heart of the light of home.  You can make use of your scanner to go back to that home you carry in your heart- the home of childhood and memory, or your first family home as an adult.

Your photo assignment may require some reflection.  Photograph the light of your home.  Consider multiple meanings of the word light.  Interpret the words of the assignment in multiple ways.  Where is the light? In the faces of family or pets,sunlight streaming into a favorite spot, cozy rooms, a moment in time, the windows light from within in the darkness... some place else?

Draw the written portion of your journaling from your reflections on the photo assignment, on the process of chooisng your archived images...

 

Preparing for the Light - Weekly Holiday Assignment

This first week of December is when preparations for the holidays really seem to begin.  It is also the start of Advent, if you are Christian, and Hanukkah begins, if you are Jewish.  Regardless of your religious denomination, the weeks or days leading up to the holiday are filled with errands that must be completed, correspondence, phone calls, planning, and perhaps holiday shopping.

I love the holidays. The hype doesn't affect me at all- it is simply background noise. Don't let it distract you.

I love the feeling that blooms this time of year, despite the cynics who say we've all forgotten the meaning of the holidays- the meaning of the miracle of light in the dark.  Whether we are talking about the light that burned in the darkness for eight days when it should have lasted but one, or the Light of the World being born to lift us out of darkness, or the light we must keep burning within as the wheel of the year moves to the darkest night and the return of the light as the days grow longer, the season is about light.

Candles, menorahs, holiday decorations, our windows lit with warm incandescence against the dark night...

And, the love that is shared this time of year- families, friends, even strangers act differently- with more compassion for others.  Ignore the person in the mall parking lot who cuts you off from your space.  Remember all those people who are tossing change into the kettles of charities who really do work to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless.  That is light, too, shining at it's brightest.

Consider the faces of children as they play in the snow, wait in line for Santa, or hear the tale of their spiritual history. Memories are light in the darkness, too. Remembrance is a gift.

It seems fitting to me, that we work with photographs at this time of year.  Photographs are, by definition, a record of light.  So, we'll work each week for the month of Decmber, with assignments that you can use to pull content for your journals that is a an enjoyable task. 

Holiday Photo Assignments- week #1

Archives:

In looking through your archives of photos this week, cull for photos of the time of preparation for the light that comes in your tradition.  Look for the light of this time. Don't forget many families choose a tree at this time, or gather for Hanukkah, or attend church or school activities.  Perhaps this is when you decorated?  Maybe there are things you need to remember to feel the coming light?  Choose images to reflect that.

Photo Assignment:

Photograph some aspect of preparing for the light.  Preparation. in your home, in your life, in your heart.

Journaling:

Examine the concept of the light in your journal.  Look to your personal spiritual beliefs and your intuitive response to the idea of light being made manifest this month. Journal your thoughts.

 

Encourage anyone you know who takes photos and journals to join in recording the light.

 

 This blog will host weekly assignments like the one above.  In addition, you will find posts in this season of growing darkness on sharing the Miracle of Light.  

Purple isn't a typical predominant color for me, but since I somewhere along the line I painted a page using layers of purple, here we are - along with a found poem from a page out of an antique children's primer.

This journal spread comes from an image I manipulated for a class lesson for my Techniques class.  

 

The found poem:

I don't know which way to go

(a found poem)

 

I turn my back to the sun.

See that?

It seems

it is now time to go.

Now, tell me,

will you

let me hear you

in the way of those

that think

the words,

those small

hard words?

Which way, then,

Which way is

good?

 

go with me.

journal page

surfacing

I've been wrestling grief, which doesn't work, of course. Denial is simply the beginning of the process. More than simply disbelief that some one has died, denial includes this desire to avoid the sorrow. I felt as though too much were going on, so much so that I didn't want to take on one more thing- that 'one more thing' being my sorrow at losing Carol. As if I can choose to avoid grief at the loss of one of my closest friends. Stuffing my sadness left me unable to move forward - with anything for over a week. Not ideal, to say the least. But, I am moving forward again...

This journal was made using materials I picked up at Maria's Collage annex at Art & Soul (also known as The Art & Soul Store). The covers are schoolchildren's chalkboards. The label/ printing on the edge is in French, so perhaps they are from France. The papers are Stonehenge white and black. I didn't pre-paint the papers because I wanted the spine to be black & white. The webbing straps are from a belt, thrifted from the Goodwill. I used a vintage button and some bright red, hmmm, bias tape?, I think as a tie closure.

journal page spread in progress