4th July: peachy Melba

It’s the 4th of July which means happy Independence Day for all my visitors from the US! Hope the cold beers are going down well!

This is also the 185th day of the year which means my Project 365 is officially past the halfway stage and now on the approach to the finish line! Hopefully this will be a gentle descent home but who knows what challenges lie ahead in trying to take a photo a day!

So far I have slipped up just once and I’m determined not to so it again. But it’s not easy! Most days I have an idea of what I will shoot based on my diary, but there have certainly been times when I’ve only realised late in the day that I haven’t taken a photo yet and had to get creative with what I have around me – but maybe that’s what it’s all about?!

Most of my photos have been taken with my trusty iPhone and a collection of apps – namely Best Camera, TiltShift Generator, and AutoStitch. I’ve just downloaded Camera+ which has had rave reviews, and I’ll be upgrading to the new iPhone this month (if stock arrives!) so it will be interesting to see if my style of photos significantly changes in the second half of the year. Ooh, the anticipation, the tension, the drama! Stay tuned to find out what happens next!

To view the first 6 months of Project 365 photos gathered so far just click here and select a month!

Introducing TiltShift Generator. TiltWho What you say? Ok, think of those really cool, fun shots of cities, stadiums and cars where they’ve been manipulated to look like miniatures, like in these examples:

This effect is called “shifting” and works by applying selective focus to a particular part of the image and throwing the rest of it into a blur causing an extremely shallow depth of field. In other words your eyes and brain overload and you think JetStar have dropped you off in Lilliput instead of Brisbane.

Shifting has actually been around for a long time and is  traditionally produced straight from the camera by using a special tilt-shift lens such as the beautiful TS-E 17mm below from Canon. These very technical lenses can be adjusted to “tilt” or, yes, “shift” to varying degrees, thus manipulating the focal planes and causing outrageous results. The tilt function of the lens is mainly used by architectural photographers to relieve the common problem of sloping building syndrome. It does this by correcting the converging verticals of the building, making it look straight. Just as your eyes would see it. Anyway, back to that lens!

The Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L

If you’ve read my post on Objects Of Desire #1 then you’ll know how much I’d love to have one of these red-ringed charms. But as I don’t have $3,000 spare, imagine how overjoyed I was to find an iPhone app which produced the shift effect for just $1.19! That’s only 0.04% of the cost of the Canon lens!

That app is TiltShiftGenerator and I implore you to buy it as it is guaranteed to make taking photos with your iPhone more fun than you can imagine!

It’s really simple to use and self-contained from start to finish. The camera can be launched from within the app and when you take a photo the selective focus is automatically applied to it. The focal point can be dragged around on the screen and resized with your fingers, and then you also have the option to apply saturation, brightness, contrast and vignetting. Once you’re happy, save the finished shot to your iPhone album or export it to email or Twitter. Simple! Personally, I like to save to my iPhone then frame it in BestCamera.

If you’re doing a photo Project 365 as I am then this app is essential! When you’ve challenged yourself to take a photo every day for a year there will inevitably be days when there isn’t much around to excite you. But this handy app opens up a whole world of possibilities. Try it – you won’t be disappointed! Just to inspire you, here are some of my results from TiltShift Generator from my daily walk to work which are featured in my Project 365:

14th Jan: King Street Wharf Jnr

18th Jan: ferry cross the bathtub

And as a special treat, check out these awesome tilt-shift time-lapse videos!

Beached from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Bathtub III from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.