imjustcreative » Photography

Polamatic (Official Polaroid™) App — Brings back the instant Polaroid magic

Graham Smith — Sun, 06 May 2012 09:35:52 +0000

Polamatic App by Polaroid™ (AppaDana)— Brings back the instant Polaroid magic (and hopefully set-off an app war with Instagram/FaceBook?)

Polamatic is an officially licenced iOS app from Polaroid: awesome. Read more on this: Polaroid Polamatic™ Mobile Application for iOS

Wouldn’t it be great if Polaroid, as well as now having it’s own iOS photography app, also had it’s own sharing network? A network that could instantly and realistically compete with Instagram and would likely see quite a significant take-up by Instagramers.

Polamatic is a great looking app and has some lovely features. The main one being each photo is based around the physical Polaroid prints with the thick white borders. One has a selection of scanned -in, not computer generated, Polaroid frames as well as the requisite filters with more options available as in-app store purchases.

It just feels so right to be using a faux Polaroid branded iOS app.

Your photo can be shared directly with Instagram, Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr and FaceBook. I have already placed Polamatic next to Instagram on my iPhone home screen.

Polamatic only costs £0.69 as well and you can download it via iTunes: Polamatic | Made in Polaroid

From PR NEwsWire: Offered by Appadana Development, an authorized Polaroid licensee, the Polamatic app brings back the instant magic of Polaroid pictures to mobile devices. Users may select from 12 frames with clever names like “tape,” “crumpled” and “kinda new.” Unlike other photo editing applications, the frames are not computer generated. Instead, they are high quality scans of new, used, and vintage Polaroid Classic Border frames, giving pictures a unique classic style.

The app also features 12 photo effects for customization with fun names like “chroma,” “gelatin” and “pyrophoric.” The photo effects allow users to apply a number of color and tone adjusting effects to their pictures. Whether users wish to apply sepia tones, or a rosy hue, this application has a plethora of effects to choose from. Users may also add text to their Polaroid picture, choosing from 12 different fonts.

Your Polaroid pictures can be saved and easily shared via Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr or email, making this application a must for bloggers and social media enthusiasts who want to add Polaroid pictures to their visual posts. Users may also save their pictures directly to the iOS photo library, with the tap of a button.

The Polamatic app store allows users to purchase additional frame formats and effects. From the Polaroid Vintage Pack upgrade, users can select an additional 12, authentic, high-resolution scans of Polaroid Classic Border picture frames from multiple eras. For those wishing to add a touch of color to their photos, the Polaroid Chroma Pack upgrade includes 10 colored Polaroid Classic Border picture frames. The Photo Effects upgrade offers 12 added photo effects allowing for more customization options.

Feature Highlights:
* Easy to use, intuitive interface produces quality edits in seconds
* 12 authentic Polaroid Classic Border picture frames
* 12 photo effects for innovative pictures
* Easily share via Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr or email
* Control flash, grid, and front or rear camera
* In-App purchases provide additional borders and photo effects

“Bring back all of the magic of Polaroid pictures on your iPhone,” stated Appadana Development’s Dana Shakiba. “Polamatic makes your pictures come alive with classic Polaroid style.”

Device Requirements:
* iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
* Requires iOS 5.0 or later
* 41.5 MB

Read Polamatic (Official Polaroid™) App — Brings back the instant Polaroid magic on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

Hilariously Ferocious Underwater Dog Photography by Seth Casteel

Graham Smith — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 16:40:13 +0000

Hilariously Ferocious Underwater Dogs by photographer Seth Casteel (Facebook) who has captured these very cool canine expressions.

I would love to have some of these done for my own canine companions, Mr Dylan and Miss Charley. Charley being water loving dog who frequently dives under the water to grab stones, or anything else that takes her fancy. It would also be cool to get one of her with a dark background to highlight her startlingly large white teeth against her jet black coat.

K Found on Colossal

Read Hilariously Ferocious Underwater Dog Photography by Seth Casteel on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

Marilyn Monroe at Home, 1955 by Alfred Eisenstaed

Graham Smith — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:23:27 +0000

Astonishing and captivating photographs (all photographs by Alfred Eisenstaed) of Marilyn Monroe at home. Loving the set of her lounging on her sofa with a book scribbling away.

K Found on Retronaut

Read Marilyn Monroe at Home, 1955 by Alfred Eisenstaed on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

Will the rain ever stop?

Graham Smith — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 08:00:08 +0000

Just felt obliged to share this photograph I took of my dog Dylan. Sitting in the car down the beach, waiting for the rain to stop so I could take him out for his morning walk. After about 30 minutes of waiting, I looked in the rear view mirror and saw Dylan just resting his head on the rear seat, looking out of the rain splashed window.

Grabbed my iPhone 4 and swiveled round best I could in the drivers seat and took this shot. Slightly out of focus but other than that, I just love how Dylan seems to be just sadly looking out, longing for the rain to stop. Bless him, looks so forlorn.

Passed the photo through a filter in the Camera + iPhone application, and then a little unsharpmask in Photoshop when I got back home.

View original Dylan on Flickr.

Read Will the rain ever stop? on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

7Up Vintage Painted Street Sign

Graham Smith — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:37:11 +0000

Not often I just post one photo, but this is beautiful. See the original on Flickr.

Read 7Up Vintage Painted Street Sign on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

Typography in NYC Flickr Set

Graham Smith — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:44:23 +0000

Just had to share these photos of typography in and around New York City. Taken by a friend of mine, Maxine (wander_by_trade), they show a bewildering variety of typography based subway signage, posters, general signs as well as decades old wood and stone building engravings. Not to mention the odd appearance of Helvetica.

This selection really has made me want to go their really quite soon and take my own photos. Enjoy.

Typography in New York City

Read Typography in NYC Flickr Set on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

Sneek Peek – Illumina Wedding Photography Logo

Graham Smith — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:52:10 +0000

Sneek Peek – Illumina

This is just a sneek peek of a logo and identity design I recently completed for a wedding photography studio, ‘Illumina’. The Sneek Peek is to provide an initial view of the logo images and is linked to my portfolio. An in-depth ‘logo design process’ post will be done in time brief and to the point information on that design. It will be linked to the images currently existing in my portfolio.

The main idea was to avoid the usual cliché associations with photography logos as well as wedding photography in general. There were several key elements to this project. Incorporating the visual association of photography, weddings, and also playing on the Illumina name.

The challenge was to create a logomark that summed up all these associations in one clean mark without looking tacky or cliche.

The breakdown thus consists of the main black circle which hints at a camera lens, the white eclipse shape hints at both a lens reflection and also a moon/eclipse which is the association with ‘illumination/illumina’. Finally the wedding clue is the diamond positioned so as to look like its part of a wedding ring, also part of the eclipse.

I didn’t want to make any one element too obvious, more a combination of subtle cues, but when in context work nicely.

Typography

Gotham Black was used for the main wording and Trajan Bold was used for the tag line.

Read Sneek Peek – Illumina Wedding Photography Logo on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

10 Faces you may know on MonoExpression – Part 2

Graham Smith — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:38:25 +0000

This is Part Two (Part One) of a collection of recent faces on MonoExpression. A fun photographic based creative side project that I set up last year.

It’s goal: to collect as many black & white portraits of creative souls. For no other reason than, because I can, I love photography and I especially love black & white portraits. Here are ten portraits I picked to show you what is going on over there.

Some faces you may know – Part 2

Here are ten portraits I picked to show you what is going on over there.

Arnt Edvin Eriksen – Public Portrait – @arnteriksen

Elizabeth (Firggy) – Public Portrait – @firgs

Hernan Valencia – Public Portrait – @theconstruct

Emil Wisch – Public Portrait – @emilwisch

Lydia J Koranda – Public Portrait – @lydiajae

Scott Wyden – Public Portrait – @scottwyden

Mariusz Cieśla – Public Portrait – @dotmariusz

Daniel E. Agee – Public Portrait – @danieleagee

Brian K. McDaniel – Public Portrait – @bkmacdaddy

Louis Gubitosi – Public Portrait – @iBlend

Want to be part of it?

If you are a creative in any field, and would like to be included, then head on over to MonoExpression for details on how to submit a photo.

No related posts.

Read 10 Faces you may know on MonoExpression – Part 2 on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

Mr Dylan – The Lurcher Snow Hound

Graham Smith — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:41:46 +0000

Snow in the UK, a week before Christmas is a treat. I don’t know many dogs that don’t enjoy the snow, Dylan for one goes pretty berserk. So with a fresh fall of snow over night, we both wrapped up warm and headed out into the white early morning. Ready for nice long walk along the cliffs, and some photography with my new Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7.

Dylan being super thin haired and very thin skinned really does feel the cold, so I have a number of jackets for him. Today, he can be seen in a all over dog vest that covers his stomach, a thick over sized fleecy jacket and then a standard greyhound fur lined nylon outer jacket. One snug lurcher.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7

This photo I love to bits. Given my hands were numb, my new Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7 did a great job of auto focusing on the speeding Dylan. He was running towards me at full speed, he had just appeared behind a bank, but the zoom which was on the maximum 18x on sports mode, did a great job. Given the poor lighting and problematic exposure in general for snow scenes, this is a great photo.

Just love the expression on his face, he always tends to be smiling, especially when he runs at you full speed, with his eyes locked onto you. You just need to be light footed enough to move out of the way.

Read Mr Dylan – The Lurcher Snow Hound on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

Highlights from my Landscape Photography Portfolio

Graham Smith — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:56:58 +0000

Ever the keen photographer. I have been shooting pic’s since I got my first camera at age of about 8. I love exploring my vision through a lens, fascinated with shooting images that show how I see the world. I favour black and white, but will use colour when the colours are just too beautiful to ignore.

Here are just a few of my favourite landscape photos.

Read Highlights from my Landscape Photography Portfolio on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

10 Faces you may know on MonoExpression – Part 1

Graham Smith — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:49:10 +0000

MonoExpression is a fun photography based creative side project that I set up last year. It’s goal: to collect as many black & white portraits of creative souls. For no other reason than, because I can, I love photography and I especially love black & white portraits. Here are ten portraits I picked to show you what is going on over there.

For the people I rubbed shoulders with online, I set about asking them if they would mind parting with a portrait for me to display on MonoExpression.

Some faces you may know – Part 1

Here are ten portraits I picked to show you what is going on over there. There will be another ten in a week or so. The links below will take you to the appropriate page for the person show on MonoExpression.

10 Portraits at Monoexpression

Leigh Caraccioli – Public Portrait – @fleurdeleigh

Rajesh Pancholi – Public Portrait – @r27

Misty Belardo – Public Portrait – @mistygirlph

Aaron Michael Irizarry – Public Portrait – @aaroni268

Kenroy George – Public Portrait – @kengeo

Elizabeth (Firggy) – Public Portrait – @firgs

Jeff Fisher – Public Portrait – @logomotives

Kyle Steed – Public Portrait – @kylesteed

EarthXplorer – Public Portrait – @earthxplorer

Rob Barrett – Public Portrait – @robbarrett

Graham Smith – Public Portrait – @imjustcreative

Want to be part of it?

If you are a creative in any field, and would like to be included, then head on over to MonoExpression for details on how to submit a photo.

Read 10 Faces you may know on MonoExpression – Part 1 on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

From my Photography Portfolio – ‘Egypt-Mother and Child’

Graham Smith — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 09:51:13 +0000

Location

During a 3 month trek across Egypt, I spent some time in Cairo, visiting my friend Simon who moved over to Egypt from England several years back. Cairo was actually my first port of call before my planned trek, to take in as much of Egypt as possible. Spending a week, with a friend who knew the city was so helpful in ‘bedding’ me in to the culture and culture shock before heading off on my own.

Taken in the beautiful grounds of the Cairo Museum, under the shade of tree’s. If you have been there then you will know the garden as round walls around trees and various statues. So this is where I was seated. Initially just taking in the sights and sounds, a mother and child sat down about 5ft away from me.

My Thinking

Every so often, the kid would peer round the protective cover of his mum and look at me with these huge eyes. Now being the considerate photographer I am, and mostly being aware of how rude just taking my camera out with its big telephoto lens and pointing it at them both would look, I considered my options. I knew this could be a awesome series of shots if I could pull it off.

One needs to be cautious and respectful of people’s privacy, especially in a foreign country, so I was comforted knowing I had been polite so far.

The next step was to keep my camera down by my waist, where it was hanging, but angle it up and hope for a decent frame. Trying to keep it as ‘covert’ as possible, without raising any suspicion. Very sneeky and not at all how I wanted to handle it, but I couldn’t just point and shoot. Too rude. And to ask would have destroyed the moment.

Every time the kid peered round, I snapped off a few shots whilst I kept eye contact with the kid and tried to grin myself. In my thoughts hoping that I had got the framing right, and all the other details. SO it was just press and hope for the best. Story of my life really.

The child was very cautious at first, only peering around a tiny bit, before darting back behind protective cover of mum. But each time, he became a little more confident, and his eyes got wider and the smile got more trusting. And each time I snapped a few frames.

I was caught tho. The mother happend to just look round, and I took a gulp. But all was OK, she looked at me, then the camera and smiled. So I took the initiative and held up the camera and pointed and gestured a sign ‘would you like to look?’. So I carefull edged over showing her the LCD on the back of the camera and she had a huge smile on her face after seeing the photos.

My only regret was not being able to communicate with her to get an address, as I would have loved to have been able to send her the shots.

This photo was one of many, but was pretty much one of the last taken. The rest were either wonky or too blurry. I think I took about 20, of which only several came out sharp and pretty much perfect.

Photoshop

The photos taken with my trusted Canon D300 and a 200mm zoom. Enough natural light to be able to have a nice shutter speed and ‘duff’ out the background.

Although the original photo is actually very good, I have made several versions of it using various subtle color washes.

I have also ‘dodged’ and ‘burned’ aspects of the photo, the child etc to really try and emphasis the white eyes against the dark skin and the mothers black attire. The look is not totally natural, but it’s what I wanted to achieve and I love it.

Overall

It proves that being in the right place at the right time with the right subject can ensure a ‘one off’ image. I keep looking at it time and time again and it brings back such vivid memories of Egypt and the initial innocence of a child, who slowly over time gets more confident and almost playful with the unknown. The unknown being me.

See other selected photographs from my Portfolio

Read From my Photography Portfolio – ‘Egypt-Mother and Child’ on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

iPhone Texture Pack #1 – Rusted Sea Iron

Graham Smith — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:07:47 +0000

Although not new to photography, taken continuous shots of surfaces for the sole purpose of creating a texture pack is. This is my first foray into Textures.

More of a iPhone Experiment

Coming from a commercial Pre-Press background, with the well worn in knowledge of high resolution pixels, what makes a image good and poor, these iPhone images are certainly not ‘epic’ in quality when compared to the usual high resolution textures you may be used to.

Saying all that, the subject matter is pretty cool, and there are some beautiful images there that I am sure you can manipulate to create something useful. Even if not, it was fun for me and cool to put the iPhone thought it’s pace. But there is enough resolution there for you to mess around, and even use as is for web backgrounds etc. So I am hopeful, even with the limited resolution of the iPhone, these textures will be of use.

Technical Information

Width : 1800 pixels

Height : 1200 pixels

Resolution : 300 pixels

Camera : iPhone

Editing : Some Photoshop contrast and cropping.

Texture Information

These rusty textures are taken from Seaford beach, specifically the iron sea defences at the bottom of Seaford Head. The colour and variety of textures and colours is really quite extraordinary. Bright oranges, reds and even hues of dark blue against the many layers of rust and flakes. So many variations, so many patterns.

Taken around midday with a full sun and clear blue sky.

I have certainly enjoyed this little project and don’t understand why I have not taken to it earlier. So expect a number of other Texture Packs from me over the coming months.

Feedback

I would greatly appreciate any feedback. Speficially if you like the subject matter and feel that it would be worth me taking the same shots with my proper digital SLR.

Download

DOWNLOAD You can download the entire pack as a ZIP.

iPhone Texture Pack #1 – Rusted Sea Iron

See other selected photographs from my Portfolio

Read iPhone Texture Pack #1 – Rusted Sea Iron on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.

From my Photography Portfolio – ‘Upturned and Blue’

Graham Smith — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 11:11:05 +0000

Location

Taken, as a lot of my photos are, locally. This is on Seaford Beach, just down from Seaford Head, a collection of small fishing boats that reside on the pebbles until time to go out and catch fish.

These are always the focus of many photographs, they are somewhat of a Seaford icon.

This will be part of my new Photography Portfolio, a new website dedicated to my photos.

My Thinking

Due to the popularity of these boats being used as the focus of photos, I wanted to try a more creative angle. I had in mind the desire to do some work in Photoshop for this shoot, so I took photos with this in mind.

I wanted to try and make them look like they could of been taken pretty much anywhere, except possible to those of us that live in Seaford and can see the personality of these boats from a mile away. After all, I for one walk past these every day whilst walking my dog Dylan.

Photoshop

The photos taken with my trusted Canon D300 and a 12mm wide angle, which has proven to be the most reliable camera I have ever had, not to mention it surviving 3 months circumnavigating Egypt, one whole week of which was in the Black and White desert.

The Photoshop process was actually pretty involved as I spent a lot of time tweaking the brightness and contrast of individual pebbles and also creating a much more dramatic sky,. You will also noticed the sun hitting the hanging rope from the blue boat, this thin line of white was enhanced with the ‘dodge’ tool.

Clearly I had to cut-out the boat in order to colourise it as I have. This was simple, but creating the right depth of blue to set against the grey took some trial and error. It involved a lot of retouching of the blue hull to create this soft almost plastic type look, and to scrub out any imperfections. I wanted it to look like it was just painted, which in fact it just had been, but was showing signs of wear and tear.

Overall

This is one of my favourite retouched photographs, one that I feel really works and goes to make the picture a joy to look at.

See other selected photographs from my Portfolio

Read From my Photography Portfolio – ‘Upturned and Blue’ on imjustcreative - logo & brand identity design portfolio and blog.