Posts in Category: Xoom Tablet

Vegas by Phone: Happy Sunday!

On my first night in Vegas, I walked across the pedestrian bridge from the Treasure Island, to the the Venetian, in search of the Food Court, and got totally lost. In the process I came on some typically over-the-top Vegas interiors. Of course I left my camera in the hotel room. I mean, I was only going to the Food Court. Right. Never again. All I had was my Android phone with its wimpy 5mp camera which I knew from past experience was, well, wimpy. Still. I might never find this part of the Palazzo again (I was lost), and I have been impressed with what Snapseed can do to even a bad photo photo, so, I did the total tourist thing with my phone.

Unfortunately, back at the TI, the Play Store informed me that Snapseed was not compatible with my device. Uuugh! So, I emailed the images from my phone to my XOOM Tablet, which is already good to go with Snapseed, and processed them on the XOOM, then uploaded them to WideEyedInWonder. Not bad for a phone shot. In Vegas. (And the Food Court at the Venetian is worth the trouble…fair prices and good food. I had a wonderful New York Style Deli Egg Salad Sandwich on rye with coleslaw and ice-tea for less than $10.00! In Vegas!)

And for the Sunday Thought.

Being in Vegas, for me, is roughly like being underwater, without any breathing apparatus. Once I leave my hotel room, I am always wondering if I am going to be able to hold my breath until I can get back there, where at least I can float with my nose out of the water. Even scenes like the one above, are like the fake sunken ships, the bright shells, and the carefully tailored plants of an aquarium. They say, “see, we know what beauty is like above the water, and we can fake it so you hardly know.” I am not fooled, and I struggle not to be impressed either. It is a counterfeit world. Totally false, and designed to deceive.

But then, those who live by faith have always testified that “the world” of our mundane experience is just the same: A counterfeit of the reality that is only perceived by the spirit…the place where the real air is, that the faithful breathe. And yet, I attempt every day to see through that counterfeit to the reality that informs it and gives it meaning and value.

Vegas I guess is just one layer deeper. A counterfeit of a counterfeit…even here a bit of the real shows through where men have labored to coin beauty. How could it be otherwise? Even when captured with a phone. And especially when you factor in the excellent egg salad on rye!

2/28/2012: Finger Paintings (PhotoArt?)

This image of a young raccoon began life as a digiscoped capture taken in Acadia National Park on a bird walk. I have been playing with art apps on my Xoom Tablet, which runs Android. There are now 400,000 apps in the Android Market, and quite a few art apps, specifically designed to do almost anything you might want to do to a photograph. PicsArt Studio is one, and it has some interesting painterly effects: oil, pastel, watercolor, hdr…as well as the more usual adjustments to contrast, sharpness, saturation, etc. The thing about working on a touch screen device like the Xoom Tablet is that you can quickly and easily finger paint the effects over exactly the portions of the image you want, leaving other portions untouched, or painting a completely different effect over other areas. In PicsArt you can also control the intensity of the effect, the size of the brush, the hardness of the brush, etc. so you have very fine control. It is all very experiential…very trial and error (mostly error of course), and very direct and immediate because of the touch interface. It is hard to predict what will happen when you apply an effect, but since it is all digital, experimentation is quick and easy to undo. You learn as you go. And it is, honestly, as much fun as finger painting!

This image used a combination of Pastel effect for the background, watercolor for the raccoon, which was then over-painted with the sharpen effect. It gives it the look of an ink drawing.

For this second image, also from Acadia National Park, I used PicsArt Studio to selectively apply (finger paint) watercolor, pastel, contour, and sharpen effects. I added a Mask effect to create the boarder. That image was saved as a jpeg. I then opened it in PS Touch (PS=PhotoShop) and created an empty layer set to overlay. I then chose Add Camera Fill and took a close up of a canvas bag with the Xoom’s back camera. I applied sharpening to that overlay and adjusted the Opacity to taste, so that the pattern of the cloth appears as the surface of the image, as though it were painted on canvas. (The effect is subtle. You may need to click the image and open it full sized to see it. Finally I exported the finished image as another jpeg.

This whole process, because of the very tactile nature of the Xoom touch interface, and the freedom of the digital media, is very like doodling. Is it art? Is it painting? It certainly is no longer photography, but I am having fun with it.

One last example. A Texas Hill Country Sunset. Finger painted in PicsArt Studio and finished in PS Touch on the Xoom Tablet. Here the canvas texture is more pronounced.