iPhone at the Silk Mill: Apps: 6x7: Simply Black and White

Last weekend a group of photographers met at the abandoned silk mill to do some shooting, thanks to Tony Sweet for organizing the shoot. I didn't do any shooting on Saturday as I arrived later in the afternoon, but upon arriving at the silk mill I wandered around and behind the mill I found this old TV among the leaves. I told Herb who owns the mill, that I loved the scene and he said one day the TV just rolled down the hill from above and there it stayed. It was a fun weekend!All the shots here were processed with the app Simply Black &White and shot with either 6x7 or CameraPlus Pro, them framed with Crop'n'Frame...and maybe there's a little SnapSeed in there too.

If you live in the Gaithersburg area I hope you can join me for my iPhone workshop at Mac Business Solutions in January or in March at Horizons Photography workshops.  

You will learn how to get interesting shots with the best apps, explore processing options and more!

Hipsta Labatique 73, the Olloclip and SimplyHDR

Often I try to shoot with just one app when on location. This gives me the opportunity to create a series of images with similar looks. Then I process with the same apps. This group of images was shot at the Lanaconing Silk Mill with the Olloclip for the Fish eye looks and Hipsta set to Labatique 73 lens a modern twist on Calotype styling of 1873 and Kodot XGrizzled film. When shooting with Hipsta, I usually make three or four shots of the same scene as the unique features of Hipsta will place light and dark areas in each image in slightly different ways. This will give me a choice of images, then I can decide which light enhancement I like best. The Olloclip adds an interesting distortion but looses sharpness in the image to a degree, and more so on the edges of the image, but its a look! The turn of the century silk mill is dark and gritty. I chose SimplyHDR as the processing app to add even more grit and pop some dark areas. Because the mill is so dark the iPhone actually added a lot of noise into the image as well. Then I finished off the images with a consistent frame choice from Crop'n'Frame

This image was processed with PhotoCopier and I chose the Photo style menu and applied a tone. This is the only image in this series I processed in that manner. Notice the tone of the white frame is different from the other images in this series.

Klots Silk Mill and the iPhone~Generations apart~MonoPhix App

Bracket Mode: TrueHDR; MonoPhix B&W Conversion

How ironic to be creating images inside the old Klots Throwing Mill in Lonaconing, MD with the iPhone. That thought came to me as I was titling this blog. Built over 100 years ago, when the beginning of modern industry was in full swing on the heels of the industrial revolution, which was reportedly begun with a silk mill in England in 1721. Now we are in the tech revolution! I was wondering why capturing images today, of the past is so interesting to me; I thought, maybe its the mystery of what life was like then or how the people's lives unfolded that passed through the mill, or maybe its the desire to record the scenes before they are gone? I don't know for sure, but it always interesting to make images there; personal effects and machinery remain in tact.
Many of the images I made there beg to be converted into B&W. There is a soft strange green light in the place created by the foliage surrounding the story high mill windows.These are a few from last weeks shoot there....

BarcketMode:TrueHDR:MonoPhix for B&W Conversion

MonoPhix:Vintage Scene

MonoPhix conversion to B&W with glow added in PhotoStudio

Hipstamatic Shot Toned in MonoPhix

Factory Girl: Every Picture has a story and process: Juxtaposer App

FACTORY GIRL

The Story: 

On Monday, Don Vetter and I visited the old Lonaconing Silk or Throwing Mill. We met Amy McGovern and her husband there. Amy had called ahead and let the owner know we were coming.  The current owner Herb Crawford is desperately trying to save it from the demise of time. (He raises money by charging admission of $75.00 to any desirous photographers.) He has guarded the mill for some thirty years now and single handedly has tried to keep the building in tact. He is fighting a losing battle now due to money, age  and resources. The rain has penetrated the roof and the lead paint is peeling off every wall, and the smell of well oil machinery permeates the thick air of history.
There are current attempts to raise awareness and money on many sites like this Blog by Rusty.
However, my sense is that the building will fall further into ruin. The image here Factory Girl, was inspired by the many women who's lives were both of the factory and ruined by the factory's unforeseen and sudden closing, leaving many of them to economic hardship. The personal belongings of some of them remain in the building today, covered with the dust of time. The tickets which most likely were used to tag spools of silk or monitor employee production were still seen throughout the mill in several places. This image was my visual attempt at sharing this thought, or feeling I had about those women.

The Process:

When I go into places like this I take shots of miscellaneous pieces; such as surfaces, or snippets of material that alone does not necessarily make a compelling image, but when brought together with other snippets just might make a compelling image. This image was made with this idea in mind.
So here's the process I used on the iPhone:

Three shots:
Shot 1: The Tags: shot in BracketMode and merged in TrueHDR

Shot 2: The Shoes: shot in BracketMode and merged in TrueHDR

Shot 3: The Brick Wall: shot in BracketMode and merged in TrueHDR

I then opened Juxtaposer and used the BrickWall as the base layer; I layered on the shoe shot and then the tag shot. Selectively erasing the part of the image I did not want in the final composition, and arrived at this image.

I ran the composite image through Grungetatstic and put a small inner border of rusty color around the images. Then I opened the app called "ScratchCam" and opened the composite image with the rusty border, tabbing through the options until I arrived at this one:

Although the image  was dark, I liked the effect the filter in ScratchCam gave the image, so I saved it and then opened it in Iris to brighten and make a levels adjustment:

 

I then finished the image by applying a black border in the app Crop'n'Frame.