In the Studio Today...Photography Workshop with Aperture Academy; Fort Point-Golden Gate Bridge

I enjoyed a full-day photography workshop with Aperture Academy this past Sunday. It was a great learning opportunity for me, as I have always wanted to push myself to better understand my DSLR camera, and all it is capable of doing. We split into two groups of 7 students each, and I worked with instructor, Brian Reub. We spent the entire day shooting in Manual Mode, using tripods, and long exposure shots with a remote control. It was a really rainy and foggy day in San Francisco, so we spent the majority of our time in the covered area of Fort Point, underneath the SF side of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Although I had been there before, I had never stepped foot into the Fort itself! I couldn't believe how special it was to tour the old fort, built just before the time of the Civil War. It never saw battle, but it was fully prepared for it. Canons lined the roof top and gun powder and canon balls were stored in the bottom level. You may view my set of photos on Flickr here to see some of the history of Fort Point, and the many colors and textures there. Also, Aperture Academy has a full blog post on our day, with a few photos of me and the other members of our class. It was a really nice group, and I will definitely go back for more.

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In the Studio Today... Painting on an iPod;
but wishing for an iPad with Touch Sensitive Pen

February 1, 2010


The announcement of the new iPad coming out by Apple Computer in a couple months has made me very curious about the possibilites of the little app called "Brushes" that currently works on my iPod Touch (or your iPhone). I finally took the time to familiarize myself with it over the weekend, and I just painted this little San Francisco night scene and made a movie of it. Years ago, I used to use "Painter" and "Flash" on my Mac for work, and a Wacom touch sensitive tablet. Those tools were great for painting on a computer, and I loved them. You could also play back your work in those programs... probably still can, but I haven't been keeping up with the software as I'm not at a design studio any more, and I have bigger fish to fry in my own home here with my twins in grade school. As for "Brushes", I think it will be great on the larger iPad, but where is the pressure sensitive aspect of it? It's sooooo frustrating to draw with a tool that can not create a thick-thin line, and drawing with your finger is not so great... It's fun, but I frequently can not get the line to go where I want it to go, and have to "undo" and redraw it. An old friend of mine used to say that "Drawing with a mouse is like trying to draw with your shoe". Drawing with your finger on a screen the size of a business card is kind of similar, I'd say... Silly, almost. It leaves for a sloppy way of doing things. It's a serious challenge. I hope the iPad upgrade and new Brushes software will be much better and really be easier to use. In the meantime, click to watch the video of my first iPod "painting" done in Brushes.
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