Details

Details

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Cade’s Cove, on the western side of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, in eastern Tennessee, is one of my favorite places. Well, other than tropical beaches and islands, of course. I have fond memories of a long, beautiful valley of luscious green meadows, surrounded by pastoral, tree-covered mountains. Old farmsteads and churches built in the early Nineteenth Century dotting the valley floor.

Cade's Cove

All of that is still there, of course, along with thousands of cars and tens of thousands of visitors, including my family, during a recent visit this summer. Now, I didn’t really expect to have the place to ourselves, but I didn’t expect to be sharing it with half of the U.S. population east of the Mississippi, either. But, I know now. The eleven-mile loop road was a parking lot and the exhibits like ant hills with tourists forming ant trails scurrying between them and the parking areas. Mercifully, the wildlife decided to take the day off for the most part, and stay deep in the cool woods. Otherwise, I fear we would be still trying to make it around the loop.

Clearly, not a day for photography unless crowds of tourists were your objective. Forget shooting the beautiful vistas or the quaint log cabins, farmsteads, and churches.

Shake_shingles

All I managed were a few detail shots of some of the structures with my phone. As I mentioned previously, I am not a huge fan of iPhoneography, primarily because of image quality. Clearly, I am in the minority here and decided this was the perfect opportunity to give it a second try.

My plan was to take the photos with my iPhone, sync them to my iPad, process the images and create the blog post with the iPad, upload it to WordPress and wa la. Done.

Cade's Cove

Well, not exactly that easy. The iPhone and iPad are supposed to sync images through iCloud. And they do some of the time, but not always, and not necessarily all of the images. So, I bought a photo transfer app to make up for iCloud’s shortfall. The app, it turns out, has a hard time finding both devices to make the transfer, even though they are only inches apart. There are a plethora of image processing apps, all promising to be the best and easiest. Well, they are all pretty much the same. Outputting Instagram-like images that we all have learned to either love or despise. The app I chose to create and upload the post to WordPress crashed just as I was finishing up and I lost all my work.

Dove_Tail

So far, it has been a struggle and I am not at all sure this is the way I want to go. I am writing this on a word processing app and will copy and paste it into the draft the old fashion way, using the iPad browser. I will do the same with the images. Hopefully.

I’ll try a few more times in coming weeks, but I am not optimistic at this point. I would love to hear about your iPhone, iPad blogging experiences.

Any app suggestions?

Cade's Cove

There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.  ___Ansel Adams

 

 

 

Ron Mayhew

Fine Art Photographer specializing in Still Life and Commercial Photography.

This Post Has 15 Comments

  1. I fear I’m no use re the iPhone/iPad transfer and post problem – I’m having trouble with my new banking security device, can you imagine me trying to sync photos and words on the cloud? Christine Whitelaw, bless her, used her iPad (plus normal camera) when she was travelling and though I don’t know the specifics, she said it was easy peasy after the first time – it was called “Blogsy” – have a look and see.

    The detail shots are fantastic, through this medium, Ron (in fact, the wood, especially, makes me want to touch … feel the warmth from the sun, the weathered textures … ). I’d be very interested to know what they look like printed up. Angeline said hers look fine, but I’m like you, I don’t (can’t? won’t?) believe they hold up against our cameras = especially yours!

    Funny how our enjoyment is diminished when others are there experiencing the wonders we’re oohing at 🙂

    1. Thanks for your Blogsy suggestion. I’ll check it out. I have been using Blog Pad Pro and I had success with it on my upcoming post. I always photographing wood objects, especially weathered wood. The tactile quality seems to transfer through to the photo.

      I agree with you about printing phone photos. Given the tiny sensor size, etc. I don’t think one could get a suitable print, not a very big one anyway. Thank you Meredith.

  2. This all sounds really complicated, Ron. Your pics look great to my eye. The detail is fantastic. 🙂

    1. I think what you are saying is ” KISS.” And good advice. Thanks Sylvia.

  3. Love the way you turned a disadvantage (too many people) into opportunity. Whatever the shortcomings of your devices, these are very arresting shots, especially the light and shade effects on the shingles and the white clap-board and window.

    1. Thank you Tish. There’s always a photo opportunity. One just has to open their eyes and see.

  4. Taking detail photos is the only way to go when a place is inundated with hordes of people. Nice photos, though! I’m not a big fan of iPhone photos either, as I think the quality is not as good as a real camera, but these are quite nice. I love your camera pictures more though! The black and white is nice for these details. 🙂

    1. And that’s the problem, isn’t it. The quality of the phone images are not all that good. I’ll never fore sake my “real camera.” Thanks Cathy.

  5. Absolutely LOVE this series!!

    1. Thank you Maya. I appreciate your comment.

  6. Great details Ron, and I share your frustration with the mobile apps for WordPress. I’ve posted from my ipad twice and had issues both times. My advice is to give up and use a small laptop instead. That was my solution anyway!

    1. I did my upcoming post with the ipad and all went well. Image quality is what gives me pause. I think the rest is doable. Thanks for your comment Tina. Your solution is probably the best one.

  7. Beautifully captured details and textures Ron. Your iPhone images are better than any I have seen so far!.

    1. Thanks Madhu. I am not vEry happy with the images quality, though I would assume the newer phones are better.

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