The Macy’s star shines brightly over Westlake Plaza, downtown Seattle.

How did I get this shot with my iPhone? Thanks for asking, here’s how.

I used an app called Slow Shutter with a fisheye lens from Photojojo on my iPhone 4, leaving the lens open for 15 seconds to get the photo.

Afterwards, I fired up Photoshop Express, bumped the exposure up fully 2x and saved a “lighter version.” Opened up the original again in Photoshop Express and dropped the exposure by about half. Saved that “darker version.”

Next app up, Pro HDR. Brought in both images and made an HDR composite, fine tuning saturation and brightness a bit.

Last up? Pxlr-o-matic for a bit more color correction and border. This app is the money maker. There are quite literally thousands of different combos to with through. So many great filters, borders, and additional bits of texture and flair. Really one of the best apps out there for tweaking iPhone photography.

Now I’m using WordPress for iPhone to make the post. Shortly hereafter I’ll fire up Short Url to get my bitly address to throw in to, you guessed it, Facebook mobile.

That’s the standard run through on photos that show up in the blog. More often than not, they’re touched up here and there. The iPhone photography applications above are the usual suspects … those and Best Camera which has some phenomenal super easy effects. Just be sure to get into the options and add in all the “half-step” filters so you can do 50% candy or 50% gray. Works out so much better.

So I bought a sweatshirt from Threadless the other day that I’ve been eyeing for years. As with all Threadless shirts it has a title: Analogy. I’ve often seen these sorts of “trees” around our city, a wooden post that came from a tall beautiful stand, now supporting wires instead of needles, electrical boxes instead of pinecones. While birds still flock to these, it’s not the same. We’ve created our own forest of trees. It’s a shame no kids can play in them.

To pull off this image, I shot two photos on my iPhone 4, then took them into SketchBook Mobile where I erased half of one image and layered it above the tree. I then fuzzed out the sky at the top and the trunk at the base to ensure it looked like a seamless image. A couple rounds of exposure and color tweaking in Photoshop Mobile and bam, another pure iPhone creation. For those of you who are new to the blog, all of the daily photos I shoot are done on my iPhone. From capture to post production to upload. There are loads of apps that are out there to help manipulate decent photos into works of art. Get out there and try some.