The Subway from Jay Goodrich on Vimeo.

The Creative Machine is geared towards the photography artist who is striving to be as creative as possible. It is the thought process as much as it is the reality of what you shoot and how you combine the tangible and untangible.

I have taken thousands of photos with my iPhone at this point and have shared many of them here on this blog. However, I haven’t really shown any of the hours of HD video clips that I create almost simultaneously with the stills. Enter the Creative Machine–a way for us to share some creative video concepts alongside a small creative message. Our first CM is about The Subway, a place nature photographers from all over the world know about located in Zion National Park. Take a minute out of your life to enjoy a new creative outlet.

Seed Packets in a Hardware Store © Jay Goodrich

I wanted to keep my theme going of a recent post to the Outdoor Photographer Magazine Blog regarding the creative use of my iPhone. This image was taken in a hardware store near the Haight/Ashbury district. The repetitive patterns of the bags of seeds caught my eye, but once I began to analyze the image a little closer I realized that it was also the design of the packets themselves that I liked. As fall approaches and we head into winter many people, myself included, begin to plan on what will be part of their garden in the coming spring. The image was taken with an iPhone 4 and mastered in Lightroom 3–that’s it.

As of writing this I am in JFK waiting for a flight to teach a one day workshop tomorrow in Houston. It is pretty amazing how fast information can now be sent to the world no matter where you are. I can only imagine where it will be when my daughter is my age.

Terminator Sculpture, Venice Beach, CA © Jay Goodrich

iPhone you have been targeted for termination. Sorry but you are on your way out. I know you are all thinking that this is impossible, but it is true. I have decided to pitch the iPhone for…the new iPhone 4. Come on, you didn’t seriously think I would ever get rid of my iPhone did you.

I watched Steve Jobs’ keynote last night right about the time the new iPhone went on sale. Jobs started off joking about the whole gizmodo debacle by stating, “stop me if you have already seen this…believe me, you ain’t seen it…the precision of which this is made…its closet kin, is like a beautiful old Leica camera.” Seriously, you had me at,”Hello.” If you are a photographer and his opening doesn’t make you want to go out and buy this thing, I don’t know what will. I am so excited about the upcoming new feature set, that I am trying not to pee my pants. Particularly, when it comes to the camera side of the phone. Jobs discussed that Apple has updated the sensor to a backside illuminated sensor and what that immediately translates to is better pictures. The other key point of the brand new 5 megapixel camera is that they kept the individual pixel size the same and actually increased the size of the sensor. Usually when camera companies increase the amount of pixels, the size of the pixel shrinks, thus so does the quality of the recordable information. Translation: again, better photos. Apple decided to not stop there, and added full resolution HD video at 720p at 30 frames per second. Did I mention that I am drooling to get my hands on this thing.

I smell new iPhone projects. I have been working on a book idea utilizing the iPhone and this past year photographed a one-day, 12 hour project using only the iPhone, but now, the doors have been blown off and the Terminator is walking in. Books, films, web, prints, are all possible. Creative genius unleashed…there are no reasonable excuses. Man I am going to have to step up to the plate now.

As if the camera weren’t enough, they put the iPad processor in this thing. Yes, the A4 processor that is pushing all of those iPad apps is indeed controlling this little hand held device. I have a feeling it is going to scream with speed.

But wait, there’s more…Apple has dubbed the new display the “Retina Display” because of it’s ability to produce a resolution finer than the human retina can see beyond. As Jobs discussed, the human retina can only see 300 pixels per inch, as if that were a small number, so they made the new iPhone display 326 pixels per inch just to be safe. In a 3 1/2″ screen you now get 960 x 640 pixels and an 800:1 contrast ratio. Couple all this with improved battery life and the usual enviro-friendly manufacturing and, did I mention I was going to pee…I feel much better now.

So where do you head from here? Besides your local Apple store or the company’s website? Well with every positive there has to be some kind of negative right? In this write up it comes from AT&T. You are now going to pay more, again, to own this puppy. I can see that they are giving away the 3G plan for the iPad, so I guess it makes perfect sense that they need to make it up somewhere. And that somewhere is in ownership of this new phone. You have to subscribe to 3 separate plans now, one for service, one for data, and one for text messages. Looking at the bright side though, you can now use your brand new iPhone 4 for tethering to your l aptop when you have no Wi-Fi available. Life is about peaks and valleys and gives and takes…or something like that.

I am a little bummed though, because like that trademark of hair that resides on my chin, a white iPhone resides in my pocket and as of yet, I can’t order my phone. I guess I will need to wait some more?

P.S.-The image for this post was captured with my iPhone and processed using only Adobe’s brand new Lightroom 3. Which I will be talking about real soon.

New iPhone

I discovered this blog post today. I am not a super rumors guy, but I do love my technology. If this is in fact the new iPhone, Apple can take the money out of my bank account right now. Whatever the price. And I am hoping that the person who lost it, does not get fired.

In other news, my friend, and colleague Art Wolfe is teaching a free workshop on the creativeLIVE website starting tomorrow. In celebration, he is giving away a free copy of his book Edge of Earth | Corner of the Sky to a lucky retweeter. Want a chance to win a free copy of Art Wolfe’s book Edge of Earth|Corner of Sky? Retweet this workshop to be entered into a random drawing. Add #EOECOS to all of your tweets.

On top of that, National Geographic has a great gallery of images that are featured in this month’s print issue. To see it click here.

In addition I am working on entering the world of video with a movie about the new Canon 1D Mark IV camera. Stay tuned!

adam | 12 project – Images by Jay Goodrich
We traveled 400 miles, rode two ferries, I took over 400 photographs, we hiked 5 miles, traveled for 17 hours, the weather was perfect, and this whole day included the whole family – wife, two kids, and yes, even the dog. I definitely have the most patient family in the world. It was Jade and Micah’s first time at the Pacific Ocean, and Heather’s first time seeing the beaches of Olympic National Park. Facebook and Flickr stalled a bunch of times during my uploads, and we lost our mobile signal for a few hours while we explored the Olympics, but overall it was a success. I can now tell you that walking to shoot a sunset with only a phone in your pocket is an enlightening experience. I felt a little lost without the 35 pound pack on my back, so lost in fact, that I carried my 40 pound daughter on my shoulders for a good part of the hike. I think it was a great learning experience, a great way to explore an area, and a great way to explore different styles of image making. So will there be another adam | 12? I already set the countdown timer on the blog, you bet. Although next year I might travel somewhere and with 3 other photographers. Any takers? In addition, since the uploading was in and out, here is a gallery of my favorites. Enjoy.

Martha's Beach, Washington, Taken with iPhone © Jay Goodrich

I am going to try this only because I can. I now have the latest version of the WordPress application for my iPhone, which I have discovered can do just about everything that my desktop version can do. This will be my first post to my blog from my iPhone using only an iPhone image. The image was taken at my local beach one evening while I was on a trail run with my wife Heather. Hopefully it looks ok. And yes I did write this while sitting at the breakfast table…in my boxers. There truly isn’t anything that you can not do in this world.

Mount Shuksan from Mount Baker Ski Area © Jay Goodrich

This past Saturday I dusted off the skis, woke up really early, and headed off to Mount Baker for my first Northern Washington ski experience. I have been to Alaska many times before so I had an idea of what maritime snowpack is like. Mount Baker has received a huge amount of snow so far this season and it showed as I drove up the road from Bellingham. I began to get more and more excited the closer I got to my destination and frankly a little bummed because I was all alone. My backcountry partner, Heather my wife, was in control of the kids and I have not made a ton of friends yet, at least ones that ski. I was completely surprised when I jumped onto my first chair, for my first run in a completely new area, and my fellow skiers ended up knowing all of my friends from back in Vail. They either worked with them, or went to college with them. How random? Needless to say they quickly added me to their group and proceeded to give me the whirlwind tour of Mount Baker and its surrounding backcountry. I have got to say that I am really excited to see how this season unfolds, now that I have a little experience.

I captured this image on my iPhone as we headed down to chair 8.

A few weeks ago, I lost a very large contract. This contract was going to be a big part of my yearly income for 2009. I was absolutely devastated, mostly in part because I did not see it coming. It happened on a Monday, and about ten minutes after it happened, I received a call from my good friend Patrick. He was shocked as well, and offered up every item under the sun in an attempt to try and cheer me up. He continued to call every day prior, but to no avail, I was still in mourning, wondering what I was going to do? Then on Thursday, I was starting to reconcile my differences and realize that all things in life happen for a reason and even though I may not know the reason now, at this moment, I will know eventually.

Water over Ice taken with iPhone © Jay Goodrich

It was at this moment that Patrick called again. I was still not great, but we spoke and discussed much of the same, that I would look back later and probably be greatful that this had happened. As we hung up the phone, I stepped out of my truck in a client’s driveway only to see a magical scene unfolding before me. I had only my iphone with me because this was only a meeting, but I did pull it out and record what was at my feet. A moment of pure perfection. It was magical and it was gone in 10 seconds. When I got back to my office I quickly downloaded the images from my phone to see if any of them displayed what I encountered; the colors of a rainbow trapped between melted water floating over the cracked ice of a puddle below my feet, to my welcomed surprise they did.

Nature always brings me back to reality, it is my saving grace. This magical moment was the sign for me to stop dwelling on the lost contract and start creating new opportunities. So that is exactly what I am going to do!