Niagara, New York.

First of all, for those who celebrate Christmas, I wish you a Merry Christmas on this holiday. On Christmas Day, we will be traveling. I think much of the bad weather is east of us. If I don’t get to check out your Cellpic Sunday responses right away, I will be looking forward to enjoying them when we get to our destination.

At Niagara Falls in September, we spent almost all day with one of the touring companies that provide all admission and fees to visit several venues to view both the Canadian and American falls at Niagara. What we thought at first was a tad expensive, we decided was a good value when we started to add up the cost of the admission to each of the venues. In addition, we got a knowledgeable tour guide who kept us occupied with sights and patter as we were driven on a small bus from one venue to the next.

At one stop, we went down this long, slippery, and wet tunnel to emerge underneath the American side of the falls. From there, we climbed staircases to the top. Well, we chose not to climb to the highest level where the wind and spray were overwhelming for some of the people we watched from the level just below.

About the photo: Captured with my Samsung S20U, this image was processed entirely in Luminar Neo. I used the noiseless reduction tool and the erase tool to remove a short section of railing just above the level where we were standing when I captured this image. A touch of “structure” was added to the water only, and since the image was strongly backlit, I reduced the highlights slightly to bring more detail to the mist at the top right of the image. Click on the image above to view it in 2KHD on my Flickr site.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.

It was a hazy, smoky day in Wyoming when we spent some time in the Grand Teton National Park. In September and October, western states’ wildfires would mar many of the images on our trip. We stopped at one viewpoint in the Grand Tetons where I saw a placard naming the peaks visible from that point. The second-highest peak in the range is Mount Owen at 12,933 feet (3,942 m). The mountain was visible from this viewpoint behind a couple of other peaks. Normally I would have used my 300mm zoom lens to get a closeup from my Nikon D500, but I wanted to text my daughter an image of Mount Owen so she could share it with our grandson, Owen.

About the photo: I used the zoom function of my Samsung S20U to capture a 108 MP image (12,000×9000 pixels). Then I used Snapseed on my phone to crop and edit to clean it up. The high pixel count allowed me a serious crop factor to focus on Mount Owen. It was clean enough to send to my grandson, but for sharing here, I took one more step and used the haze removal tool in Luminar 4. It was such a hazy day, and we were quite some distance from the peak, that tool did the best it could, but when I tried full correction of the tool, it made the image look unrealistic. I opted to back off on the control and leave some of the haze visible. All in all, given the conditions, the image turned out better than I expected. Someday we’ll have to visit the park when the air is clear.

John Steiner

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota.

The South Unit of the park is by far the most popular of the three units. Last week’s Cellpic Sunday featured a view of the North Unit. We didn’t make the trip through to the third park unit, Elkhorn Ranch, as that part of the park is undeveloped and only available to those with 4-wheel drive vehicles probably meant more for off-roading than anything else. The largest section of the park, the South Unit entrance is located on the main street of the city of Medora.

One of the first things a visitor can see is just outside the park’s visitor center doors. Officially known as the Maltese Cross Cabin, the original site of this cabin was about seven miles (11 km) south of Medora on the Chimney Butte Ranch. Theodore Roosevelt had ranchhands build the cabin after Roosevelt bought the ranch, cattle, and brand, an eight-pointed Maltese Cross.

After Roosevelt sold his interest in North Dakota properties, the cabin was moved to Missouri for the 1904 Worlds Fair in St. Louis. From there, it was moved to Portland, Oregon for the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, before it was returned to North Dakota. It spent time in Fargo before finally being moved to its current home in Roosevelt’s namesake national park.

About the photo: Stepping out of the back door of the visitor center, you will find a sidewalk that leads a short distance to the cabin. This snapshot was processed in Adobe Lightroom with final processing completed in Luminar 4. As I have often noted, click on the image, and if your browser supports it, you’ll get a better view of the image.

John Steiner

Buckeye, Arizona.

The boy is back. On our first Arizona winter stay in 2011-2012, we saw a large cutout of a boy in front of a tractor, playing with another tractor. That piece of art disappeared when the Arizona Department of Highways started construction of a stack that would become the interchange for I-10 and the newly constructed AZ-303 loop that services the extreme western edge of the Phoenix metro. It seems the boy and his two tractors were in the way of the interchange construction. When the boy disappeared, there were rumors of a promised return.

The other day, we were northbound on the 303, and near the Glendale Avenue exit, I glanced to the right and caught a glimpse of the boy, this time with only one tractor and with two “small” adults looking on. Of course, I had to ask Lynn to drive while we went by so I could capture a cellphone shot of the newly repainted artwork.

For reference, here’s the original image from 2012. Note that at that time, they were already prepping the terrain for the construction of the AZ-303 stack.  This photo was taken from the westbound slow lane of the I-10 while Lynn drove. For a size comparison, that blue tractor is a real farm tractor, not a cutout. As you can see, this toddler is a big boy!

About the photo (the opening photo, that is…) Captured with my Samsung S20U, the photo really shows off the power of the S20U. This image was highly cropped from the cellphone snap to remove extraneous details (like the door frame and car exterior mirror). The original image was a 12,000×9,000 megapixel image, but I cropped it down to 2800×2100 for processing in Adobe Lightroom and Luminar AI. When the final tweaks were completed, I exported it to the usual 1024×768 for publication here.

By comparing the original image from 2012 as well as the latest image captured on December 27, 2020, you can easily see the improvement in camera capabilities as well as computer post-processing tools. In fairness to the camera used in 2012, however, it appears that in 2012, the cutout was in need of a fresh paint job. Especially compare the newly painted wheels on the tractor in the latest image. It appears the entire cutout has been refreshed.

John Steiner

This week, we have been traveling around San Diego taking in the sights. One of the major attractions is Balboa Park. Located next to the iconic San Diego Zoo, the park contains gardens and buildings designed for the Pan American Exhibition of 1915. I will feature more images in a future post.

The rule for Cellpic Sunday images is simple. The photo must be taken and edited on a mobile device.

John Steiner

Fargo, North Dakota

This morning, my plan for Cellpic Sunday changed when I looked out the window and noticed the beginnings of a beautiful sunrise. As quickly as I could, I got in my car and headed toward Lindenwood Park, where I would get a decent view of the sunrise. Seeing I would probably be too late to capture the best colors if I finished the drive to the park, I parked next to Lewis & Clark Elementary School to capture the early morning scene.

I did make it to Lindenwood Park and captured several nice sunrise shots that I will feature in an upcoming post. However for those shots, I used my Nikon D7000. This shot, in keeping with the theme of Cellpic Sunday was taken with my Samsung S6 and edited in Snapseed. The rules for Cellpic Sunday are simple, the photo must be captured and edited with a mobile device.

John Steiner

This morning, I thought I would try a new photo feature. I am calling it Cellpic Sunday. The rules are simple. The photo must have been taken by a mobile device and edited by that device (or another mobile device.) This image was captured in August 2014 from a cruise ship on our way to Alaska and points north.

Taken with a Samsung S6 and edited with Snapseed.

Happy fathers Day to those who honor the day.

John Steiner