What’s more, everyone that submits an AD Vine will be entered to win our big, fat Arrested Development prize package, including all three seasons of Arrested Development on DVD, a full year’s subscription to Netflix, and $100 store credit at our online store!

All you have to do to enter is share your Vine on Twitter along with the tags @griffintech and #griffinvine. We’ll announce the winner at 5pm CST on Friday, so get on it! Here, we’ll get you started …

THE SMALL PRINT: No purchase or payment of any kind is necessary to enter this contest. This contest is sponsored by Griffin Technology, Inc, and is in no way sponsored or endorsed by Twitter, Vine Labs, Inc, Facebook, Netflix, or Imagine Entertainment. The Contest is open to legal residents of the United States where not prohibited by law, who are eighteen (18) years of age or older at the time of entry who have Internet access and a valid e-mail account prior to the beginning of the Contest Period. Employees of Griffin Technology and their family members are not eligible. Sponsor has the right to verify the eligibility of each entrant. To enter, post a Vine video to Twitter with the tags “@griffintech” and “#griffinvine”. One entry per Twitter user. If the same video is posted from multiple Twitter user accounts, all associated entries will be disqualified. Entries must not consist of any copyrighted material, including scenes from the original Arrested Development program. One winner will be selected at random. Giveaway ends at 5pm CST. Any questions regarding this Sweepstakes should be directed to Arrested Development Vine Contest at social@griffintechnology.com.

Just so I can get this bit out of the way, the show was great! In recent years, I think The Killers have tried to distance themselves, albeit not completely, from their synth pop roots and move more closely to the anthemic American ballads of Meatloaf or Bruce Springsteen. Given their newfound lyrical imagery of great American landscapes and nostalgic nods to growing up in the Midwest, its no surprise they chose to play on the same stage that has been graced by the likes of Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and Hank Williams.  Some great moments include a surprise guest performance by Brad Paisley, who frontman Brandon Flowers affectionately deemed “the sheriff of Nashville,” covers of “Ring of Fire” and “I Think We’re Alone Now,” and an epic encore of my favorite Killer’s song, “When You Were Young.”

My review of the show does not come without gripes, however, and just because people do not use the Internet to complain nearly enough, here we go. I can honestly say that the best part about seeing any band in concert is getting to experience the performance with my own eyes in real life and not on a small smart phone screen.  Retina display or no retina display, the concert experience is not about holding your camera/phone above or in front of your head the entire show, which seems to be an alarming and unfortunate trend these days. So, to the dudes sitting in front of me taking shaky video of the entire show (despite the signs asking patrons not to video tape the concert) let’s ask ourselves a few questions before we take out our bright, distracting devices: Will I or anyone I know ever watch this footage after today? Does every picture or video I take just look like a bunch of bright colored lights? How great is this video going to sound if I ever play it back? Am I being inconsiderate to the people behind me and disrespectful to the band that genuinely wants to share in the experience with me?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to a few pictures here and there, but come on guys. Put down your phone and enjoy the show! ^Jitin

If you live in a one of the half dozen or so states that will be experiencing the emergence of 17 year Cicadas I have one thing to say to you: Don’t freak out. They don’t bite, they won’t take money out of your wallet, and they’re only around for a few weeks. That already makes them more tolerable than a teenager.

There is no reason to fear the Cicada. That’s not to say that they don’t have some less pleasant traits to be aware of. For starters, they pee, and they will pee on you. Walking under a brood-filled branch is like being on the front row for a Gallager show: You will get wet, and it will suck. Next, don’t woo them if you don’t want to wear them. Power tools and lawn mowers sound like Barry White’s crooning to Cicadas and should be used in the morning or evening when they are less active. They also may harm young trees and ornamental plants. The internet has no shortage of solutions for you if you have those concerns.

Instead of sprinting from your car to the door and wearing a beekeeper suit, I suggest you embrace the outbreak. Get a new pet for a few days, name him Carl, let him hang out on your finger and sing you sweet sweet Cicada love songs. Ok, maybe not. But one has to admire the life of a Cicada. They lay low underground and emerge every 13 or 17 years to “Sing, Fly, Mate, and Die” as the popular Nashville bumper stickers say. And for this, I love them. And I miss Carl (pictured above). ^RachelK

Because a close look plunges you into a world of textures: scratchings, rubbings, lumpy incrusted surfaces that look like plaster piled on with a trowel, or chipped away with a hammer. Or just worn away by the ravages of time and a elements. Rudy’s surfaces have an intense 3 dimensional energy to them that belies their digital thinness.

The subject matter can come from anywhere, most often from his own photos. A photographer from his youth, his eye is always on the lookout for interesting patterns, shadows, highlights, and compositions. His work has allowed him to travel and sample exotic tastes, colors and aromas from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Europe and the Caribbean. But the photo, often unrecognizable in the finished piece, is just the jumping-off point for the image manipulation software he has developed over time, to create his unique imagery.

Making art is Rudy’s avocation. Though self-taught, he has achieved recognition for his work in the burgeoning medium now known as Mobile Art. Originally called by its practitioners “iPhoneography,” the medium was obliged to adopt a broader moniker with the advent of iPad, and then other smartphones and mobile devices capable of in-app image editing. Mobile Art is art made on mobile devices. And Rudy is recognized, worldwide, as one of its leading lights, chosen at this year’s MacWorld/iWorld conference as one of only 30 world Mobile Masters. Today, Rudy’s work enjoys a loyal following through social media and among private collectors.

Asked to pick a favorite from among his images that appear on Griffin’s Designers Series cases, Rudy scratches his head. “That is a very hard question to answer.” He explains that each piece “reflects a part of me, and, in a way, I consider them to be my offspring. So, how can you possibly pick a favorite child?” But, when pressed, Rudy identifies The Multiplier as an image with “a unique drama and emotion. Its aura is steeped in mystery and fantasy, since the persona can assume any one of a number of characters and personalities, much like a chameleon, or doppelganger. I believe this draws out great intrigue and inquisitiveness on the part of the viewer, which for me, is the ultimate buzz.”

Rudy has created a unique piece intended to promote both Griffin and his own artwork. Titled A Woman Possessed with Griffin … Multiplied, it is an assemblage of twelve Griffin Designer Series cases: eleven of The Multiplier, and one Woman Possessed. “I think we made some history together,” Rudy states, “in that, to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time a piece of art was created from iPhone cases featuring artwork created with an iPhone.”

Rudy is one of the six founding members of TiiG, The international iPhoneography Group, a collective who adhere strictly to the creation of digital artwork on iPhone and iPad, using only iOS apps. All six founding members are regular contributors to the only continuously online-juried website dedicated exclusively to iPhoneographic imagery, Pixelsatanexhibition.com. The images exhibited are all created on iOS devices (iPhone or iPad) using currently available apps. The practice of using multiple editing apps on an iPhone, iPad, or other mobile device is known as app stacking. An ever-growing community of digital artists has embraced this new medium with a passion, producing unique pieces that could not have been created any other way.

A collection of Rudy’s recent work can be viewed on his Pinterest site. Several of Rudy’s pieces have been selected for inclusion in a current exhibit at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Lens as Palette. And he is one of the Founding Artists at the first virtual Mobile Art museum in the world, New Era Museum, in Florence, Italy.  Exclusive iPhone cases featuring Rudy’s designs are available here.

So says Danny McClain, a designer/illustrator/artist living in Nashville, Tennessee, where he works as a web designer. “It’s nice having a job where I’m creating visual things, but things that are so different from the type of work I do in my personal time. It’s good to have that balance between the structured, polished things I make at work and the more wild, crude things I make on my own.”

Danny’s personal work is innocent and playful, focusing on positive things, a celebration of life, fun, and good vibes. ”I have a love for crude drawings, minimalism, screen prints, and hand drawn typography.”

His favorite medium? “Straight-up pencil on paper. There’s something magical to me about pencils and the line qualities that you can get with them. I like to make crude, spontaneous lines and shapes, and I haven’t found anything better to do that with than a pencil.”

We asked him to pick a favorite from among his designs reproduced in the Griffin Designer Series. Don’t Give Up is a favorite “because life can be hard, or just frustrating sometimes, and it’s important to tough out the tough times and remember how awesome it is to be alive.” Space Scene is another favorite because “I’m borderline obsessed with space,” and because of the overlapping lines and shapes.

You can see more of Danny’s work on his blog: sketches, doodles, works in progress, and finished work he updates regularly.

Your iPhone can wear Danny McClain’s artwork. Check out the Griffin Designer Series cases at Griffin’s webstore.

For the avid hiker or the occasional day tripper we like All Trails Hiking & Biking app. Full of great paths, the app includes information on distance, difficulty level, average time, user reviews, and more. Available for Android & iOS.

Share your nature photography using the Photo Share App  by the National Park Foundation. This app is basic but makes it easy to quickly upload and share images.

And lastly, an app that I personally use a lot. While the basic National Parks app by National Geographic is free, you do have to pay for the in-depth guides. That being said, it’s only $1.99 for an individual guide or $12.99 to download all the guides. That’s less than a printed guide book for one park, and it weighs a lot less! The guides give you access to secret info about the parks, hidden spots, photo tips, what to look for, and what activities the park offers.

Get off your rear and get your apps outside. If you need me, I’ll be in the Smokies. ^RachelK

You’ve seen them: photos with colors so rich they look like they’ve been dipped in butter. Landscape shots that must have been taken on an alien planet, because the colors in them can’t possibly exist on this one. Objects in these photos sometimes appear to have glowing halos.

A photo manipulated to give it a higher dynamic range

Such images are often called HDR, for High Dynamic Range. Remember that “dynamic range” refers to the intensity of the lights, darks, and colors. There are lots of ways to intensify the dynamic range of an image for artistic effect.

And, then, there is another kind of HDR photography, which uses HDR to represent a scene more accurately than normal photography can.

Wait. How can it be more accurate, you ask? Haven’t we all been taught that the camera doesn’t lie? Well, the camera doesn’t lie, but it doesn’t always tell the truth, either.

Your camera is not your eyes. When your camera takes a picture, it uses a single exposure for the whole frame. This means, if you expose for the light areas, you lose detail in the shadows, and if you expose for the shadows, detail in the light places gets washed out.

That’s not the way your eyes work. When you look out toward the sea your eye looks at the sky and adjusts for its brightness and shows you the detail in the clouds. Then you look at the water, and your eye adjusts to the darker tones and you get the detail there, as well. Then your brain assembles the two, and you don’t even notice; you see it as a single scene, with lots of nice light and dark detail everywhere.

Gustave Le Gray, Ciel Charge, Mer Mediterranee (Cloudy Sky, Mediterranean Sea)

In the 1850s, a fellow named Gustave Le Gray found out how to replicate this process in photos he took of seascapes. Mimicking what our eyes and brain do, he would take one photograph of the water, and one of the sky, using the appropriate exposure for each. Then, when printing his negatives, he would combine the two, preserving both light and dark detail. What he discovered was a way to represent, in the crude (but beautiful) photography of the time, what your eyes do unconsciously.

And that’s what this kind of HDR photography does. There are many ways to do it, and one of them is built right into your iPhone’s Camera app.

In your Camera app, tap the Options button, then tap the slider to toggle HDR on. (Don’t forget to tap the Done button.) With HDR on, each time you tap the shutter, your iPhone will take 3 shots, exposing for different levels of light and shadow. Then it combines the shots to produce one picture that preserves both light and dark details.

In General Settings, you can tell your iPhone to save the HDR shot along with the original, unaltered picture …because HDR is not always a good thing.

To HDR or not to HDR — that is the question

HDR is not for all occasions. In some conditions, the HDR setting of your default Camera app results in a flat, washed-out look. And remember, in HDR mode, your iPhone is taking multiple shots and combining them. So, guess what happens in photos in which the subject is moving?

Anna Monette Roberts at GeekSugar.com offers this advice about when to HDR and when not to HDR:

Don’t use it for moving objects, or when the camera is moving. It’ll result in doubled exposures and blurry outlines… and, usually, not in a good way (but sometimes you can get away with it).

Don’t use HDR in bright, sunlit conditions. HDR will flatten out the dynamic range and wash out the colors.

Don’t bother using HDR for a quick series of snaps. Because it takes longer to save the three HDR snaps, a quick series of them just ain’t going to happen.

Use it for close-ups and outdoor portraits. It’ll tend to give you a better range of lights and dark.

Use it in dim lighting without your flash. Your iPhone will try to compensate for dim lighting. The result will be blown-out highlights, and even the dark areas won’t look good, because the picture is a compromise. But the HDR option will combine the best of all three. And you already know what we think about your iPhone’s flash.

You can take this further, as Leana Lofte advises at imore.com. Remember the trick we mentioned in the very first installment of this series? You tap your iPhone to set focus and exposure on light or dark areas of your picture. You can use this with the HDR setting turned on, too. Here’s Leana’s tip: When shooting with the HDR option turned on, tap to expose for the darkest areas in the shot. The HDR algorithm is better at dealing with the bright areas.

The same photo using the Camera app’s HDR setting is on the right.

Other Apps

You’re not locked into the Camera app that comes with your iPhone. When experimenting with the capabilities of your iPhone and its camera, play the field! Check out the variety of apps available in the App Store for the awesome little camera that’s inside your iPhone. And if you have a favorite HDR app, we’d love to hear from you!

Photos shown here: Gustave Le Gray, Ciel Charge, Mer Mediterranee (Cloudy Sky, Mediterranean Sea). The other photos are the property of the author, and copyrighted in 2013 under Creative Commons. Use ‘em if you need to, but don’t tell lies about ‘em. ~jmr

If you have an opinion about the Beatles at all, odds are, you fall into one of three camps:

1. You think they are a bad band, and that some other, roughly contemporary act (The Stones, The Velvets, The Who, The Kinks) is better.
2. You have a passing acquaintance with their work, but know for certain that Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is their best record.
3. You’re a fanatic, and you’ve determined that their early records are all trash, and that they didn’t start being good until they got into drugs and wrote Rubber Soul.

You are, of course, wrong about all of these things, but especially the last one. The Beatles’ best record–their only perfect record, in fact–is A Hard Days Night.

Yep, you heard me, A Hard Days Night, the one your mom (or, more likely, grandma) liked. Not Sgt Pepper, not Abbey Road, not even Rubber Soul.  So what makes that record so great?

1. No Covers

Hard Days Night was the first Beatles record to date, and the last until Rubber Soul, with all-original tunes. Not to say that the Beatles’ takes on rock and roll standards aren’t phenomenal. Only that there is no recording of “Mr. Postman” that will be better than “Anytime At All”.

2. No Ringo

Sorry, Ringo. You’re one helluva drummer, but you are no singer. But what, you ask, would Revolver be without “Yellow Submarine”, or Abbey Road without “Octopus’s Garden”?

Better. They would be better. Which brings me to my third point . . .

3. No Novelties

The Beatles are credited, fairly or unfairly, with “inventing” the album as we thought of it for the last 50 years or so, and much of the reason that Sgt. Pepper gets as much credit as it does is that it was a aesthetically unified album. But if you look at the band’s previous outings, Rubber Soul (especially the American edition released on Capitol, which, if it were “canon”, would easily top the charts), and, yes, A Hard Day’s Night have equal claim to being the first “real” Beatles records. Why?  Well, other than having no covers and no Ringo songs (see above) they have no novelty songs.

Now, I don’t necessarily mean “novelty song” in the Dr. Demento sense (though, in some cases, I do *cough*“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”*cough*), but songs that fall well outside of the tone set by the surrounding album. These songs could be the musique concréte indulgence of “Revolution No. 9″ or the ragafied meandering of “Within You Without You”, the incongruent singalong of “Yellow Submarine” or the Mellotron drenched filler of “Flying”. These aren’t bad songs by any stretch of the imagination,  but they’re still jarring speed-bumps that interrupt an otherwise-coherent stylistic narrative.

And so it is that, without so much as mentioning the merits of more than one song on the album, we arrive at a kind of mathematical certainty that A Hard Day’s Night is the best record released by the Beatles. It’s a sort of pop musical tautology, a platonic ideal of mop-top Merseybeat.

Do you disagree? Go ahead, prove me wrong. I’ll just be over here, working on my next piece in which I will demonstrate that Paul is better than John. ^Mike

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Of the 4 images repesented in the Designer Series, JellyFish 2 is her favorite, “because it printed well,” and because it best exemplifies the processes and influences that went into these images.

Why jellyfish? On a trip to a public aquarium, Rachel discovered that the settings that work best when photographing the jellyfish tanks were the same settings she uses for her stunning night photos. “It was simply natural to combine the two.”

Rachel Karr is a featured artist in Griffin’s Designer Series cases for iPhone.