Photo Art

(imported from my former photo blog)
Manipulating photos brings out the artist in me.  Especially when the photo is not a stand alone work of art.
I love the many functions that enhance details of an image or change its structure completely, when manipulated in a program.

I have four photo editing programs I really enjoy.  I couldn't do all the things I've done with just one of them.  I use PhotoShop 7, Paint Shop Photo, Paint Shop Pro, and Picasa.

For this post I'm going to talk about just two images I have been working on lately.
The first one is this serene setting I shot last Fall of a rare sunny day here in the Pacific Northwest.
I was working at a clients home and just couldn't resist capturing this shot, which of course I took over ten frames of, but this one I used for this project.

  I decided it just didn't have the punch I was looking for, so I experimented with the PS artistic effects.  I chose the colored pencil effect and some sharpening for detail as well as cropping.

I left it like this for a couple of weeks.  Recently I decided I didn't like the gray background, after all, sky and water and hills are not gray.
So I took it into my Paint Shop program and added color here and there.

While some of you artists who know how to paint and draw may gasp with distaste at this, I feel it is all in the eye of the beholder.
I'm still not sure if I'm done with it, but it is fun to play.

Because I love black and white, of course I had to try this in a monotone as well.  I'm not sure which one I like better!

For my next trick I thought I would play with the trees.  (You'll remember these from a previous post).  Same location, same day.

While I actually like this image on its own, I just wanted to apply the same process and see where it would go.

I used the same colored pencil effect in PS, along with some contrast and saturation tweaks.  I love how it brings out the lines and detail in the tree trunks.

Next was to add some color to the sky and water.

Too fake?  Unrealistic?  Surrealistic?  The sky's the limit here (pun intended!).
I visualize this image large, printed on metal with a glossy finish.  I wonder what Picasso would say.

In all fairness to our image of the chairs, I of course wanted to try this in monotone as well.

What projects have you worked on that inspire you?

Information Overload

(imported from my former photo blog)
Ever arrive at a moment in your business as an artist when you hit a wall?  When you ask yourself career altering questions like "Why am I here?".  Reality staring you in the face with hard data like lack of sales, little return on the investment in social media exposure, leading you to seriously contemplate dropping the art all together?

I'm an information junkie, a compulsive researcher, so I'm always reading and listening to experts on marketing.

Yesterday I hit a wall.  My head was swimming in self doubt.  Is it my marketing?  Is it the economy?  Or worse, is it my art?

This morning it hit me - the aha moment - I have been here before.  This is what I call the saturation point.  I can assimilate no more information, nor can I effectively move forward.  I need to stop, take a deep breath and take a break.

Ultimately the best thing we can do at this juncture is to distract ourselves with a totally unrelated activity.  This is when I am most grateful for my day job, which is quite unlike my art business.

Go for a walk, a bike ride, a drive or shopping trip.  Just step back and let the dust settle.

Look at the depressing life of Van Gogh, or the many changes that Picasso went through.  All artists struggle in some way or another.  It may be the nature of creativity.

After these comparisons my optimism will return, theorizing that perhaps I am ahead of my time, or maybe I'm just not marketing to the right audience.

More importantly, just recognizing information overload when I see it, and halting all other fatalistic thinking, will set me aright.

I am grateful for the sign, and give in to the invitation to slow down, regroup, detach and take a new perspective. 

I welcome your thoughts or tips on this subject.