A touch of Gloom is Good?





'Containment'



Gravestones & Shadows

It's been a busy week of painting and photographing and listing images online etc etc huff-puff..phew! So, here I have two, what at first might appear to be rather gloomy, images taken over the last week. Both were taken with my Sony Alpha with an 18-200 mm Sigma lens and as always I shot in RAW.

OK, Containment started out as a typical study in texture. Barbed wire against a rustic post, all very visual etc. However, as post production in Photoshop developed so did the intention of the image. The red colour (blood?) was simply moss growing on the post but with a click of the mouse the mottled yellow became a dark red. Hmm, at this point I own up to adding what might look like a hand print on the post. Well, once I saw the wire and the red the rest just clicked. So many cues from every media outlets we see. The world of repression, imprisonment and indeed confinement. For the record I'm not a paid up member of Amnesty International and my art tends to veer well clear of political statements but sometimes folks...

The dots just join themselves together!

Gravestones & Shadows had an equally inauspicious beginning. It was a warm day, I felt like a walk and as I passed our local churchyard I was drawn more by the daffodils than by the graves, Still, I thought a shot or two might work? I did like the shadows but hey, it was mid afternoon, warm and bright. Hardly the recipe for Gothic despair!

That though, is the wonder of post editing in a programme like Photoshop. You take an image which (in it's natural state) is fairly routine and well..boring? And you work it up into something unusual and hopefully less eh..boring?

In this case I played with the tones in Adobe Raw before importing into Photoshop where I used some textured backgrounds in Layers. Cue a fiddle with the filters and presto..one image which explores life, death and our obsession with recording our passing,

or

You can enjoy it as a feast of texture, form and a play on light. There, you see, spoilt for choice over such 'gloomy' subjects!

Shirley

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Macro Mania?

They say that a change is as good as a rest and as an artist (swamped by commissions) I'm inclined to agree. Much as I love painting there comes a time when the I simply want to....

Tear the canvas to shreds!!

OK (that felt better) So, as to the change in question? I again turn to photography and the joys of the macro lens...

The two images above (the Pink Camellia and the Honey Bee) were both captured last summer and have since residered as RAW files on my hard drive. Well, we artists do get waylaid! So, time to get creative and do something with them?

Both were taken using a Minolta 90mm Macro Lens in natural light. With the Pink Camellia I used shutter priority (1/160seconds) as there was a slight breeze and I wanted to eliminate any movement. The result gave a crisp image with excellent depth of field which I later reemphasised in Photoshop after a few adjustments in Abobe Raw. To make the flower stand out even more I partially desaturated the background and used the burn tool to darken the background tones.

With bee I got really lucky in terms of it sitting still. Now, Bees aren't usually so obliging when it comes to portraits but this one made his way into my conservatory during a cold spell last July and was left groggy or whatever bees get when cold? I found the hapless fellow sitting on the white sill (perfect background) perfectly inert. Perfect for me too! The light was excellent. cloudy, bright and beautifully defused by the frosted glass of the conservatory roof. A natural light tent indeed. Due to the Bees statuesque mood I was able to take long exposures resulting in a perfect capture. Except for a little post editing and a few light filters in Photoshop I did little else to it.


Now, I'm not a purest. I don't believe that as a photographer you somehow 'fail' if you need lots of post editing Depends on what you wish to achieve? I love the whole creative process whereby via camera and image editor I can create something that leaves me satisfied with the end result. Thus using Abobe Bridge, RAW and Photoshop are means to an end. They give a greater range to the artist. Not simply a quick fix for bad camera skills but an endless set of possibilities taking the boundaries of photography ever forward and yes...upward too!

Shirley

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