I’ve been reading other people’s blogs and an impressed by not only the story behind the images but the explanation of process and reasoning behind it. So on that note I am going to start including the story behind the images and a walk through of how and why I arrived at a final image. I may have bitten too much off for this post but here goes:
These 3 images were made in Michigan over the Christmas holiday. I had an unusual amount of free time, and while I love to sit around after a few days I got antsy. So I bundled up and set off into the snow and 17 degree weather to see what I could find. First was the frozen milk weed pods, initially I was photographing them were they stood, but then got the idea to create some still lifes. So I pulled them out of the ground (I think I gathered about 20 of them) and positioned them just so, using the white snow as a background. The I found the icicles hanging off the back deck, again very lovely but not so on the deck. So I pulled them off and created the still life using the snow as a background like the milkweed. The original shots were OK, but still not what I had seen in my mind’s eye. I used a variety of Nik filters, IR, Tonal contrast, Pro Contrast, Brilliance/Warmth, B&W conversion, Paper Toner and finally On One’s Photo Frame to complete the images. I’m not so sure about the Photo Frames, they can be quite gimmicky but there was a drama that I wanted that was jus not coming out.
Here they are:
In chronological order here are some images from River Ranch. I do love being on the river, having time to just sit and in a non passive way watch the world go by. I’ve been shooting here for over 3 years, as a matter of fact my first Fine Art photo in over 15 years was made here and I consider it to be the place of rebirth for my artwork. Much thanks goes out to Phil and Esther Perkins for their open embrace of my creative endeavors. While 3 years is not that long of a time, I have walked the paths up the hill, through the woods and up and down the river many times. I have favorite places that I keep coming back to time and time again. However this time I was too confident that I could force the river into creating the images that I wanted. Alas when I got home I was fairly disappointed, I was trying too hard to make things work. The blessing in this was throwing my usual edit to the wind and trying new things. I relied heavily on exposure blending, and the Midnight filter form Nik. That helped recreate what I envisioned. Then some final touched with the IR, Tonal Contrast, Pro Contrast and Darken/Lighten Center filters brought it home.
Next are a couple few from my yard. I’m always amazed at the amount of subject matter that one can find right outside the door. Once again trying to create the image in my mind’s eye the was the B&W conversion and a variety of Nik filters and On One Photo Frame.
And finally, images from the living room. Before the winter holiday’s Genevieve bought me a mushroom growing starter kit. It consists of a pressed piece of wood the size of a brick that’s enfuse with mushroom spores. You need to keep it in a low light and moist environment and at this point it’s about 4 weeks old. While we should already have mushrooms (and don’t) the stalk forms are just amazing. It currently resides in a fish tank and the water droplets are from the daily misting. Once again to creat what I saw in my mind’s eye Nik and On One to the rescue. If you’ve look at any of my other images you’ll notice that I like a soft, glowing look but also retain the detail . For these images I converted them to an IR image with Nik and then set the layer to luminance in order to retain the color of the original image and still have the soft glow of the IR conversion. For a few I added an On One photo frame and painted out distracting areas. Overall I’m pretty happy with these and look forward to documenting the growth process.
And as usual I’ll end with my favorite from the series:
Enjoy and a happy and prosperous new year to all!
~T
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