Using My Photography For What????

Oh my gosh!  I hadn't realized it had been so long since I last posted here.  Time has flown the past few months.  I've moved to a location much better suited for my work as well as my play.  But really my work IS play for me.  But in addition to this, I've discovered something totally new, for me anyway, and that is mixed media art and mixed media art journals.  So I have spent much of the past couple of months anyway, learning as much as I can so I can be able to do this kind of art properly.

No, don't worry.  I am not leaving my photography behind, although it seemed like it there for awhile.  Actually, I think I want to find a way to incorporate my photography into my mixed media artwork.  I think this would be so much fun as well as how it would make the ephemera (new vocabulary word for me) I use in the artwork totally my own instead of things I find elsewhere.  Or maybe a combination of both.

So, what I did in October and the first half of November was to create my first mixed media art journal.  Now the problem I had with this is my own impatience because I wanted to be able to do everything right away even though I don't even have all the kinds of supplies I need to do so.  For instance, stencils.  And stamps.  And that darn ephemera.  I also do not have a lot of options in the mixed media types of pigments such as watercolors and inks.  I do have colored pencils, black Sharpie pens (so far) and acrylic tube and bottled paints.  But to compensate, I used the computer to find and print out and then cut out or tear out various pictures of possible things I might want to use.  That didn't work as well as I had hoped, but to that I blame on not being well versed in this kind of artwork yet.  I learned how to make some of the things I will need also and have begun making my own stencils, and stamps out of things found around the house.  I think the most unique of these items has been the mallet end of a broken meat pounder (tenderizer).  It makes pretty cool dots in pattern and in two different sizes.  My best and favorite, so far, homemade ephemera or paper has been plain old coffee filters I've been using to blot excess paints both on the artwork itself and on the pallets.  Blotting over and over on the filters has thickened the paper quite a bit and I have finally used some in a mixed media canvas that turned out interesting.

Now I am looking at ideas for how to do this using my own photography in different parts of my art.  I think that especially the abstract photography or digital fusion photography will work best in my abstract art.  I am not sure yet how I would use landscapes, florals, or other photographs, but I am sure I will figure that out.  There is one layout in my art journal where I cut out flowers from actual photographs and put them into the design.  But they are thicker and heavier than the rest of the page they are put on so they required a heavier amount of gel medium to hold them down and cover them well.  I used glossy gel medium which took longer to dry properly even though it felt dry to the touch.  When turning the pages, they ended up sticking together and did some major damage I am not sure I can repair.  So I have decided for now to use my own printouts of my photos on regular computer paper or maybe card stock instead of photos from the photo developing places.

Then, some sad news, my little Jonah ended up needing to be put to sleep as he was in obvious last stages of his life.  He was having increasing difficulty walking and holding his bladder, as well as no longer eating after vomiting his last meal a whole day after he ate it.  It was very hard to let him go but it was harder to watch him struggle and have bouts of pain where he would make sounds I never knew a dog could make.  You can see more photos of Jonah in his own tab at the top of the page.

This past week I have focused on my photography again because I knew I was away from it for too long.  I've done some still life photos of fresh vegetables prior to making homemade tacos, and then later some still life photos of marbles and a flower vase with some different backgrounds, such as felt pieces, and the mesh wrappers that come on fresh fruit.  After that I went on to do some digital fusion artwork with the still life photos and have been posting those to my Flickr photostream.  Here is one example that turned out looking like a big open mouth on a fish...but hey, to you it might look like something totally different.  What beautiful dark blue eyes this fishy has!

So, this being very early the morning after Thanksgiving, I want to say that I hope you had a wonderful day and spent some great time with family and friends.  Or if you are like me and having your holiday on a different day to accommodate various scheduling issues, I wish you a happy Thanksgiving yet to come.  The Christmas season has officially begun and that means a lot of different things to different people.  For me it means a celebration of the greatest man who ever lived, Jesus Christ.  It's a busy time for many and I hope I will be back on here before this year is ended.  But, if I don't make it, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Colorful Digital Fusion Photography Tutorial

Hey there!  It's that time again.  I just completed a set of digital fusion photographs that I thought would make a great tutorial.  I recently moved to a new location in the same town but it offers many more photographic opportunities than I have previously had.  So I've been spending time taking some pictures just for more practice than anything else, but came up with some pretty cool shots.  But not all of them came out clearly in focus the way I wanted them.  Oh some parts were focused but not the parts I was aiming for.  Need more practice there.  But there was one very colorful photo I took that wasn't really all that bad, but definitely wasn't good enough to stand alone.  There are little flower and vegetable gardens all around me here and in this one little garden is a planter of a darling little girl sitting on a garden bench holding a basket of hens and chickens.  The hens and chickens did not focus as well as I thought they did.  But other parts of the photo were okay.  But as I said, it is the color combinations that are truly fascinating for this tutorial.

Here is a photo of the full planter.

Below is the photo I am using for today's tutorial.  For your purposes, this time find something with some good color dynamics as well as some different textures, lines, and angles and then take your picture.

*Reminder:  I am using Corel Paint Shop Photo Pro X5.  But you can use Photoshop or other software of your choice.  The settings may not have the same names but this is your chance to explore what your software can do for you.

The first thing I chose to do was to highlight all the lines and angles by using the effects filter in the default grouping called "Artistic Effects" and within the group the effect called "Glowing Edges."  I love the black light poster or black velvet style poster that results.

I'm going to work with this at a later time.  For this tutorial, I want to continue using the original colors.  This next photo I used a default effects grouping called "Distortion Effects."  Within the group I chose "Polar Distortion" and got this result.

Hmmmm.  What do you think? 

Normally at this point I will back track and go back to the original for each new effect.  But I liked the oddness of this one so I used it for the following results.  These were all done using various settings in the downloadable filter effect group called Medhi.  This is one of my favorite filter groups and it is usable for both Corel and Photoshop.  It is also free.  Within this group is a favorite "Kaleidoscope" effects with lots of variable settings.  (The great thing about the colors and textures of this photo is that I have only just started creating new designs and there are so many more possibilities I can work with.  This is why this time you are to make a photo of something colorful and textured.)

The following are just kaleidoscope variations from the Mehdi group that I chose to use.  At this point, you can do what I have done, or experiment on your own with whatever special filter effects your software provides, download other filters if possible, and go from there.  These are what I did so far.

If I wanted to, I could probably go back to the Kaleidoscope and use it on the original photo as well and come up with all new versions.  I am not sure yet if I will do that or not.  I am always excited when I somehow manage to make hearts as in the bottom one here.

Another Fun Abstract Tutorial

As I was just looking back over some of my posts and especially at previous tutorials, I thought it would be fun to do another one.  So, here goes.  And as usual, I'm using a really bad photo to start with.  But to its credit, the photo has some really good colors and lines and textures to work with.  This photo here is one of the absolute worst I have ever taken.  Why it turned out so bad is a whole other post.  It's just bad and it isn't the only one I took that day that turned out bad.

Remember, to get the full effect of this tutorial, double click on the photo to get full screen.

So, just to take some time out to experiment with some software settings I had not used before, I decided to see what might happen if I tried a few.  This was using curves intense.  This was the only one I liked.  And really, it's BAD.  There's nothing redeemable about it.  Or is there?

Well, there is color.  There are lines, angles, textures.  Hmmm...

        I decided to try out my favorite kaleidoscope filter from the Mehdi group.  This setting was 2 petals, 0 offset, 0 rotate, and 1 zoom out.  Well, now that's interesting.  The more I look at it, the more I like it.  Yet, I'd like a little less white.

 This time I wanted to see what would happen if I worked on the colors only.  So I tried Luminares Color Glow.  Wow, I love this shade of blue, but this is a little overboard.  But I'm not giving up.  I'm seeing more and more potential here.  So I keep going.

 Back to the ole favorite kaleidoscope.  This time it was 2 petals, 46 offset, 0 rotate, and 1 zoom out.  That's much better.  But I'm not finished yet.

 Okay I don't really like all that blue even though it is interesting.  So I back up a couple steps back to the kaleidoscope directly above the first blue picture.  Yep, that's the one, with the all white pickets going across the middle and the colors top and bottom.  This time instead of more kaleidoscopes, I chose to use Toadies filter group and the filter called Picasso's Other World. You can certainly see the cubism there.   I am really liking this one.  But let's see what else can be done.

At this point, still avoiding more kaleidoscopes because there are just times when I can almost feel that I need something totally different, I have chosen the same filter group that has the kaleidoscope filter.  But this time I have chosen a filter called Melt within the Mehdi filter group.

   

 

Wanting to give it something...not quite sure what yet...but I am trying the filter group called Simple and the effect called Blintz.  

 Well that has possibilities, but I've still not gotten what I am looking for, and that is something that just pops out at me and says, "YES! This is it!"

So now I am going to try one more very easy filter that comes with the Paint Shop program and that is found under the title of Distortion Effects.  The effect is called Displacement Map.

And that's my YES! 

I could keep going, but I am going to stop there.  I am happily satisfied with this result and feel that I have gotten not one but two pretty awesome pieces of art out of this.  The first one is the one where I used the Picasso's Other World and got such an interesting cubism piece.  And then this last one above here.  

So did you follow along and do some experimenting of your own?  I hope so.  That's what makes this fun.

Flickr Photo Albums

Alright, today I thought I might share a few of my favorite Flickr albums that I have created from the digital fusion photography I have been doing.  I try to keep organized on Flickr the best I can so that if you prefer to look through albums instead of the entire photostream, you can do so.

This first album is my most recent.  I'm still working on it, but I have quite a lot done so far.  Remember to keep checking back to see what else I've done with it.  Believe it or not, last week I took some macro shots of some thick onion skins after I was finished cooking.  Once I did that, it was time to see what would happen once I started editing them into other pieces of art.  This folder is the result so far.  Obviously it is called Onion Skins.

This next album was created after Christmas 2014 when I had done a lot of light painting of my Christmas Tree lights.  Then I did something I had never done before with light painting.  I turned those shots into digital fusion photographs just to see what would happen if I went crazy with the light painting photos.  This folder is called Light Painting Gone Mad.  I hope you enjoy it.

By far one of my biggest album, with over 600 pieces, is called The Kaleidoscope Collection.  You can find it here.  Almost everything I have worked on usually has at least one kaleidoscope piece made from an original photo.  I also have on both of my photography blogs, some that I have done from scratch.  However, all of these, I believe, are from original photographs I have taken.

In all the albums in my photostream you will find mixtures of other albums.  For example, in my Macro album, you will also find kaleidoscopes and other abstracts because I have cross-referenced everything.  It might not have been the best idea and at some point I may undertake to change how I organized the artwork.

Well, there you are.  I hope you enjoy browsing through these albums.  If you wish to see more albums, just click on the photostream link in the above paragraph and go from there.  Throughout all you will see the originals, and then if I have made any digital fusion works, you will see those as well.  In many cases you can check the file name to see which original is the base for the artwork. 

Photographic Study of Queen Anne's Lace in One Photo Revision

This past week or two, up through tonight, I've been working on trying to improve several of the photographs I took while on vacation.  Honestly, I've only ever been on two vacations in my entire life and both were treats given to me by my daughter.  So it is important to me that the photos I shot while there are the best they can be.  I'm also working on other photos I'm trying to improve.  This post will be about just one photo and what has been done to make it better.  It's a photo of Queen Anne's Lace--a weed--but one that is pretty enough to deserve a royal name.

Before I get to the photos, I thought it would be interesting to find out some facts about this wild plant.  For instance, did you know that it is also called a wild carrot and the roots are edible if pulled early enough before they get woody.  Great care must be taken, however, because the plant is very close in appearance to several poisonous species such as Hemlock. 

"Queen Anne’s lace earned its common name from a legend that tells of Queen Anne of England (1665-1714) pricking her finger and a drop of blood landed on white lace she was sewing. Belonging to the carrot family, Queen Anne’s lace is a biennial that is also known as wild carrot. Early Europeans cultivated Queen Anne’s lace, and the Romans ate it as a vegetable. American colonists boiled the taproots, sometimes in wine as a treat. Interestingly, Queen Anne’s lace is high in sugar (second only to the beet among root vegetables) and sometimes it was used among the Irish, Hindus and Jews to sweeten puddings and other foods." See more here.
Here is another website about this interesting plant.. 





Okay, let's get to the photos.

 This is the original photo pretty much right out of the camera.  I may have done some sharp focus editing on the day I photographed this.  It was about a year ago, taken in a store front alley near an interesting spot many photographers use for both wedding and family group portraits.  While my daughter-in-law was photographing some of her children there, I was looking around for other things to photograph.  I noticed among the tossed out pop and beer cans, empty snack packages and other bits of trash, these flowering weeds attempting to give the alley some beauty.  I wanted to see if I could take some of that away with me.  Because it was a hot day and I don't walk as well as I would like to, I was actually sitting in the car with the door open when I took this shot.  Since this was last year, I was also still pretty new to the camera I was using, and still use.  It is a Canon Rebel EOS T3i with the kit 18-55mm lens.  The photo was shot at 1/125 sec, f7.1, and ISO 100.

I asked for some assistance at an online photography forum I am a member of called The Shark Tank on Light Stalking. While I originally felt that it was focused okay, if maybe a little soft, it was suggested that the main subject was flat and needed to be sharper.  I was initially concerned that if I had sharpened it already when I first took the photo, sharpening it more would create too much digital noise.  So I resisted that suggestion but chose, instead to try to enhance the overall shot by using a "warm" filter in editing.  Here is that result.

Well, while it did make the background much better, it is still showing as being too soft or out of focus.  So I gave in and decided to try to sharpen it again.  Here is that result.

I did have to admit that this made the photo better.  The sharpened photo looked more in focus, although there are a few petals near the center that are still out of focus.  But there was still that initial issue about the photo looking flat and the eyes being drawn away from the main flower to those in the background.  So this time I decided to try black and white.  I tried two different styles of black and white.  The first one below is what is considered normal black and white.

Now I have been looking at this photo long enough and working with it long enough that my eye is naturally drawn to the background just to check how it looks overall.  So I am not able to adequately judge whether I have accomplished the goal of keeping the eyes on the main flower.  Below is what is called "heavy" black and white.

I had to remove digital noise from both of the black and white photos as it was very noticeable in both of those.  Also I notice in the bottom one, the heavy black and white, that there is more dark tones to the flower itself than in the normal black and white.  I think the heavy shadowing in the bottom one brings more attention to the background instead of moving the attention to the main flower, while the normal black and white one keeps the focus on the main flower where it belongs. What do you think?  Please feel free to comment about your suggestions and tips.

While I am at it, below are some graphic designs, or digital fusion photographic art that I did with this particular photo of Queen Anne's Lace.  I hope you like them.  For more of the things I am working on, don't forget to follow me on Flickr and on Twitter @capirani.

Queen Anne’s lace earned its common name from a legend that tells of Queen Anne of England (1665-1714) pricking her finger and a drop of blood landed on white lace she was sewing. Belonging to the carrot family, Queen Anne’s lace is a biennial that is also known as wild carrot. Early Europeans cultivated Queen Anne’s lace, and the Romans ate it as a vegetable. American colonists boiled the taproots, sometimes in wine as a treat. Interestingly, Queen Anne’s lace is high in sugar (second only to the beet among root vegetables) and sometimes it was used among the Irish, Hindus and Jews to sweeten puddings and other foods. - See more at: http://www.ediblewildfood.com/queen-annes-lace.aspx#sthash.QuBqme2I.dpuf

Queen Anne’s lace earned its common name from a legend that tells of Queen Anne of England (1665-1714) pricking her finger and a drop of blood landed on white lace she was sewing. Belonging to the carrot family, Queen Anne’s lace is a biennial that is also known as wild carrot. Early Europeans cultivated Queen Anne’s lace, and the Romans ate it as a vegetable. American colonists boiled the taproots, sometimes in wine as a treat. Interestingly, Queen Anne’s lace is high in sugar (second only to the beet among root vegetables) and sometimes it was used among the Irish, Hindus and Jews to sweeten puddings and other foods. - See more at: http://www.ediblewildfood.com/queen-annes-lace.aspx#sthash.QuBqme2I.dpuf

Queen Anne’s lace earned its common name from a legend that tells of Queen Anne of England (1665-1714) pricking her finger and a drop of blood landed on white lace she was sewing. Belonging to the carrot family, Queen Anne’s lace is a biennial that is also known as wild carrot. Early Europeans cultivated Queen Anne’s lace, and the Romans ate it as a vegetable. American colonists boiled the taproots, sometimes in wine as a treat. Interestingly, Queen Anne’s lace is high in sugar (second only to the beet among root vegetables) and sometimes it was used among the Irish, Hindus and Jews to sweeten puddings and other foods. - See more at: http://www.ediblewildfood.com/queen-annes-lace.aspx#sthash.QuBqme2I.dpuf

Queen Anne’s lace earned its common name from a legend that tells of Queen Anne of England (1665-1714) pricking her finger and a drop of blood landed on white lace she was sewing. Belonging to the carrot family, Queen Anne’s lace is a biennial that is also known as wild carrot. Early Europeans cultivated Queen Anne’s lace, and the Romans ate it as a vegetable. American colonists boiled the taproots, sometimes in wine as a treat. Interestingly, Queen Anne’s lace is high in sugar (second only to the beet among root vegetables) and sometimes it was used among the Irish, Hindus and Jews to sweeten puddings and other foods. - See more at: http://www.ediblewildfood.com/queen-annes-lace.aspx#sthash.QuBqme2I.dpuf

Back on Facebook

It looks like it is working this time.  If you have been following this blog you know that I tried this before, setting up a Facebook page for Capirani Photography, but it failed to go public.  This time, I think it is working.  But the only way to be sure is to leave it up awhile and see what happens.  So, here is the link to click on to get to the Facebook page.  Please, if you visit there, make sure to click the LIKE button.  Leave me a note too, if you feel so inclined.  I'd love to hear from you.

In other news, I've taken a week off this past week, so there hasn't been much new going on at any of my online locations.  I'm seriously considering attempting YouTube tutorials in the near future.  I'm just not sure how that will work unless I just do screen shots somehow.  Obviously I don't want it to turn out boring.

Remember, you can follow me now at Facebook here.  You can also find my work at Fine Art America, and at Flickr, and at the online gallery of Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ.  Of course I am also on Twitter where you can easily type in @capirani to follow me there.

I appreciate all your time and energy.

Fine Art America, Anne Geddes, and Genealogy

If you are interested in fine art, I am sure you have probably seen the Fine Art America website.  If not, you can click here to check it out.  As I was researching ways to learn more about selling my artwork, I saw something about Fine Art America I hadn't seen before so I decided to look into it.  As I did so, I noticed something else that really surprised me.  Anne Geddes, America's favorite baby photographer sells her work on Fine Art America.  That sold me on it so tonight I joined the other artists there and created my own profile, uploading nine (9) of my newest pieces.  A really cool thing about this site is that you can set it to connect and post to your Facebook and Twitter accounts automatically every time you upload a new piece of artwork.  That takes a load off the work of marketing for yourself.  Not only that, the website is free to join, and allows you to sell directly to the buyer through email which keeps it all free for the artist and buyer as far as the website goes.  However, you can also sell through the website and have your art put on everything from greeting cards, to throw pillows, to duvets, and even smart phone cases and more.  And as the artist, you don't have to do anything to make sure the purchaser gets their product.  So, now I am looking forward to seeing how this thing works out.  Before I had completed all my nine uploads, I had already noticed that 38 people had viewed my profile. 

One of the parts of this fine art sales that bothers me is the business side of things.  In fact, this was what I was researching so I could learn more about it.  When I first submitted to Xanadu, I have to admit that I knew basically nothing about gallery sales or even fine art sales.  I was looking in totally different directions at the time.  So, even knowing how much I hate the business side of art, I knew I needed to do something to help me grow and learn more.  This is one thing that Fine Art America is already helping me with.  When I set my prices, I only have to figure out what I want to get out of each sale that is mine to keep (before taxes, of course.)  When setting my prices for art galleries, I need to know what their commission is, as well as all the other things like the cost of production, etc.  But with Fine Art America, you set the amount you want for yourself, and they show you the mark-up and the final cost to the buyer.

Another thing that totally shocked me as I looked over Anne Geddes profile was her low prices.  I found her own website and her prices are very low for her beautiful photographs.  I clicked on her puzzles link and that took me to Amazon which also has her items priced very reasonably.  I was very impressed.

Oh!  I have to add this side note which is really quite exciting for me and that is that during my recent trip back down genealogy lane this past week, I "met" a long distant cousin and we have been emailing back and forth ever since.  And get this...she is a photographer!!!  Truly amazing and wonderful.  It seems that art is in our genes as we both know others in the same lineage that are artistic in nature.

Digital Fusion With a Pineapple, a Camera, and a Computer

Pineapple is so good to eat.  But have you ever photographed a pineapple?  Okay, so what's so special about photographing a pineapple? And what is this thing called "Digital Fusion?"

Well, let's start with the last question first.  "Digital Fusion" is what I call the art that I create using my camera and my computer, specifically my Corel Paint Shop X5 photo editing program.  Over the past years as I have progressed in this specialty, I have felt hard pressed to know what to call what I do.  It's photography, yet once I am finished creating, it doesn't look much like photography anymore.  It's not actually digital painting either.  I really enjoy cooking shows, especially Gordon Ramsay's shows, and one of the things I have learned from those shows is that when you mix different styles of cooking together, say Indian and Mexican for example, it is called "fusion."  So, one day I was thinking that what I do is totally digital since I use a digital camera and everything else is done on my computer, and I am definitely fusing different things together.  Hence, the name "Digital Fusion" came to my mind.  I don't know if anyone else has ever used that terminology before or not, but I know for myself, I finally feel that I have found the right name and description of my art.

So, okay then, what about this pineapple and what are you going to do with it?  Well, I 'm glad you asked.  Let me show you.

Starting with these 4 photos, let's see what happens when I start using Paint Shop with them.  First let me say that I have added a great many more filters that you can find online for free just by looking.  The filters are plug-ins that help me create the art I so enjoy.  I didn't really do anything with the photo of the actual pineapple...yet anyway.  But I wanted to show you the different colors available from the pineapple itself.  Mostly I worked with the photo of the leaves, and the bottom photo of the single segment of the side of the pineapple.  You can see more here.

These 3 examples above show the vast amount of color that was provided just by the one photo of the pineapple leaves.  Be sure to click on each photo to see it enlarged for better detail.  My favorite among these is the center one, which I call "Florets"


Next, let's take a look at examples of digital fusion using the single segments of the pineapple skin.  With the first one, I got these final pieces of art.

The second of the above examples is actually the cropped version of the first one so that the cross itself is the main focus.  I have been using a Kaleidoscope plug-in to try to come up with different styles of crosses, and this is just one of many examples.

Now let's move on to the final individual segment of pineapple skin.  It is more in focus and also has a larger variety of colors in the palette.  

 

As you can see from these 4 examples above, the colors can be changed during processing.  All of these kept the brick texture simply because I liked the look it presented.  

So, there you have it.  What I call "Digital Fusion" and why I call it that.  It doesn't matter what I might find to photograph to start with.  Everything has options to be used as a final digital fusion piece of art.  With God as the Master Painter, the color palette provided by nature cannot be topped.