GONE!

Oh my gosh!!!!

Okay, I've let a lot of things slip this summer, especially photography.  To be honest, I don't think I have picked up my camera more than 5 times all summer, apart from a short vacation at the end of May.  I find that sad.

Yet on the other hand, I haven't been exactly dormant when it comes to art.  I've been exploring the other areas, as I mentioned in the previous post.  Painting, oil pastels, colored pencils mostly, along with some collage and mixed media.  Most of what I've done has been in art journals I have created from scratch after learning how from YouTube videos.  (Anything you want to learn you can probably find a YouTube video about it.)

But now that summer is officially gone, some other things are now gone as well.  First, I ended (temporarily maybe) my relationship with Fine Art America while I figure out what my next steps are going to be. I can always go back easily enough.

Secondly, I ended my relationship with Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ.  Granted this was only an online relationship as far as displaying my photography and digital fusion photography.  My work was not on display within the storefront gallery.  I could still continue to show up to 10 works of any kind of art for free, but without selling anything there, it was getting to be too much on my wee budget to continue paying for unlimited art display and a website.  I gave them two years and that was quite enough.  To be honest, that was a total experiment on my part from the start.  Up until I had taken the email course to prepare for gallery showing, I had not even considered gallery shows.  I was looking in a totally different area.

Thirdly, my Facebook page for my photography is on temporary hiatus while I decide what my next course of action will be.

I did keep my domain name even though at the present time it connects to nothing.  I am exploring WIX for my next website.  Then again, I might just take a swing at designing my next website myself.  It wouldn't be the first time.

Okay, so Xanadu's gone.  Fine Art America is gone.  Facebook is gone.  What's left?

Well there is this blog for one, (and the other one called page 2.)  Flickr is still filled with my images taken over the past few years.  And oh yeh, I am on ViewBug.  Have you tried ViewBug?  There are lots of fun contests and challenges.  You can win prizes with the contests; and the challenges allow you to see how others like your work.  You can also choose to sell your work on ViewBug.  I have not tried that yet.  I only have a few of my photos on ViewBug so far due to only uploading those that I think might do well in a contest or challenge.  At this point, I am taking it quite slowly.  It is a paid account for the pro status.

So, there you have it.  Some major steps taken now that summer has ended and autumn is here with all its glorious colors.  While I am still mostly spending time with the hands on type of art right now, my mind is working to make some decisions as to the next steps to take with my photography.  One of the things I am considering is how to use my domain name since it only applies to photography.  For example, should I keep the straight photography separate from the digital fusion photography?  Should I place all the digital fusion photography into a fine art category?  Xanadu got my mind on high pricing and I am just not that style photographer at this point.  So I have a lot to think about and plan, and though I am not in any great rush, with only three more months left to the year I am thinking maybe to have something in place by the end of this year.

Here are a few things I did work on over the summer.  From just one photo I took, I made these.  I did take more photos than this one, but this one was a pretty one for creating digital fusion.

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

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.

Announcement: Brand New Website

I am very happy to announce that I now have a website apart from this blog.  You can find it at this link.  I am really impressed with the art organization program at Artsala.  With this program I am able to make a complete and organized inventory of all my photographs, make those photos available to Xanadu Galleries IF I so desire for them to jury to see if they want to represent me (which they already do thanks to this program) and also Artsala will create a website for the artist.  Getting my website set up only took a few minutes last night and by this morning, it was live and ready to share with everyone.  Since then I have been inventorying even more photos and adding them to the website.  Just as quickly as I press the button to save my photo to my inventory, it is added into the proper category on my website.  Nothing could be easier!  I don't have to do my inventory separately from my website.  It is all done in one easy step.

A word about this blog.  For now I have decided to continue with this blog rather than changing locations.  There may be some fine tuning to be done in the near future, however.  Between this blog and the "Page Two" blog that holds even more of my photographs, (you can find a link by clicking the tab at the top of this page) you can find almost all of my best work, as well as my learning experiences, and other photography related topics.

So, now with my new website and my Flickr Photostream you have access to everything I am doing with photography.  As always, please take time to check out the photos I have showing at Xanadu Gallery also. 

Flickr and Jason Horejs

Recently I've been uploading my most recent photos and designs to my Flickr Photostream so now you can see some of my best works there.  Since Flickr does not allow using their site for direct selling of photography or other items, you can still contact me by coming here.

The past couple of weeks I have been taking a free online email workshop given by art gallery owner Jason Horejs who owns Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ.  Jason Horejs is also the author of the book Starving to Successful.  So far the e-course has been very interesting and will hopefully teach me things I need to learn to possibly show my photography (and maybe my paintings) in an actual gallery somewhere.  But even if it doesn't, this course is helping me learn more about myself, and that there are many, many others out there striving to do work that someone will someday buy.  I am expecting to learn more about how to present myself and my work in the best possible light I can.

Okay, just a quick example of some of the photography you can see on my Flicker Photostream.