I’ve been asked what exactly are these images. these are manipulated photograph I shot, of smoke. i alter colors and draw on them, with digital tools. Here’s a new image, followed by a small copy of the original shot, notice the figure on the lower left.
In a field where pre-planning is very important, sometimes, to free my mind, I like to take a pencil and scribble on paper, without raising it for a few moments from the page, and then with as little lines possible, to get out of the chaos a subject that will make sense.
As many in the visual field, I have a library of photographs I shoot, to use them as backgrounds or effects. While looking through some of my smoke images, I noticed a lot of scribbles there to work with.
I use free association doing that, and I find it to be very rewarding.
This porcelain hare was shot in its natural environment, porcelain hares are a very timid animal, especially scared of curious little hands with slippery fingers.
Shooting shiny objects is always a challenge and that’s one of the reasons I like doing it.
This mechanical toy was originally dressed and could crawl, not anymore. It looks to me as if it’s trying to reach out, sadly enough it doesn’t look like something you’d want to hold, that sense is what I went after.
Since I started experimenting with Photoshop around 1996, I was fascinated by blending modes and the patterns I can make using them.
A natural progression to studying graphic elements through the artwork I drew myself, (that’s when photography was still chemical-based, and scanning was reserved for paid projects), Was starting to us patterns from natural elements I shot.
It’s pretty clear why natural patterns are so inspiring, unlike an empty canvas, they already contain rhythm, flow, and direction which makes them fun to explore.
I get annoyed when people see a picture of a pretty girl and automatically say: “eh, it’s all Photoshopped” as if Photoshop is the long version of a four-letter word, I say, thanks to Photoshop we can give the client a brilliant result without having to dip ourselves in chemicals under red lights (I do admit that the smell of a developer makes me a bit nostalgic still, but it’s because I don’t have to spend time with it anymore). Here is an image manipulation job I received from a Las Vegas client, where the shot she sent me looked nice but needed “something..”. on the right, is the before image. first, I cropped it just a bit to get Katie to be more dominant in the frame, the rest was mainly some perfecting of stubborn hair and a very careful dodge and burn process that is similar but a bit more precise than what I would be able to do in the darkroom.
Following, are a some more “dramatic” Before and after samples