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In keeping with the season.

Sea Grass

Ghost

I don’t talk a lot about how I work so I thought I’d take you through one of the images I did last year. “Wings.” What I really do is when I see something that stirs my artistic curiosity I stop and look at it and if I really see what I’m looking for I take some shots. What I see is not what others driving by see. I try to peel back the layers of metaphors and get to what the object or what ever really is. In this case I saw an abandoned gas station with those wing type lights on the pump islands. The pumps were long gone but these lights were still standing but in wacky ways. I hoped out of my car and shot the light from a few angles and varying exposures and left. Very quick operation.

Original photo of the light.

Now this original was over exposed but I really liked the texture and deep blues so this is where I started. I often begin with a less than perfect shot if it is closer to what I “see.” So from here I usual spend time in Lightroom doing development adjustments. I messed with the exposure, color mix and cropping. Once it is looking pretty good I will have an image that looks like this.

Intermediate image

Now into Photoshop to remove the light pole and make sure the image is clean. I did color fine tuning here with effects to produce the final image.

Wing (finished piece)

I know I didn’t explain which knobs I turned but I don’t really remember. I do it by feel not formula. Once I finish the piece I take back into Lightroom. I work from DNG files through the entire process. I don’t do jpegs unless I have to. There are times I have to export a DNG file into a JPEG for some external processing but I always re-import the image as a DNG.

Well that’s it for now. I finished writing the book about Robin Randle and I’m editing so I can create readers copies. That’s kept me off the streets so I’m itching to get shooting again.

N

water 25

School is almost done for 2011. Meghan, now a high school senior, brought home the work she has been doing in “Print Making Class.” This particulate print astounded me. It contains many of the Gestalt principle that I have talked about. Great job Meghan. I’m getting it framed. Oh, and this is NOT a photograph.

The Three

A few weeks back we had a couple of days where the fog around Kansas City got pretty bad.  This time of year it can be 70 one day and snow the next. I spent a little time hunting around town looking for the right objects I needed to create some ideas I’ve been wanting to work on. This is one.  I know the element of fog may not be apparent but it gave me the atmosphere I needed to work with. I was mostly trying to get a group of 3 and these 3 trees stood out. I guess you’d call this surrealistic but to me it is a glimpse into that world that you can only see out of the corner of your eye. An elusive place that is part of  The Region. The Region is a place between where a character I created, named Robin Randle, has been and is currently deciding if she wants to go back to.

The story started off as a short story but this girl has a mind of her own and I’m up to 41 pages or 15,000 words.  I have one more section in the current chapter then two more chapters (or 6 sections) to go. I think. The title of the novella is In The Region Where Madness Dwells and yes it is a horror story. I think after I finish the writing I will go into an edit phase and include some of the photographs I’m doing as well. I really like this girl. She has been one of the most interesting characters that I’ve ever dreamed up and the company she keeps is very scary. I’ll share a few more “work in progress” photos soon.

REMEMBER: No Windows No Doors exhibition through March at Cafe Trio – The book will be ready for pre-order Monday. Gala event March 31st. For all the news click HERE.