darkness, darkness

Last July at the beach - somehow dark.ness.



Months later, play with MS Picture Manager - founds the ghosts within.



Further color manipulation, contrast, brightness, etc and image flipped.



Summer, again.

Of Barcodes and Snow

Below is the background image - a number of steps were taken to get here, but let's consider this the "the bones" of the final composition. This image provides the "bar codes" like element. Note that this image includes a lot of repetiton - something I tend to do since I am quite "lazy." Cheap trick.



This image - an edited version of the Bev photo - was used. Color hue, saturation and contrast was also manipulated on this image by using paint.net and, more likely, MS Office Picture Manager. Manager gives you the greater tool set, but is applied to the entire image.



I copies parts of this image (magic wand) and also played with the color and brightness of these snippets...

This is a separate image that was being worked on and later used to combine multiple images into one...



Note color variations play and experimentation. This image is too apocalyptic.



At one point a parallel image became very abstract. Dead end, start over. There were a lot of "undo's" - where you "save as" and then "undo" using paint.net. MS Paint only allows you to undo three edits.



I then added some representational elements by using parts of the abstract image, etc on an interim image. The image, below, is close to the final, but for some color modifications. My daughter, Mariana, came to the computer and her comments assisted with the final compositional edits.



Final image that ends drought.



A variation, less sedate, can be found here.... sometimes there is a nice or a ripe brie in the basement.

Things take time and they morph and I forget. This is close to a smaller file size version of image taken at the beach:



At some point I played with tone and colors in MS Office Photo Manager:



Then I used paint.net to select colors and use paint buckets:



Then I sharpened and tinkered a tiny bit The end of the line:

Turn It Upside Down

Compare to original version in typos - the easiest way for me to see images side ways, up and down is on my BlackBerry. Lovely tool, I mean it. Hell of a color screen. Jewel.

I never wanted one and now it is a berry placebo.

Flipping it here has made it less abstract p0 more of a wood block landscape. I admire Hiroshige.

Cutting Back Wisteria

CSeries of images, last one posted in typo.land - in the end I blocked of spaces in MS Paint - used an odd font - typed like a quarter mad man then selected color and colored in the negative space and then sliced and diced at the end.

Cut and paste lines:

Play with inversions and copy and paste:

More play:

Font is an easy compositional element - I consider it kind of cheap and almost cheating. Words carry weight, sometimes emotion - I often stop making sense on purpose....the word "work" was added among a number of w's, but most of of "work" got covered over by basting and pasting.

I do see windows, dark as they should be to conserve energy and the oppressed work force.

Under.time

Thank you, Sue for the photograph.

The first four posts have been moved to draft status today- let me know if you need them. Spell poorly...pleaze.

simmer.vacation?

Two versions of a lovely Lisa NZ post - seeming more like Pissaro than photographs. Only alteration was cropping using MS Office Picture Manager.

My BlackBerry is a marvelous tool for seeing images small and the BB frame often reveals cropping possibilities. It is like having a pair of tri-focals for sub parts.

Thank you, Lisa. You are a sport.

I hope all of you understand if I kid around it never is meant maliciously. And the intent here is not to say my versions are "better" - the image was just excellent to demonstrate how much a photo changes with cropping (focusing the viewer's eye). There is a subtle difference In the two photos - part of me prefers the tighter crop because of it is claustrophobic. Creates tension.

Part of art is the choice of how much tension or movement to project. My work is focused on the weight or lightness of the composition.

I always preferred to shoot full frame, but at this time I do not have a real SLR with changeable lenses.