I don't have many talents, other than angering my wife when I drop clothes on the floor or forget to turn off lights.
But I often wish I could sit down and draw. Paint. Sketch. Even use Crayolas in a coloring book. Maybe that's why I use the camera, because as much as I have tried, I just can't 'get' perspective on a piece of paper.
This photo is of a sparrow coming in for a landing. Thanks to Photoshop, it's muddled enough to look more like a painting than a photograph. On this photo are some paint daubs, some texturizer, some saturation.
I haven't decided for sure if it looks better than the photo, but I'm leaning toward 'no'.
Thats another talent I wish I had-- graphic artist.
Speaking of paintings, do you know why certain pictures like the Mona Lisa "just work?" It's because of a recently discovered method called the "Diagonal Method." Check out this page, it's worth a read: http://www.diagonalmethod.info/
This explains why some of my photos "just work" even though I've broken the "Rule of Thirds." :)
Hey Bil,
Here's an idea you can try and see if you like it. It looks like the sparrow is landing on an icy branch but the branch is blurred too much by the photoshop filter to make the point.
Make a mask around the icy branch and leave it intact just as you took the image, so the branch is photo clear and crisp but the bird landing is still like a painting.
Another approach would be to select just the bird in flight and apply brush strokes to just that area.
It may or may not look good in the end but that's the fun with photoshop and creating things.
Good luck,
Steve
Thanks Steve for the ideas. As photojournalists (a fancy name for newspaper photographers), we're prohibited from using many of the tools in Photoshop's tool kit. But once in a while it's fun to play on 'off' time. Now, our graphic artists are geniuses at using Photoshop because they use all the tools for the many illustrations in the YDR. And if it's listed as an illustration, they can play all they want.
BTW, I have a friend who wants to buy a laptop. I suggested you because of all the good work you do for me.