Creative Images
I have always enjoyed the “Creative” side of photography. Starting back in the days of Audio Visual presentations where the author “Created” a third image by projecting two images onto the same screen and fading from one projector to another.
Since then, I have pursued those elusive, momentary images. I dabbled with “back projection”, where you projected an image onto a translucent screen and placed a piece of glass between the screen and the camera and then photographed the results.
When I started dabbling with Photoshop, back in the 1990s, I tried to continue this idea. In those days, my skill set was very small, as was my range of ideas.
Nowadays, I like to think that I’m much more accomplished as a digital artist.
The images below are some of the results of that creative streak
Museum Plus
A little creativity in this one. The sky was pretty bland when I took the shot so I cut out the museum building, placed a dark gradient in the background and added a cloud. A simple shot.
New York Weather
Back in 2006, I took a trip to New York. I hadn’t planned it, however, it turns out that I was there on Thanksgiving Day for Macy’s Parade. The policeman was a bit of a character, smiles as wide as 5th Avenue even in the pouring rain. A background of times Square and some Photoshop rain creates the final image.
Poppy Dream
The poppy image was shot back in 2008. The texture overlay is the flank of a horse taken in September 2022, blending the two gives us the final image. I wanted the pattern of the horse’s coat to mimic the wind blowing through the field.
Cow in the Harvest
This may not look particularly creative, however, the background on the original shot was grass, very green grass.
I wanted a background that complemented the colours in the cow so a field of barley with a passing swallow was the final choice.
Bison Fantasy
I took a wonderful trip to Yellowstone in January 2009. This is a combination of two images from that trip. The texture is snow lying on a sheet of ice on our local canal. There are a couple of ‘other’ layers built in to the image to add shape and shadows.
Forgotten
This image is another from that decaying plastered wall from the abandoned building. I have a series of images planned for this location and this is the first of them. The coat is one I picked up for free via some recycling site. I grabbed it specifically for this shot although, my grandaughter can have it when she grows up enough to wear it.
Another texture layer, this one condensation on the window of our old porch.
Red Valentino
The shop image was taken on a trip my wife and I made to Prague in 2019.
The texture layer is a plaster wall from an abandoned building a few miles from home.
Blend them et voila
Marionettes
Another image from Prague, 2019. At least the marionettes part of it is.
This image arose out of a demonstration I was giving to my camera club. I was trying to demonstrate the use of layers, blending modes, drop shadows etc.
The background is a decaying plastered wall from an abandoned building close to home. the rest is purely from my imagination.
Cat in the Hat
This is probably my first successful creative image. Taken at the Edinburgh Festival Cavalcade in 2006. The young lady was part of an American theatre group who were performing at the Fringe. The original shot had a messy background that I had to remove. I set myself the task to learn to use Photoshop’s pen tool. This was a steep learning curve, however, one that was well worth the effort as I still use it regularly today. It took me hours to meticulously cut out the outline of the hat. Once that was done, I needed a suitable background. I simply used the hat on another layer, resized and blurred to create a picture that pops.