NYC: 5th Ave. At Central Park

<- Click here

Consensus disciplines perception

Perception focuses judgment

Judgment triggers conviction

Conviction colors streets nasty.

Found on July 12th 2012 as I walked along 5th Avenue.

Canon 7D, Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6), PS4: Topaz Adjustment, Custom texture, AlienSkinExposure 4: Color Films – Polaroid/faded-darkened, Snap Art Blow Up 3 (300% enlargement). Custom spot-applied color shift adjustment layers, original created to be printed at 27" X 36".

Crayon New York City °1

In high July color

Bubbles and melts.

Like flamed-plastic toys.

Like feeling-seared film.

I walked through New York’s mid-day tropics… Storing stuff in my memory-bin that’s marked Summer In The City. I found new image puddles – left out in the noon-day sun – that melted right over those I’d stored in that bin before. These new ones were like casings to harden around stacked feelings that burble and glow when I poke around for memories of city summer.

Crayoned Impressionism: Canon 7D, Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6), PS4: Two square details carved from a 3 panel vertical pano, Topaz Adjustment, AlienSkinExposure 4: Color Films - Polaroid/faded-darkened, Snap Art3: Crayon. Custom spot-applied color shift adjustment layers, original created to be printed at 30" X 60".

Epiphany or Serendipity

<- Click here

As you swirl your

Stew of meaning

With a spoon of craft...

Do you discover

That epiphany is

Serendipity?

Here's a runner preparing for Lancaster's Race Against Racism on a cool April morning. The thing about the Race Against Racism is that.... Nobody loses... Y'know what I'm saying'?

Canon 7D, Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens, PS4: Custom texture screen, Alien Skin: Exposure 4/Color Films - vintage/Autochrome

4th of July '12: Moods

Don't know where I want to go with this... First I thought, "Why not show this girl like... well, here?

But then she seemed happier, like this.

.. So.... Wuddaya think? Low key? High key? You got any key preferences?

See, the deal is, I'm diddling with mood. It's astonishing how the key... the chord... changes feeling, eh? So musical. Right?

Took this out in the garden in the early morning light with my Canon 7D. Used the Canon 17-85 EFS zoom lens and manually focused close up in its macro mode. But the fun came in processing. See, I walked out front onto the Lancaster City street and grabbed a way-out-of-focus shot down the sidewalk through the tree canopy toward the oncoming traffic which now switches on headlights in daytime.

Okay... I used that street scene as a filter layer... see the bokeh in blue? Those are the auto lights. Right... Topaz's Adjustment let me play with various strengthening effects, and I masked them in at key spots to emphasize different textures and shadowings. Of course I adjusted the dynamic range throughout thanks to the latitude which RAW images allow. AlienSkin's Exposure 4 came next... and again, I employed a bunch of different adjustments on different PS4 layers, masking them into the various crags and crooks of the flower's body. Finally a curves adjustment layer let me paint in shadowy depth.

Of course the process varied in each of these images so that in the first image low key could be explored and high key emphasized in the other. Even though I'd intended to conceptualize the extremes of mood, it's still wonderful to discover so many unexpected alternatives during the processing.

In fact, there's no such thing anymore as "post-processing" from the moment of conception, through collecting images, into the computer exploration... it is now all just "processing". How many tools we've got as visual artists today! What a wonderful time, huh?