Lookout - New Criticism DAMN!

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GRUMBLE! Once upon a time my images were rejected from photographic sites because they were visual art. Now they are getting rejected from visual art sites because... they are filtered! See this image? I've posted the original below. There are photographic based web sites that are for images which have been enhanced by brush and specifically must show the brush strokes. Look at my image here. See the strokes?


Now look at the original. Do you see any strokes? Yeah, I carefully laid the strokes in - with SnapArt2 from AlienSkin. And NO... I did not push a button and get a one-size-fits-all paint-by-numbers, cookie-cutter result. This image was created with over three dozen layers. Look for example at the tree line, the cropping, the quality of light. I have mixed impasto with oils. I have mixed brushes and even in some places employed pointilism. Everywhere I improved upon the dynamic range to create what I felt as I created this image from a picture I took around the corner and down the block from my home here in Lancaster.

This was not a mere swirling about of brushes in CS4 or Painter XI. This is the result of significant forethought, and the application of extensive technique to achieve an end I DARE YOU TO REPLICATE!!!

It is a unique work of art which, among other tools, involved SnapArt2 - a number of times in different locations. And yet it has been rejected as (mere) filtration. If it's so easy to do... go ahead... DO IT! Damn I am pizzzzed.

At first post processing was rejected out of hand by the organic photographers. Now filtration is what? Too easy? THE HELL IT IS! Sigh.....

Grumble... Rant... ERRRRRG! Isn't this just the latest variant of the "I don't know what that is but it isn't photography" close minded schools of mental fertilizer?

Damn I am HOT!

Moi

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My friend Steven Issell was brave enough to use AlienSkin''s SnapArt on his own picture. and people have griped about the avatar I'm widely using. Sooooo.... Today I stood in front of a window, held out my Canon G10 and snapped this picture of me. Then I carefully applied the impasto option that SnapArt offers taking care to make me look as good as the basic material will allow. After all, I own the blog right? So here's the result... And I'm holding AlienSkin totally responsible for making me look like that. Pity you can't see the canvas effect, and the depth of the paint. It's cool to see the effect even on such a familiar face.

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No virgin images or gear stuff this time. Whatcha see is what I got through the G10. Nice that it has 14.5 Mpxs though, they really allow the filter to function and hold onto max sharpness.

Eureka!

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Ever noticed how scientists are ashamed of epiphany? Read a scientific paper and you will never find the words, "And at this point in the procedure we abruptly realized that Dr. Skinny had accidentally spit into the solution and that his saliva added a stimulus to the precipitate that overcame the impasse resulting in the miracle hair restoration break through."

Nope, read their stuff and Point A results eventually in Point Z through a well planned process that never veers from the genius of the scientific team. Of course Point Q was probably Dr. Skinny's spittle, but the report fails to account for epiphany that emerges during the process.

Visual artists are not scientists. See this first image? I wanted to apply my new interest in AlienSkin's SnapArt to some images I'd taken at Pigeon Point Light on the California Coast. And I thought it'd be cool to create an illustration featuring my feelings about the light.

And then a funny thing happened along the way to creating that image up there.... This happened! BOING! I discovered that SnapArt's oil painting options allowed me to swirl thick strokes to compliment an idea I had when I dramatized the original photograph with Topaz3. I'm thinking of it as Doctor Skinny's spittle...


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And the virgin image that started, or startled, my imagination? Here's what my Canon 20D saw through its EF-S 10-22mm (f3.5-4.5).

Cape May In August

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Cape May's a city that hangs on New Jersey's southern point. A piece of it faces the ocean, another piece the bay. And between the two edges sit Victoria's houses. Something about the deliberate way people present their homes hits my illustrator button. The town's pieces look like magazine covers, don't you think?

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Hey... now you can follow me on Twitter!! Tweet me at http://twitter.com/Editor_Ted

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And here's sort of the virgin image, well seven images... pulled from my FlashCard and stitched together in PhotoShop. It should be easy to see where I went from here, right? Not sure if you'd call this assembled images pre or post processing, but they're what my Canon EOS 40D saw through its Canon EF-S 10-22mm (f3.5-4.5). After this assembly I cropped, then warped it into acceptable shape. Of course there's extensive tone mapping then both Topaz and Alien Skin's SnapArt finished the job.

Fisher's Bench

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You know: There's a really big difference between showing a moment, and revealing its quality and character. I'm convinced that technique is what cranks volume into an artist's voice... Right? Technique lets me dig out the feelings I want to communicate with you. It's reassuring to know how many tools we have in our bag now. How much volume we're able to build up.

PreProcessing The hunting camp up in Potter County has a couple of stocked trout ponds. Here's one I like that looked wonderful through my Canon 40D. PostProcessng The tone mapping was done in PhotoShop CS4 with the help of Topaz where I imagined the mist. Then I used AlienSkin's Snap Art's water color tools to tease out some golden grit.

THE VIRGIN IMAGE!

Haven't done this for a while, but given how much effort this image took... thought you'd enjoy seeing the original I stitched together from four shots into a panorama. Enjoy....

Potter County #6: Gene Kelly?

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Hey, that's pretty cool! Downtown Coudersport sitting in the August saturday sun. Looking like... like... Looking like this image here. The way it's looked for what? A century? More?


You know how people say, "New York City? Yeah, it's a wonderful place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there."??? Well to a whole lot of people who remember a time that they learned about in history class... Coudersport's the sort of very small town where they'd like to visit and live.

Thing is though, it's not real easy to find, which is why maybe it's been preserved. Wasn't there a vincent Miinelli movie once about Scottish village that disappears into the Highland mist and returns for a day every century? Hmmm... Not sure but odd how the woman dancing just off to that park on the left there... Just beyond the frame... Odd how much she looked like, what was her name? Cyd Charise? Pity, I thought I'd caught her... Wonder why you can't see her?

You don't think???
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PreProcessing: As you probably realize by now, the only lens I took out in Potter County was the EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6) I screwed onto my Canon 40D. Here I pointed it at Coudersport's main street and shot a series for a panoramic. PostProcessing: Stitched them together in CS4 and turned to Topaz to even out the dynamic range from the extreme light then AlienSkin's SnapArt's Impasto to build up paint into a three dimensional texture. And why... It's Almost Like Being In Love... eh?

Potter County #5: Sunrise Over Clara

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Until digital, photographers were taught to seek and find. All other artists were taught to express what they thought and felt. Photographers pared down what they found, while the rest of the art world built up what they imagined. For the photographer to succeed s/he had to apply imagination to re-work a discovered object or moment. S/he created by eliminating while all other artists created by … well… creating.

Here's a sunrise over the second pond at the Potter County hunting camp I've been discussing since my visit last weekend. Now about that sunrise that's "over" Potter County... the point is: well I felt it crackling through the leaves and pouring itself down onto the shrubs, mists, and glades. And here's how I felt it.
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PreProcessing: No surprise that I continued to shoot through my Canon 40D's EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6). PostProcessing: Here we see the power of AlienSkin's SnapArt water color brushing's robust ability to interrelate with Topaz filters. Of course I enhanced the red scale of the sky throughout the shrubbery's highlights. It seemed to me to be a study in early morning textures.

Potter County #4: The Coudersport

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Ever seen a glimmering hunk of amber? You know, a translucent glob of ancient resin which collected around a seed, a bud, or an almost forgotten bloom in its center? And as you twirled it around, did it trigger memories that you didn’t really have? Recollections of a time before you should remember?

Coudersport is the county seat of Potter County, Pennsylvania and about 2,700 of the county’s 18,000 people live in the town that was formed in the early 1800s. Young, even by American standards, still it’s collected the ambitions of the turn of the twentieth century along a main street of shops, parks, and small office buildings. The streets hold memories of marching bands, and loggers. It is not a land that time forgot, rather one that time remembers lovingly – even longingly. If Coudersport did not exist, Disney would imagine it. In Coudersport you expected Mickey, Pluto, or Cinderella to skip out from door and alley ways.

On a sunny Saturday last week, it glimmered within its resin of amber time.
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PreProcessing: Again through my Canon’s EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6) in Coudersport’s main street where I found their working movie house. PotProcessing: Lots of things going on here. I want to create a series of square format images that will hang among the various panos I created in Potter County and at the hunting lodge I posted a few days ago. To create the Edward Hopper mystique here I first turned to Topaz, then teased in two effects from AlienSkin’s SnapArt2. First the Comics filter, then I stroked in Impasto to deepen the nostalgic sense while reinforcing the palette that could have been washed out in the mid-day August light. Happily, I think it worked well.

Potter County #3: Pond 1(b)

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See if you write, say poetry, you keep your audience attentive with every paragraph, sentence, and word. And you string them together with no hiccups, burps, or stammers. Reality simply isn't allowed to muddy access, distract, or leap out to screech "BOO!"

That's what digital artists do now. Like I did here. Right?
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PreProcessing: Here's that pond I posted yesterday captured by my Canon 40D's EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6) at the hunting lodge in Clara. PostProcessing: Okay, I had to move the furniture around a tad on this piece of the pond to enhance the dazzle of this misty place through a gentle sunrise shower. I did the reconstruction in PS4 and exploded the feelings with AlienSkin's Bokeh and SnapArt's oils. Sweet.

Potter County #2: Pond #1

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If you'll look again at my last post and peer just to the left of the building... well walk that way and immediately beside and to the rear of the lodge is where I stood to grab this pano of their first pond. In fact, that tree to the right here... see it? That's the tree which is framing the top of the lodge in yesterday's post. It seems as if the blue egrets have reduced the trout population this year since even through the mists you can see to the bottom of the six foot deep waters.

PreProcessing: As yesterday, I caught the series through my Canon 40D's EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6). PostProcessing: The four images stitched together nicely with CS4's merge tool. I cropped it some, diddled with the dynamic range then used Topaz and AlienSkin's watercolor devices to tease out the mystery of the pool.

Potter County #1: The Lodge

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Went to visit The Endless Mountains at their western edge this weekend. Here's the hunting camp that sits on its estate in Clara, a tiny town in Potter County, Pennsylvania. Quiet, remote, nice neighbors, but not many. It is a tad different from New York City a week or so ago. There's a reason that Pennsylvania's called the Keystone State. It's the doorway between the megalopolis of America's east coast and the country's west.
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This lodge sits on a LOT of land which forms the biggest part of an Appalachian mountain. Oddly, the folks up there don’t name their mountains, I guess because there are so many of the things? After all, when you have lawn full of grass, you don’t bother to name the blades, eh?

Um, did I mention that the guys never invite wives or lady-friends along? Un-huh, there are still places where men can drink, smoke cigars, play cards, scratch their…. um… And, oh yeah, sometimes hunt. Think of it as an ANTI-SPA. Wonder when that’ll get outlawed, huh?
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PreProcessing: I used my Canon D40 to capture a series through its EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6): PostProcessing: PS/CS4 stitched the shots together and after rigorously adjusting the dynamic range, adding a new sky, and eliminating a parked car – AlienSkin’s SnapArt2 techniques allowed me to mix colored pencils with oil paints and create a mixed media rendering of the lodge-where-women-don’t-go