Luke Air Force Base 2014 Air Show Revisited – Excerpts from a Photo Shoot

I have been working with some of the shots I took from the Air Show at Luke Air Force Base (reference prior blog). I did not haul my telephoto lens with me, so for the fly overs, I wasn’t sure what kind of shots I would get. I did shoot everything in RAW format so I could get as much detail as possible. When I initially looked at the shots, I wasn’t sure I could do much with them….the planes looked lost and uninteresting. It was a totally different shoot I did after the show that made me go back and play with the fly over shots. On this other shoot, I was looking at some of the pictures and decided to try some drastic cropping and took those shots to full clarity (RAW). The result was incredible, so I came back to these and did the same thing….I was really pleased with the results and have attached  four of the shots with the original.

Original 1

Cropped 1

Original 2

Cropped 2

Original 3

Cropped 3

Original 4

Cropped 4

Again, since I shot this in RAW format, I could go maximum clarity on the final shots which allows me to crop and not lose any detail.

 

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The Tree By The River – Featured Art Print

 

The Tree By The River”

“The Tree By The River” is one of the new additions to my Landscape Watercolor Gallery.  From one of my many hiking ventures last year in the Pacific Northwest, I was inspired by the view through this moss covered tree. It was one of those moments when you are deep in the forest and you come around a bend and through the trees you catch a glimpse of a mountain river. I love the sound of the water going over, under and around the many boulders in the river bed. For this art print, I used a subtle and soft watercolor technique. So subtle in fact you have to stop and look, is this a photo or a painting. I wanted to keep the detail of the scene, but wanted to soften it up slightly. The tree stands as a focus in the foreground with the river in the background taking your eye from the moss covered trunk to the water and the surrounding forest.

 

I invite you to come into the gallery to view the new additions to the collection in the Landscape Watercolor Gallery.

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A Village Church – Featured Art Print

I added a number of new prints to my Landscape Watercolor Gallery and one of them is “A Village Church”. The setting for this art print is New England in the spring time. The church has a commanding view outward because it sits above most of the village. There is a lighted walkway winding its way up to the front of the church. The style of the print is a pointillism watercolor. Pointillism is a style of painting done with dots of color. By arranging the dots and shading the colors, the eye is able to see the shapes and contours the artist is portraying. The style lends itself to a softer more comfortable interior design where the art work isn’t a main focal point, but a subtle piece of the whole.

A Village Church

I invite you to come into the gallery to view the new additions to the collection in the Landscape Watercolor Gallery.

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The Shack – Excerpts from a Photo Shoot

A couple of weeks ago, I was out on a shoot when I spotted this old shack. I have a fascination with old buildings in general, but dilapidated shacks seemed to have a photographic appeal. I especially like them in a sepia format as that gives the picture a dated and historical look. Today I wanted to share some of those steps starting with the original capture.

Shack Original Photograph

From the original, I cropped the frame to have the final product focused on the shack in the center of the picture….

Shack Initial Cropping

So, we now have the shack more prominent in the photo, but all of the electrical lines distract from the main goal…old rustic look….

Electrical Lines Removed

With the electrical lines removed, the look speaks more rural, but I think I want to crop one last time to pull the shack in better….

Final Crop

So with my final crop done, I like the framing of the shack and now turn the print into a sepia tone print…

Sepia Shack

The final print looks like a picture taken years ago of an old ranch house abandoned in a very rural area. When in reality, the original picture was just taken two weeks ago and the abandoned farm-house sits a few blocks off a major freeway in a high growth area near Phoenix.

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River Walk Outdoor Cafe – Feature Art Prints

The San Antonio River Walk is the setting for my featured art prints in this post. From a visit my wife and I did last May, I took a series of shots along the River Walk and the Alamo. I have attached three of them to this post of an outdoor cafe nestled on the banks of the river. I wanted to show the original photograph and then two different water color versions based on the same scene.  The two different versions highlight the importance of style of print as it relates to your interior design style.

This is the original capture….

River Walk Cafe Original Capture

Using that scene as the basis, this is a traditional watercolor style of painting capturing the same composition. This style of watercolor creates a softer, warmer look to the scene and would typically be used in a room with a more traditional interior decor.

Traditional Watercolor

The last attachment is the same scene done in a more abstract watercolor. Notice the details are combined into single shapes and colors giving this art print a look for a more contemporary decorating scheme.

 

Abstract Watercolor

So, this is an example of where not only the scene can dictate a specific look, but the style the art print is done in also dictates a look for the interior decorating style you are working with.

 

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Cactus Blooms – Excerpts From a Photo Shoot

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed driving into our community that the cactus planted in the common areas were starting to bloom. We are literally just a couple of blocks from open desert, so I thought it’s hiking time for a photo shoot to see what I can find. I have attached four of the shots from that expedition of the cactus I found in bloom. The color is incredible!

Cactus Bloom 1

Cactus Bloom 2

Cactus Bloom 3

On Cactus Bloom 3 – notice the faint hint of a cobweb between two of the plants and then again in the lower left hand corner.

Cactus Bloom 4

I’ll share some of my other finds from that hike in a later post. Thanks!

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The Path – Featured Art Print

Another new addition to the Landscape Oil Gallery and to an art alcove in our home, is the attached art print “The Path”. Having spent 6 months living in the Seattle area last year, I have a number of hiking pictures with trails and paths. I have used a number of them for my Inspiration Gallery, but I was wanting to try something totally different with a couple of them. Using a gothic oil technique (large brush strokes and warm earth tones), I created “The Path” . I added the red tone more for a color push and to make the path stand out. This was one of those prints I was still on the fence about and not really sure I was going to add it to the collection, when about a month ago, my wife came into my office while I was working on it.  She studied the piece for awhile without saying anything (trust me she is brutally honest with her thoughts) and asked to have it framed for an art alcove we have in one of our hallways. I was truly surprised, but had it framed and matted per her request. I am drawn to this particular style of art with the old world feel as it compliments a number of interior designs. So, all of that said, I have attached the completed art print, an iPhone photo of the print matted and framed and then a copy of the original shot it is based on.

The Path

“The Path” matted and framed

The original shot

Kind of an interesting evolution from original photo to framed art print. Thanks for stopping by!

 

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“The Wheel and The Fence” Featured Art Prints

When I am out on photo shoots, I have a general idea what I’m looking for. Sometimes I find it, sometimes what I am seeing leads me down another path. I truly never decide what I am going to do with the photography I have captured until I have reviewed all shots on my computer. When I scrutinize each shot, I start narrowing the field of shots that are worth keeping, need cropping or trashed. During this process, I usually get a feel for what type of final product the shot would look best as. I may keep the shot as is and put it into my Color Photography Gallery, change it to a black and white photograph or create a painted art print in either a watercolor technique or oil technique. Occasionally I look at some of my shots and determine they would look great in a variety of final art prints depending on what ultimate decor someone is working with. “The Wheel and The Fence” is one of those shots. The scene is an old wagon wheel propped up in front of fence on a farm. The capture is from a shoot I did over a year ago in the Amana Colonies which are located in Eastern Iowa. I was out looking for farms, barns and rural scenes that particular day. I ended up with a number of great prints from that venture.

So my first attachment of this shot is done in a sepia tone, creating an old historic “wild west” feel to the print.

The Wheel and the Fence –  Sepia Tone

I also thought this would look good as a watercolor, a little more soft and subtle creating a traditional look.

The Wheel and the Fence – Watercolor

And then taking it into an oil painting using earth tones and strong brush strokes, creating an “old world” classic style of print.

The Wheel and The Fence – Oil

Depending upon your taste and interior decor, each style brings a different look to the same scene.

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Orange Poppies – Excerpts from a Photo Shoot

Just so you know, not all photographic opportunities go as planned. Even under controlled conditions, “stuff” happens. I had set up my light box and was going to do some macro shots of California Poppies. The request for this shoot actually came from my wife. We have recently moved into a brand new home, so naturally the art work we had in our other home doesn’t fit the decor of this house. The good news is, my wife likes my work and we use my prints and paintings in all of the rooms of our house. It is amazing how just switching out a print in existing frames makes a total decor change in any room. So what she wanted was some prints of these poppies and was gracious enough to go and get a plant. Almost out of season here, that task was a challenge unto itself.

What I have attached are samples from that shoot, starting with the first one….this shot seemed set up ok…lighting was good…focus was close…when I went to snap the shot…yellow petals and orange petals dropped like stones.

Poppy 1

Thinking the lack of petals on the yellow poppy was obvious, but the orange blooms looked doable….I went for another shot…

Poppy 2

Wrong…the lack of orange petals  was obvious and all of the attempts to tape or glue them (yes…I did try both) were in vain….I cut that stalk off and tried again…

Poppy 3

The petals on the remaining two stalks stayed put!!

Poppy 4

And I was able to grab a couple of great shots. From these I will crop and analyze focus. All told…it was a series of 30 shots to come down to a couple worth taking to the next step.

Poppy 5

I have already started to play with a couple of these as paintings…..

 

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“The Front Porch” Featured Art Print

“The Front Porch” is an art print that was just added to the Landscape Oil collection. The scene is a typical Victorian front porch during the fall season. You can almost picture yourself sitting on the front porch, chatting with the neighbors and enjoying the fall afternoon. I actually grew up with this type of front porch,  which is a dying breed in modern homes. I did this print with  the impasto style of brush strokes that are large and bold. It creates a warm sense while still retaining brighter colors. The actual inspiration for this piece is from a photo shoot I did last fall in Issaquah, Washington. Issaquah sits in the foothills of the Cascade Mountain Range in the eastern part of the Seattle metropolitan area. The fall colors were incredible and in older Issaquah, this type of architecture is more common. I have attached the photograph that was the basis behind the final product as it’s kind of interesting to see a “before” and “after” so to speak.

The Front Porch Oil

And the original shot which was my inspiration……

The Front Porch Photograph

 

Source: Landscape Oil Gallery

 

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