by successfulbob | fine art photography, fine art portrait, people photography, photography creativity, tuesday painterly photo art
Tuesday Painterly Art – Kristi Elias
I have watched Kristi grow and set her work apart from others on so many levels. It has been an amazing journey to watch. Here is some of Kristi’s work and words to inspire you in your artistic quest in photography. While Kristi’s images do not involve painting per se they have a distinctive art feel to them. I turn this post over to Kristi.
Look carefully at this image and check out the background build.
(not to mention the build and definition on the fighter) – image © Kristi Sutton Elias
Original capture. Note the kicker lights that help with background separation and extraction.
image © Kristi Sutton Elias
“I am a fine art portrait photographer, a good portion of my work is conceptual composites. I create between 40-over 60 composites a week for client orders, some are more involved than others. The amount of time to create the composite varies depending on if I am reinventing the wheel and creating a new concept and artwork from scratch or re-creating a piece that I have created for another client before.
After processing. image © Kristi Sutton Elias
Original capture. image © Kristi Sutton Elias
“Most of my backgrounds were taken during our vacations, I pick vacation spots based on images I would like to create. Medieval and abandoned castles are my favorite, this year we are going back to Europe and I already have a shot list of where I want to go.
Original captures. See the final below. (I merged the three images original for this illustration: ED.)
image © Kristi Sutton Elias
Final image © Kristi Sutton Elias
“After I shoot a session, I upload my images into lightroom and cull through them rating my favorites. After that, I will open my selected image into photoshop and create the composite. Sometimes my composites could be 5 images put together to create the final image and sometimes just 2 images. After I have created my final composite, I use NIK Software Color EFX Pro 4 to create my final vision. I have a few go-to tools that I like to use, but overall each image is treated differently as its own piece of art. Some of my go-to’s are dark contrast and bleach bypass and darken lighten center. The best thing to do is go through all the filters and see what each one does and play with all the levels. Before I start an edit I look at the image and decide what color pallets, hues, and mood I want the final image to portray. I have created hand-painted backgrounds that I photographed and use for textures in my work.
image © Kristi Sutton Elias
Starting with a well-lit capture that has depth and dimension makes selling the final image that much easier image © Kristi Sutton Elias
“Another important part involved in my editing, I listen to Love songs or country love songs on pandora while I edit. Mood music :).”
www.KristiElias.com (Masterpiece Portraits)
www.KristiSuttonElias.com (Editorial and Advertising)
Kristi will be teaching a week long class on “The Fine Art of Portraiture” at Texas school this year. Click on the link to learn more about the class. It will be a very creative and fun class!
https://www.texasschool.org/speaker-lineup/kristie-elias/
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
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by successfulbob | bird photography, fine art photography, Lumix GX85, Lumix Lounge, wildlife photography
Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge – Part Four
Getting Artsy
When photographing a specific subject or area I always shoot for good solid captures at the beginning. After I know I’ve got some good work ‘in the can’, I see what I can do to push the creative ‘Artsy’ side. Here are some of those images.
Let’s look at some tracking flight images with the shutter speed set to a slow speed in this case most were at 1/250th sec. Images were captured handheld with the Lumix GX85 and the Lumix 100-400mm lens (200-800 35mm equivalent) Most were with the lens fully extended.
Sandhill cranes photographed at takeoff panning with slow shutter speed.
This technique adds lots of movement and an abstract feel to the images.
Further into the art arena using additional post-processing techniques. MacPhun software Focus CK was used to bring more attention to the flight of the cranes.
Cropped SOOC (straight out of camera) 1/40th SEC shutter speed.
Image from above worked with additional post processing.
Canada Geese on a flyby 1/1600th SEC shutter speed.
Experiment. Push. Play. Don’t be afraid to get an imperfect result in camera. Playing can lead to more interesting and personal image creations.
Let me know what you like, or don’t care for, in these images. I have an inquiring mind!
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
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by successfulbob | fine art photography, fine art portrait, photography, photography creativity, photography education, tuesday painterly photo art
Tuesday Painterly Photo Art – Arica Dorff
I met Arika when she was on a road trip creating images for her pet photography business. She was passing through Sedona, and I had the pleasure to make her acquaintance and discovered her pet art painting. I love the expression of her pet portraits and the feel of her art. I think you will too!
Here’s Arika.
“I got into digital pet paintings using Corel Painter after I sold my pet photography studio in Las Vegas, Nevada. I had my studio for nine years and always wanted to offer my clients the option to have their portraits enhanced to a painting, but I never had the time to devote to learning the art. Specializing in painting pets was a natural decision for me since working with domestic animals, and their awesome owners had been my niche for my entire photography and teaching career.
Had to put this photo of Lola right up front! Check out the bling! © Arica Dorff Photography
Lola before. Arica is often working from cell phone images supplied by her clients
Getting started I reached out to two well-known pet painters whose work I admired and I had the opportunity to train with them one-on-one. Their process of turning a photo into a painting is completely opposite of each other, and I quickly realized that, like any other art form, there is no right or wrong way to do things. Working one-on-one with artists you admire, along with online tutorials, is what I recommend to anyone wanting to learn Corel Painter. Painter is much like Photoshop in the sense that they are both incredibly powerful programs but not something the average person could sit down and use with ease without some training and understanding of how the software functions. If you are a Photoshop user, I’m sure you can recall your beginning stages of learning and how you wanted to throw your computer out the window because you couldn’t accomplish what should have been a very simple task. Or maybe you accidentally hit something on your keyboard, and now nothing is working properly. I’ve been there too. So save yourself a headache and invest in training and tutorials when learning Corel Painter and getting started will be fun!
Tasha – Makes you want to say AWWWW. © Arica Dorff Photography
Tasha original capture.
As portrait photographers, we make decisions every day regarding lighting and how we want the light to fall on our subjects. But when I started painting I realized that shadows were something to which I never gave much thought. I would just light my subjects the way I wanted, and the shadows were naturally just wherever they were. Well, when you hand paint a background in like I do for most of my paintings (as opposed to enhancing the current background in the portrait) your full-length subjects would be floating on the background if you didn’t anchor them with a shadow. Such a simple concept, but not something I ever gave much thought to until I had to create my shadows.
Painting also forced me to pay more attention to the direction of where light was coming from, which is useful when creating dimension and depth in your backgrounds. Notice how most of my backgrounds have a lighter area near the animals face, this lighter area always coincides from which the direction the light is coming. The opposite side of the painting is always a darker shade which represents the natural fall off of light.
Emma – Great expression © Arica Dorff Photography
Emma Before.
Pets eyes are my favorite part of every painting (okay wispy stray hairs might be an equal favorite), but the eyes are what makes the paintings come to life. When doing digital paintings, I often use the existing photo and just enhance it with detailed brush strokes. But not with eyes, I always paint in the eyes freehand. Step 1: Paint in the eye color. Step 2: Paint in the black pupil. Step 3: Paint in the white catchlight – make sure it’s on the same side of the eye where the light is coming from! Step 4: Paint in the counter catch light area with lighter highlights to bring the eyes to life.
Since I’ve done some teaching in the pet photography world, I’ve had a lot of people asking me to train them on digital pet paintings. I currently offer one-on-one screen sharing training sessions, and I’m working on putting together a downloadable video tutorial. For the photographers who don’t have the time or desire to learn to paint, I offer a wholesale option where I send them the digital artwork for them to brand and print for their clients (as opposed to my retail customers who I present with canvas gallery wraps).
Cooper – © Arica Dorff Photography
Cooper – Before.
Digital Pet Paintings have been an awesome way for me to stay connected with the pet photography community, pet owners who I love to create cherished art for, and I get to do it all while hanging out with my pup and working from home!”
Check out more of Arica’s work. aricadorff.com
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – If you are someone who is creating Painterly Art with photography as a base, or know someone who is, and would like to be featured here on Successful-Photographer get in touch.
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by successfulbob | fine art photography, fine art portrait, photographer profile, photography, photography books, photography creativity, photography education, tuesday painterly photo art
Tuesday painterly Photo Art – Karen Sperling
Karen’s exquisite work speaks for itself. I’ll let her tell ‘the rest of the Story.’
“My mother was an artist and my father enjoyed photography, so I’ve been painting and taking photos for as long as I can remember. But I never actually finished anything because I was never encouraged to paint or take photos. So I majored in English in college and after graduating, I worked as a writer and an editor for newspapers, magazines and book publishers, including McGraw-Hill. But I never forgot about art and photography. I minored in art in college and continued to dabble in painting and photography through the years and spent a lot of time in museums and galleries.
© Karen Sperling – Photo © Kevin Kubota
“Little did I know that I was creating the perfect skill set for writing the first Painter manual, a gig I got through networking in the New York Mac Users Group in the late 1980s. And I’ve been writing about and teaching Painter ever since.
I never thought of myself as an artist and in the early days, I featured the work of other artists in my Painter tutorials, classes, and books. In 2001, after my talk at the national PPA convention, the editor of PEI, a magazine that was later folded into Professional Photographer Magazine, invited me to do an article about creating my art in Painter. When I said I didn’t paint, she said, “You could do it.” And I did! A little encouragement went a long way, and I use this experience daily teaching photographers to paint. I honestly believe if you think you can paint, you probably can, and I’m here to encourage you to try. It’s amazing how much you can do when someone whispers in your ear; you can do it.
© Karen Sperling -Photo © Karah Sambuco
“My involvement with Painter has opened doors that I would never have imagined. In 2003 I started to paint commissioned portraits directly for clients and photographers for their customers. And in 2007 I had my first gallery show in New York of my abstract art. More recently, I was named the exclusively commissioned painter for a TV cover manufacturer.
© Karen Sperling – Photo © Don Ling
“So I went from not thinking of myself as an artist to being paid for paintings, which is why I truly believe if I can do it, you can, with study and practice, and I encourage you to try.
Because of my many years teaching Painter, I have many different painting styles because I’m always interested in showing something new. One of the things I like about Painter is experimenting and inventing new looks and styles. I know having a lot of different styles goes against the grain of most photography experts who say you should promote one style, but I look to Picasso, who had many styles during his career. So we’ll call my style eclectic so that I can keep painting in any way I like at the moment.
© Karen Sperling – Photo © Felicia Tausig
“I find offering different styles helps sell commissioned portraits to a broader base of clients and photographers. I also offer a variety of styles in my books, videos, and classes. I encourage students to try all the different styles I teach. In this way, they can pick and choose elements to include in their own paintings to create their individual style. Too many times, students paint exactly like someone they studied with instead of finding their own voice and vision.
© Karen Sperling – Photo © Don Ling
“If you’ve been thinking about learning to paint, I encourage you to try, and if you’ve been thinking about offering paintings based on your photos to your clients, I urge you to try that, too. And I’m here to either paint for you or to show you how to do it yourself!”
Biography
Karen Sperling is an Elite Corel Painter Master and the original Painter expert—she wrote the first several Painter manuals when the software was first invented, and many published Painter books, including her newly published Painting for Photographers Volume 3, currently available at Amazon.
Karen wrote one of the Forewords and was a featured artist in Cecil Wiliams’ book, Painter Showcase.
Karen has been interviewed on radio and in many podcasts, including Michael Coy’s Cashtography.
Sperling has taught photographers to use Corel Painter at just about every venue there is, including the national Professional Photographers of America (PPA) and WPPI conventions, local PPA affiliates and PPA schools. Photographers travel to study with Karen in Los Angeles from as far away as the United Kingdom, New Zealand and South Africa, and from all around the United States, both in classes and individually.
Karen is known for taking complex art and software concepts and boiling them down into easy-to-follow, thorough steps. Her concise, complete books, tutorials, and classes have made painting accessible to photographers who never thought they could paint, but always wanted to try. Karen demystifies Painter’s mysteries and photographers who study with her report being able to sell their works of art to commissioned portrait clients and in galleries for tens of thousands of dollars.
Clients and photographers alike commission painted portraits by Karen Sperling, an artist in her own right who minored in art in college and who has exhibited her paintings in New York and Los Angeles and during Art Basel Miami Beach.
Karen’s fine art and commissioned portraits are held in private collections around the world.
To study with Karen or to commission her to paint portraits for your clients, visit her website:
http://www.artistrymag.com/ Email at [email protected]
Karen’s books at Amazon
Connect with her on Facebook
Subscribe to her on youtube
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
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by successfulbob | fine art photography, photography, photography competition, photography creativity, tuesday painterly photo art
Tuesday Painterly Photo Art
Nylora-Joy Bruleigh M.Photog., M. Artist, Cr., CPP
I met Nylora when I was speaking and judging at a convention. I was impressed with the animal/people composite work she was creating. After Nylora earned both her Master of Photography and Craftsman Degrees in 2012, she decided it was time to step up her game and take the plunge into entering the Master Artist Category through Professional Photographers of America International Photographic Competition. She shares, “I had no idea these would become my favorite type of images to create! I quickly determined after creating my first image that I had to make a series. By doing this, not only did it give me a place to start but it helped me move from one image to another. The series I began with is titled Once Upon a Time and is all inspired from fairytales.”
One of Nylora’s first attempts was “Who’s the Fairest of them all?” © Nylora Bruleigh (Images with guide images as in this photograph are presented so PPA judges may see how much work goes into the final)
“I am lucky to have young women that are willing to model for me whenever I need them too. I connected with a local modeling agency early on in this adventure. I can contact them with the look I need, and they send me options, and we go from there! When I decide on a new image, I pull all my ideas together and start piecing the parts together. For this picture, I found this mirror at a yard sale for a couple of dollars, had the costume from an after Halloween sale and had the table in my stash. The model was someone I had photographed before, and the man in the mirror is my husband taken with a flashlight in the bathroom! I also work with a local makeup artist.
“Most of the time, I have a good idea of what the finished image will look like before I even start, sometimes that is how the final image looks, and sometimes I make some changes along the way. The trick is to keep an open mind and be willing to go with the flow of what the process tells you to do.”
Here are a couple of others from her fairy tales series.
The Seven Dwarves personified – © Nylora Bruleigh
Look familiar?? – © Nylora Bruleigh
“Another series that I have been working on is my Animal Series. This was inspired by my daughter who loves animals. I found a young lady that was happy to do it. I have spent some time at the zoo photographing all the animals knowing that I would be using them for this next series posed with young ladies to tell a story. All of the animals are shot first in their environment, and then I look through and decide what look I want and what the story will be. Then I photograph the women in the studio to fit with the animal so that I can get the pose and light for the subjects to match and then add the background.”
This one is titled “Living the Highlife” – © Nylora Bruleigh
© Nylora Bruleigh
“I would encourage you to push yourself and try something new with your photography every chance you get! Not only will it keep you from getting in a rut with your work and keep things fresh but it will continue to inspire you and create new idea! It may just change the course you are on!”
Nylora-Joy Bruleigh’s Biography
Nylora Bruleigh has been specializing in women’s portraiture. In 2009 Bruleigh decided she needed a more creative outlet and started focusing on a more fine art feel to her portraits.
Bruleigh travels New England teaching seminars about creating fine art portraiture and training others to look inside themselves to set up their thought provoking pieces. In 2012 she received both her Master Photographer and Photographic Craftsman Degrees. In 2015 Bruleigh received her Master Artist Degree through PPA and is proudly the only one in her state of NH to hold that degree. She has many international awards for her fine art and portrait work most including 2 top 10 awards for the GIA, the Kodak Gallery Elite and most recently received the Canon Par Excellence Award in the Master Artist Category Northeast Districts.
You can see more of Bruleigh’s work in her book titled “Fine Art Portrait Photography” published by Amherst Media.
Nylora’s website www.PhotographyByNylora.com
Blog: www.Nylorajoy.com Instagram: NyloraJoy
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
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