I just came back from doing a program in Michigan for the Professional Photographers of Michigan. The program was on my ‘Photo – Synthesis’ system of creating art from photographic images. When I do these programs I always try to use images from the area that were captured within the 24 hour period before the program begins. This time I thought I’d give myself a really strong challenge. II wandered around the parking lot with my LumixGX7 and found a paper clip in the parking lot that had been weathered and run over by cars and was bent and just a (beautiful) mess. And I made the attempt to create art from said paperclip. There was also a stone fountain out front with a lot of different slate plates that I was able to photograph to gather textures. When I announced to the class what I was going to do I saw looks of horror, bewilderment and just plain disbelief.
I continued anyway.
About one third of the way through the program I started to feel that maybe I had made a mistake. I wasn’t sure this was going to be successful… I persevered. Everyone had an opportunity to see the thought process as I work toward creating artistic images from simple objects. I’ll let you decide – but here’s the before and after photographs from the great paperclip experiment along with some thoughts from the attendees…
“Bob, Your presentation for the Michigan photographers was excellent and refreshing. You gave so much and were clear and understandable, making learning comfortable as well as thorough. Great educational experience!”
Most sincerely,
Helen Yancy, M.Photog, M.Artist, MEI, Cr. Hon.M.Photog.
F–ASP, Hon.F-ASP, EA-ASP, Hon.EA-ASP, CPP, API
Past President, Professional photographers of America
facebook.com/helenyancy.fineart
facebook.com/helen.yancy
www.helenyancystudio.com
“Hi Bob;
Your presentation at PPM Fall Focus Monday afternoon was awesome. It is probably the type of program that should be enjoyed first thing in the day and not after lunch as you present so much material, that I reached brain overload well before you stopped. I thought I knew a little something about Photoshop and after experiencing your presentation I realized that I indeed knew A LITTLE SOMETHING, very little. You take layer masking to a new level. My mind is still trying to process everything you presented, and it feels like a plug-in device that cannot be unplugged because it is still active. I wouldn’t know where to begin to talk about what you presented, the paper clip, the “step and repeat”, the slide show, the video, your delivery, all of it was attention getting, even after I had reached a saturation point and my brain felt like “there was no more rooms left at the inn”.
Your passion and high energy is definitely infused in your presentation.”
Steve
