by successfulbob | photography education, tuesday painterly photo art
Tuesday Photo Art with Lois Stanfield, M.Artist., CPP
Tuesday’s have become quite a hit on Successful-Photographer thanks to photographer artist’s willing to share some of their thoughts and ideas on creating art based on photography.
Today’s photographer/artist is Lois Stanfield, who specializes in Equine and Pet Portraiture. She was a Professional Photographers of America 2015 Platinum Artist of Year and 2014 Silver Artist of Year in the Artist category. I remember being on a judging panel when one of Lois’s images came around (of course I didn’t know it was hers at the time) and I was absolutely taken with it. When images can stop people in their tracks you know you are on the right path.
First up let’s take a look at an equine treatment in the form of a pencil sketch.
Graphite-like treatment of this image details the most important features in this horse image
Source image Lois worked from to create the art above
I believe I would call this distillation. Lois keeps the most striking parts of this photo and discarding the rest. knowing what to leave out is probably at least as important as what to include in your art images.
I asked Lois for her words of wisdom on creating art from photographs.
“Well, I don’t know if it’s wisdom, but here is something to ponder!
I find that the way to develop as an artist is to allow yourself to play. When learning to use Corel Painter, at first we need to follow the instruction of a good teacher. Perhaps a few teachers. But then it’s time to play, experiment, try the “what if?” process. What would happen if I did this? And synthesize all the instruction with the discoveries you make while playing. From all that, comes your own style and brand of painting. But it doesn’t end there. Pushing the envelope and trying new things will expand your abilities and vision of what’s possible. Leave fear behind!”
Talk about taking an image to a new place from a photograph. WOW, Sweet!
Image from MyDogPhoto.com © Vicky Cook
Lois does work on commission creating art for her clients. The image above was brought to her for painting by a customer, and the art was only started after permission was secured, with a release, from the photographer.
Obviously, if learning the techniques of turning your photographic images into a painterly look is something you are interested in there’s a market for that.
Lois teaches webinars and one-on-one WebEx’s. Her next webinar will be June/July, on “How to Create Beautiful Backgrounds for Your Paintings.”
Lois’s website is: http://www.loisstanfield.com
You can contact her via email: Lois@loisstanfield.com
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | art books, book review, fine art photography, fine art portrait, inspiration, photography books, photography creativity
Photography Book Review
After the Camera, by Thom Rouse
Digital Transformations for Conceptual Nude & Portrait Photography
Way more than a How-to, After the Camera, is a peek into the mind of a wonderfully creative artist. You can’t help but view Thom’s images and find your story wrapped in and around his multi-layered imagery. His images have the depth and dimension of fine art from the master painters through the ages. This is no surprise if you know Thom. He is a student of the great artists and borrows an idea here, a color palette there, and a look from over there. By combining his art knowledge with his photography, experimenting with the capabilities of our digital age, he transcends visual boundaries, taking us to a new world.
Isis – Many of the elements were created from the manipulation of a single leaf. This includes the background, parts of her dress, and the hairpiece.
Text in this book reads as if Thom is talking directly to you. He shares his inspiration, along with trials and tribulations, during the shoot and post-processing. While this is not a book to teach you techniques in Adobe Photoshop where he does most of his processing, there are many important concepts shared. I’ve found a number of ideas that I can’t wait to try out in my work.
Urban Mermaids – Concept inspired by a regular model.
Is this book for everyone? Heck no. But most books are not. This is for photographers pushing their work to new realms of art. This is for photographers looking for inspiration. This is for photographers who understand that the nude has been part of the fine art landscape over the millennia. It’s for those who want a peek into the mind of a creative person who has studied fine art painters and can share concepts behind the why of an image.
Dance Within – One of the few images where Rouse used Corel Panter to help finish the look of the piece.
I can see this book becoming a dog-eared staple on my bookshelf as I plan to go back and review this on a regular basis.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – Thom was featured a couple of weeks ago in a Tuesday Photo/Art post. You can read it here.
Rouse’s book ‘After the Camera’ is available on Amazon.
by successfulbob | photography, photography - art quote, photography education
Sunday Photo/Art Quote – Charles Maring
Met Chuck at a WPPI convention quite some years ago.
Impressed I was then. And even more-so now. He has grown and pushed his skills in tremendous ways. He has been at the forefront of creativity, and I have enjoyed watching his growth. He has leveraged technology to improve his photo and art imagery and expanded his skill set to include video production to rival pro houses. He is a great marketing person; I think you should take a look at the Maring’s website. Notice the plural. I would be remiss in not mentioning the Chuck is part of a team. As they say behind every successful man, there’s a strong woman. His wife Jennifer fulfills that role exceptionally well.
Can you tell I’m a fan of the Marings?
Here’s the quote that I grabbed from his art website that led to today’s post.
“The ability to observe and capture truth with eloquence is an art form that takes instinct. However, even instinct can be honed, and when the experience solidifies one’s sixth sense, it becomes intuition.” Charles Maring This quote continues
I often reference practicing your skills here on Successful-Photographer along with not being afraid to fail as that is one of the strongest ways to learn. I believe what Chuck is referring to in his quote is the ability to push and practice and study until you move to the place where your mind is working so well that you almost don’t even know all the thought that went into the creation of an image.
I’ll ask, to remind you once again, how much have you practiced this week? How much have you studied? Have you pushed enough to make your thought process in creating imagery intuitive?
If the answer is no, time to get on the stick.
Yours in creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | fine art musician portrait, Lumix GH4, Lumix Lounge, musician photography, photographer of musicians, photography, photography creativity
Sound Bites Grill adds Melanie to the Wall of Fame
Remember Woodstock?
Me either. A little before my time.
But I do remember I grew up with a lot of music from that era. One of the artists recently appeared at Sound Bites in Sedona, Arizona. Melanie put on a fun show with a reprise of her classic hits like New Key and Look What They Done to My Song along with some newer material. Follow up with Melanie’s website here for more music info, tour dates, and history.
One of the benefits of being the house photographer at SBG is I have the opportunity to attend a lot of shows and view lots of entertainment. The other bonus is Stephen and Michele appreciate the work I do and allow me to create the art pieces from the live performances.
Melanie from her live performance at Sound Bites.
ORIGINAL CAPTURES WITH LUMIX GH4 35-100MM F2.8 VARIO LENS 1/40TH SEC F2.8 ISO 3200
Here’s the process. I photograph the performers through their show. Once images are downloaded, I cull the non-keepers. There can be quite a few of these due to blurred movement, changing lighting conditions, etc. Then I choose one that helps to tell the story, and I extract the performer from the image using Adobe Photoshop. I’ll open another file and import the extracted image. Then I’ll experiment with bringing in different textures as Layers. Changing the Blend Modes of the layers changes how they interact with the layers below. Layer Masks allow me to be selective about where changes will show. I have the artist sign their autograph and ‘message to the house’ in black marker on white paper. That is scanned and brought into the final art. That layer is inverted making the text white, and the Screen Mode is used to make the paper disappear.
Melanie & Family – Melanie has some incredibly talented progeny. They joined her on stage. Son Boe wails on the guitar. Daughter Jeordie is a singer/songwriter in her own right. (she’s playing some dates down the road in Phoenix in the next few days) All in all a great show.
You can see here that while the same general technique was used on both images, there is an entirely different ‘feel’ to the imagery. I enjoy the challenge of trying to do something a little different for all the art that hangs on the Wall of Fame. If you find yourself in Sedona stop by, grab some grub, and check out the ‘Wall’ in person.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | black & white, infrared photography, landscape photography, Lumix G6, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography creativity
Infrared Photography on the Oak Creek
My job is tough!
Yesterday I took on the task of going hiking in Oak Creek Canyon in Sedona, Arizona to capture infrared photos. OK, maybe tough isn’t the correct word for this assignment. I love almost all aspects of working in photography. Getting out into nature and exploring is high on the list of the good parts.
I’m up in Oak Creek Canyon between Sedona & Flagstaff. The picnic area is called ‘Halfway.’ So named because it’s halfway between the hugely popular (& crowded) swimming hole known as Slide Rock and an excellent trail called West Fork. Halfway is a little less traveled spot as you have to scramble down a fairly steep embankment while climbing over rocks. Once down to the creek there’s a bit of rock hopping to navigate your way around.
LUMIX G6 20MM LENS F1.7 LENS @F9 ISO 160 1/200TH SEC
But I digress.
On to today’s thoughts on working the with a camera converted to infrared. I had my Lumix G6 converted by LifePixel with a standard IR filter ad it is working out pretty much as I had hoped it would. I find myself using the 20mm Lumix f1.7 lens quite often. It’s sharp, fast, light and has a very low profile. I guess at a 40mm full frame equivalent it pretty closely matches a standard field of view which I feel lends itself to most of my infrared captures.
As I make my IR captures I have been bracketing exposures. When I first started I was bracketing by five stops as I was learning how the camera ‘sees’ with the IR filter installed. I’ve now moved to a three-stop exposure bracket but I also set an exposure compensation adjustment depending on the dynamic range of the scene in front of me. I am capturing the images in RAW plus jpeg with the camera set to black and white. White balance is set to daylight.
The image above is two jpegs blended together to achieve the tonal contrast for which I was looking. After getting the tones blended in Photoshop using a mask, the Layers were merged and a trip to NIK Silver FX Pro 2 for some sharpening. I used the Structure and Fine Structure settings si tweak the sharpness and change the resulting layer blend mode to Luminosity. Only the luminous information is then transferred to the image. Then NIK Color FX Pro 4 was added utilizing the Glamour Glow to add some IR life to the highlights. The shadows were protected from the glow.
LUMIX G6 20MM LENS F1.7 LENS @F14 ISO 400 1/200TH SEC
This image was processed from a single jpeg which was opened in Adobe Camera RAW. Jpegs can be opened in the RAW editor to use the controls available but it does not have all the information of a RAW file. I was just trying to control contrast with this treatment so I didn’t feel the need to start with the RAW file. Exposure was adjusted as well as the highlight and shadow detail. A soft light layer was added for some dodging and burning. A vignette completes the treatment. I enjoy all the textures and tones of this scene.
Infrared photography can take midday, which is usually a tough time of day for making photographs and turn it into a blast.
That was my play yesterday. I created a few more scenes I’ll share with you tomorrow.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | fine art photography, inspiration, photography creativity, photography education, tuesday painterly photo art
Tuesday Photo Art – Michelle Parsley – M.Photog.M.Artist.Cr., CPP
Another country heard from.
Michelle does a lot more painting of elements by hand than other artists that have been featured in this space. This shows that there is more than one way to skin a cat when creating art from photography.
Painted image by Michelle
Here is the base image for the painting above.
Michelle explains.
“I’m not the best beginner Painter teacher because I create so much of my images by painting freehand. However, Heather the Painter is one of the best beginner Painter teachers I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. If your readers really wanting to delve deep into learning to paint with Corel, they can find her online tutorials at heatherthepainter.com.”
A finished image. Note the attention to detail in the lighting patterns & color temperatures in various areas of the painting
Base images for the painting above. Center image © Patty Hallman – Michelle used with permission.
Michelle suggests, “If you like the painted look but don’t really want to spend several hours on a single image, Heather and I teamed up to create a wonderful tutorial set that can allow you to go from a simple photograph to a painted look in roughly ten minutes. Combining Heather’s hand painted backgrounds with a few simple and affordable plugins, a painted look can be achieved in no time flat. You can find my tutorial called “Create a Painting n 10 Minutes or Less!” on my site at elevateyourart.com. Use the code $10OFF to save $10. Inside the tutorial is a discount code for Heather’s backgrounds, Alien Skin Snap Art, and Topaz Labs. This technique can also be used to reduce the amount of time needed to create an image in Corel by simply using Corel to refine the features a bit at the end. it is a very speedy workflow for those of us that create painted portraits regularly!”
See more of Michelle’s art here. https://parsleyfineart.com
Yours in Creative Photogrphy, Bob
by successfulbob | photography, photography education
Write Better Blog Posts
The PAIN!
The AGONY!
I don’t know what to write in my next blog post. Arrrgh!
Been there done that. No more. I bought Jenika’s Irresistible Words quite a while ago and it made it easier to come up with new material for my posts without straining my brain.
What will Irresistible Words do for you?
Highlights:
• Learn to write a blog post in 20 minutes or less
• What gets people to keep reading (and share)
• How to gain and keep an audience.
• Sales writing people actually want to read – and more.
• Will make all the communication you need to do easier during the summer high season.
Jennica is the driving force behind Psychology for Photographers and here lessons are easy to follow. She spoon feeds you the information in tasty bites. You almost don’t even realize you are learning.
Rare SALE – Today through Friday June 3rd only. Regularly $249 now only $199
No code needed – Discount is already in your cart!
Irresistible Words teaches you how to fill that website with words that lead people to book – without making you feel like you’re “selling.”
Remember, along the way, you’ll learn to write blog posts in 20 minutes or less, avoid 2 key mistakes that sink your bookings, and 9 surefire ways to end writer’s block. (Full info here.)
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – I am an affiliate with Psychology for Photographers. I do receive and affiliate fee for sales when you buy, but I really enjoy this product myself!
by successfulbob | inspiration, photography - art quote, photography education
Sunday Photo/Art Quote – Robert Genn
Canadian Painter Robert Genn wrote a blog called The Painter’s Keys for many years before he moved on to the next world. I count myself lucky to have been a follower for some years. I learned many great ideas about painting, art, color and other tidbits that transfer over from painting to photography. Sometimes the correlation is not immediately obvious, but I must say I believe my photography has improved quite a bit once I started studying art and artists.
Robert may be gone, but The Painters Keys lives on through his daughter Sara, who reprises some of the ‘best-of’ letters from her dad and supplements them with letters and ideas of her own continuing the tradition. I think the art world is the better for it.
Today’s quote is a simple one from Robert, but one I believe needs to be seen on a regular basis lest we forget.
“The more you practice what you know, the more you know what to practice.” Robert Genn
We can all get into a groove that is comfortable when we work and even when we play. You may have heard the expression, if you spend too much time inside a groove you turn it into a rut.
Do your work. Don’t forget those personal projects that help you explore and practice new ideas. Find what works. Push it to the next level. Make some mistakes. Try again.
Practice more so you know what to practice!
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – Check out The Painter’s Keys. Take a look at some of the letters and sign up for notifications of new letters. They come out about twice-weekly. You’ll be glad you did I think you’ll be surprised how much we photographers have in common with painters and other artists.
by successfulbob | photography creativity, photography education, podcast
Giulio Sciorio & I Discuss Photography & Art
I had and in-depth chat with ‘G’ on a podcast called the Creator’s Path. It was quite interesting as we talked about many subjects including at what point a photograph becomes more than a photo? Bob Coates and I chat about intersecting photography with fine art painting, what it means to be a Certified Professional Photographer and a whole lot more…
The Art and Craft of Photography – with Bob Coates
I hope you enjoy the thoughts shared in the Podcast. I know it got me thinking about how and what I do as a photographer and artist.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | black & white, cloud photography, infrared photography, landscape photography, Lumix G6, Lumix Lounge
Stud Horse Point Infrared Photography – Page Arizona
Infrared imaging can add interest to a scene that otherwise would be OK but rather mundane. I have a Lumix G6 that I had converted to IR by LifePixel. It’s great to take an older camera that isn’t getting much use and have it converted to Infrared. Or if you don’t have an older candidate that will work you can but up a used camera and have it repurposed.
But why is it good Bob?
Some times of day are just not conducive to solid imagery. Usually, midday is less than ideal for making photos and that is when IR photography can shine especially when there are clouds and or trees in the scene. Here was an example where I wasn’t thrilled witht the lighting. We were hoping for great color in the sunset. You know how that goes. All looks good then falls flat. Rather than come home empty handed I kinda like the outcome of these.
Outside Page, Arizona – Stud Horse Point
Hoodoos at Stud Horse Point
When capturing IR photos I tend to shoot in RAW + jpeg with the camera set to black and white. The black and white allows me to get a better sense of how the scene will render as the RAW image will come in with a magenta cast. I also bracket exposures as the camera’s meter and histogram are still ‘thinking’ in full spectrum color mode.
I picked the RAW images I wanted to process. Then output them to Photoshop and added some dodging and burning. Then took the image to NIK ColorFX Pro 4 to add some Glamour Glow and a little grain to emulate the look of film IR. As a final step, I evened out the overall color and added a light sepia tone over the image using a Hue/Saturation action.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
