Digital vs. Traditional Art.

This question came up last week, in Yahoo Answers. I will paraphrase it to avoid copyright infringement issues, but, it is another one of those recurring themes in YA.

Is it important to address thought provoking concepts as well as produce amazing imagery in digital art?

Would the Mona Lisa have the same cultural impact if da Vinci created it in in Photoshop?

Addressing the main question: It CAN be important, but, there are no RULES governing whether or not digital art is required to "provoke" any kind of thought. Sometimes all an image needs to hang on a wall, is to look pretty.

Here's the issue I have with the question: The esthetics of digital art are are NO DIFFERENT than those of "traditional" art. The software and equipment of the digital artist are no more than tools. Really no different, in essence, than other tools used by artists for centuries. What makes the results of using these or any other media, art, is the in the skill of the user, the artist weilding them. I have pointed out, for years, that in order to be a good digital artist, one has to be a good artist first. Just because Photoshop, for example, has all kinds of filters to create fancy effects, it doesn't mean an untrained hand can just open up the program and the application will create good art for the user. Filters and graphic tablets and vector drawing tools don't make the artist. But a good artist will be able to use these tools to create. Think of it this way: Just because someone figured out how to wrap graphite in a wooden case, it did not that make the creative process any different from the times when all an artist had was the burnt end of a stick. When people discovered that they could create more colors than "blood" red and "charcoal" black, did it mean that color paint made creating good art any easier? Did the invention of acrylic based paints usher in a "new" esthetic in art?

The advent of digital tools merely introduces another medium. No more. And, I'm confident that the future will introduce newer ones yet. I look forward to "painting" with colored bubbles that hang suspended and still in the air. I can't wait to be able to draw with a "flashlight" up in the night sky. Did you know that there is a digital 3D "printer" that can create a full, 3D object based on a digital model?

Finally, the question about the "cultural impact" of a theoretical digital Mona Lisa created by a contemporary da Vinci: Who could say? Did that painting have the impact at the time of it's creation as it has now, hundreds of years later? Will Disney's "Toy Story," or "Beauty and the Beast" have a great impact 500 years from now? When one considers the iconic influence Disney's "Steamboat Willy" has on today's animators, less than a hundred years later, looking at todays digital art through the lens of 500 years, these attempts may either be viewd as "quaint," or "pioneering," or, be viewed and judged by the SAME esthetic sense humans have used for as long as humans recognized art for art's sake.

Look, most "thought provoking" art may create headlines for a while, but, those "pretty pictures" are what hang on people's walls, decorate calendars, and endure, as icons, for a lot longer time. Picasso's "Guernica" may be referenced from time to time, but virtually NO ONE has a copy hanging on the living room wall. Heck, by these standards, black velvet bullfighter and Elvis paintings are more popular than Picasso's works. And I'll share a secret with you: I do NOT believe that "good" art should be claimed by the elite "esthetes" of the upper class.

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Today's sample images are more of my photographic work.

"Serendipity" is a great word. It sounds so much better, to a photographer, than admitting one was, merely "lucky."

I was coming home from a photoshoot in California's "Gold County, out side of Yosemite last Summer. I observed some smoke on the horizon, vaguely West as I approached Pacheco Pass between Los Banos and Gilroy. I'm not an "ambulace chaser," by nature and I'm a firm believer in staying out of the way of the professionals who's jobs it is to save lives and property. I had no intention of hunting down the source of that smoke.

But, there I was, on the main highway when, more and more, it looked like it was taking me closer and closer to the fire. Sure enough, as I approached the summit of the pass, I could see flames licking at the ridge top and then, on the other side, much of the mountain side engulfed in smoke and fire. Not more than two or three hundred yards to the highway's North side, trees and grass were going up. I could see fire equipment, some firefighters and helicopters dumping retardant.

Traffic on the road hadn't been stopped, but, it was slowing to a crawl. I guess wind direction kept the smoke and fire away from us. I knew better that to stop adjacent the fire site. However, as I passed the main section, I drove by what I assumed to be the original source: A car, parked on the shoulder, completely burnt, down to the metal shell and the black, charred grass, leading from it, up the slope to the main body of the fire. Within a half mile of that shell, was a turn off, leading to a frontage road that lead, on the other side of the highway, about half way back toward the buring mountain.

I took it to the end, parked my car and unloaded my camera. I installed my newly purchased zoom lens and proceded to snap away at images of the smoke, fire, and distant helicopters as they buzzed about, dropping bucket loads of retardant. Even with the big lens, the best I could capture was small, distant images of the helicopters, but what I thought were great shots of the hillside engulfed in smoke. I noted one of the choppers peel off after dumping it's load, presumably to refill it's bucket. But, to my surprise, it kept coming right at me. Closer and closer yet. It finally came down, not more than 50 to 75 yards from me. (about double in size in the frame from the one shown, here. It landed a few feet from what I thought was a Forest Service water tanker. It turned out that the chopper was getting FUEL from this truck, not water. I got some shots of that process, but, for this sample, I thought that the suspended bucket made for a much more dramatic shot.

Just lucky ... I mean ... serendipitous, I guess.

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More serendipity? Just caught a nearly full moon, rising from behind a local mausoleum, me and my long lens lined up just right?

Naw! Blatantly Photoshopped. Both the moon's and the building's photos are mine, but the moon was shot, hand held, but sharp thanks to my Canon Xsi's Image Stabilization feature and the mausoleum was shot in full daylight. The building was cropped away from the daytime sky, brightness dimmed and contrast bumped WAY the heck up. The background was replaced with the moon and night sky.

Who, among you all can catch the obvious "tell" that this is NOT a natural photo?

Note the direction of the highlight on the dome and copolla. The moon should have been placed on the OTHER side of the dome. Mea Culpa. I was in too much of a hurry to make the effect. REAL rookie mistake.

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Bye, for now.

Luv,

vince

Which Tutorial.

Just a "quickie," today. Okay, this is a plug for a product, but it is one I believe in. In my opinion it is the BEST tutorial available for Photoshop. There are also versions available for Illustrator and other products.

I recommend the "Classroom in a Book" series, published by Adobe. It is the textbook used by Adobe Certified Trainers for their software. The books take the student through a series of professionally designed projects, from simple through advanced, that are intended to introduce the user to Photoshop's tools and features. The idea is NOT to show the user a series of tricks and effects, but, rather, to show how all these features work together to create effects. The user will have a better understanding of how to use Photoshop as a tool, to repair, modify and even create whatever result the user wants.

The book comes with a disc containing all the images and text needed to complete the projects. I recommend the student does each project TWICE. The first to walk through the steps of the tutorial. The second time through the student should do the project using his or her OWN images and text. The repetition helps the student remember the process and, by having to locate and create their own images, it makes the exercise more like a real life situation.The book works and I highly recommend it.

Now, onto some sample images:

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A sample of my stippling technique.

First, there are NO solid lines in this image. It was originally created by a series of individual dots placed by gently hammering the tip of a felf marking pen onto paper. It is a slow, painstaking process but I LOVE the effects.

In this version of my cat, I scanned the stippled image and then added the eye color in Photoshop, including the reflected highlights.

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Nothing more than marker pen on plain white drawing paper of some kind.

In fact, except for the orange circle in the insignia, the pens used were ordinary markers one can get in any office supply store or grocery market school supply rack. Just black marker and yellow highliner. The shading done in the yellow window and curve of the ship was done by stippling with the tip of a marker pen.

The black sky is just filled in with marker and the stars addes with Wite-Out.

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That's all for today.

Luv,

vince

What Is An Artist?

Common themed questions about becoming an artist, being an artist and what an artist is.

How do I become an artist?

What is an artist?

What does an artist make per year, on average?

My friend say's I'm not a real artist. Why?

And so on.

The label, "artist" is not exactly like some other labels, such as "Lawyer," "Doctor," "Real Estate Broker," etc. These actually require degrees specific to their careers. One can't just, "practice law" and be a lawyer. One can actually be arrested and sent to prison for "practicing medicine" without a license. One can't be a real estate broker without taking classes, passing a test and acquiring special permits and licenses.

There are other kinds of jobs, of course, that don't require any kind of degree to go along with the title. One can be a musician or dancer without any formal schooling or degree. One can be a carpenter without being a licensed contractor. One can build computers from scratch without a degree. One can be an artist without degrees or schooling of any kind.

In fact, in my definition, all one needs to be called an artist is to create art. I'm not going to define "art" at this point. That's for another post. I make my definition of an artist as broad as need be. The preschooler who brings home a scrawled crayon drawing to be hung on the refrigerator door is as much of an artist as Pablo Picasso. Sure, Picasso made a lot more money than the preschooler, but, you may have noticed that my definition makes no mention of getting PAID to create art. After all, one may argue that Picasso's most abstract designs make no more esthetic sense than the child's.

Not all art is particularly "good" art. So, to be an artist does not mean that one has to only create good art. I'M a good artist, but not every piece I create has to be a "masterpiece." A lot of folks on Yahoo Answers seem to expect that everything they produce has to be a good, "finished" piece of art. That's not so. I spend a LOT of time practicing by doing some quick sketches. This practice is equivilant to a pole vaulter practicing his technique, or a gymnast doing hers, or a race car driver doing lap after lap. Not every lap has to be the fastest. Not every routine is expected to be picture perfect, not every pole vault is expected to break world records. Not every sketch I make is worthy of hanging in the Louvre. We are all working on our technique. Like any skill, improvement comes with repetition. We learn our technique and then do it again and again.

That's why it's called "practice."

And, like any of those other skills, to keep the level of performance high, it requires continued practice. Luckily, one can be an artist for a lifetime. But to be a good artist for fifty, sixty years and more, one must continue the practice. That means a lot of drawings and many of them won't be all that good. It only needs to be good when it counts.

So, just because not all my "work" is good, does that mean that I am an artist only at those times when my work is up to high standards? Does my job title go away when I mindlessly doodle some crap on a note pad? Of course not. So, by my definition, being an artist requires only that the person produces art. Maybe not good art, but, what's good and bad, in art, is pretty subjective. (see Picasso vs. Preschooler, above)

So, it's not necessarily talent that makes an artist, nor even skill. It's not money that's required to wear the mantle of being an artist.

That leaves us with the finer point of what makes for being a "professional" artist. By it's broadest definition, all it takes is for someone to buy a work of art for the creater to be a "professional." It's not the same as making a living being an artist, but THAT standard would be pretty hard to pin down. Would one have to insist that an artist works, say, eight hours a day, five days a week to be considered a professional? What about the artist who might work two or three hours a day, take several days off, and works a little more the following week, and then sells a piece for five or ten thousand dollars. Is he not a professional artist because he doesn't put in enough time at it. That potential ten thousand dollars makes a pretty convincing argument for his "pro" status.

Can it be the volume of work that counts? Is an artist who manages to produce only a dozen masterworks any less of a pro than one who can produce hundreds of pieces in a lifetime?

I leave it to you to determine your own definitions and answers. I have mine and now you know where I stand.

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Follows is some more of my sample images.

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This image was for the opening page of another artist's website. He doesn't do photographic work. The woman's photo was from stock photography collection as were most of the other elements of the collage. Hard to make out in this example, but there is a sand dune image in the background that was repeated and flipped horizontally. The far back area, on the right is a stock photo of crystals growing in their matrix. The globular feature is the same crystal images run through the "spherize" filter, and then repeated for the smaller globules. There are star images taken from a NASA photo. The series of crescent shapes near the bottom are the same stars, "swirled" in Photoshop and repeated. In the close up of the woman's face, I acheived the transluscent quality of the left side by using the gradient tool in the "Quick Mask" mode. This was done a LONG time ago, when the latest version of Photoshop was Photoshop 3. NOT CS 3. Just Photoshop, version 3.0. It was the first version to have the "Layers" feature.

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This one may actually relate to the discussion I posted above in that I did a "professional" job but ended up NOT getting paid for it. A friend I've known for many years was a die hard racing enthusiast. He was a long time member of the Sports Car Club of America and participated by racing his and other team cars, officiating and attending virtually all events. He got together with some of his other pals and made serious plans to take over Bob Bondurant's Racing School at Laguna Seca Raceway, in Monterey, California. His "consortium" sort of "fell appart," and with them went the money for the enterprise. Unfortuanately, the money to pay me for this design work went with them. While there WAS a contract written up for the job, the client, in this case, was the non existant consortium. Who could I sue? I wasn't about to go after my friend for payment so I just let it go.

Let's see. The red Porsche was a photo of a car I saw on the street. The yellow one was of, I think, a car making turn at the bottom of turn 4 and 4A, the infamous "corkscrew" at Laguna Seca. I believe it was one of the old CanAm series. The "ghostly" figure standing in back was a driver I caught, hanging around the paddock area, next to his car. The geometric figure was a layout of the old track at Laguna Seca which, I frankly stole from a race program.

I got some use out of it as part of my first online portfolio. This is the only time this has been shown in public since then.

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I've often mentioned, on Yahoo Answers, that before going nearly 100% digital, my favorite color medium was color markers. I had a massive collection of nearly 500 different markers. So fast, so easy and so versitile. Depicted is an illustration for a cookbook distributed by a local restaurant. The colors didn't scan well but it shows some slices of medium rare roast beef, covered in beef gravy, sliced carrots and sprigs of green onion.

On this image, the "Sample" label is distorted but in the larger scale portfolio image, it is clearer. But, I hope it shows the quality of the actual illustration and the ability of the marker pen to help create fairly realistic, believable images.

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I really liked this image and am very sorry I couldn't find, either, the larger scan or the original illustration.

Some of the detail is lost behind the "sample" watermark, but one can still pick out some of what the illustration tries to depict. This was created as one of the slides shown behind the speaker at a convention of "Process Engineers" It shows a drawing of a hand, (mine) with the dimensions of it's elements shown as if the hand were engineered from a technical drawing. I added the color just to bring it one more step removed from the "natural" form of the hand and bring it closer to some of the point of what "Process Engineering" does or brings into the manufacturing process.

The hand and dimensions were done with pen and ink on paper. The color elements were strips of transparent plastic sheets with adhesive backing.

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Wow! THAT was fun. Ranting, I mean, Blogging is very theraputic. Helps clear my sinuses.

Until next time my Drooghies.

Luv,

vince

Born to Be an Artist.

In the few minutes I spent, today, on Yahoo Answers, a form of this question came up twice. Essentially, the askers wanted to know if a person had to be "born" to be an artist, or could one learn to be creative.

My answer was, basically, then NO ONE is "born" with any artistic talent. Just put a crayon in a baby's hand to see what happens. People have to LEARN to draw, or play an instrument, or sew, dance, sing, drive a car, do a sommersault, shoot baskets or any other skill. It IS true that for some, these skills come more easily. SOME of it could be genetic and some of it could be due to environmental factors.

But I firmly believe that, given one has the physical capablity to do it, anyone can learn do draw or, pretty much any other skill. All it takes is a real desire to learn, and the willingness to take the time to apply the skills and practice the heck out of the craft. Good coaching also helps.

And, just like with any other skill, whether it is running fast, balancing on a beam or constructing a good sentence, it will be easier and faster for some people. Call it "talent" or natural skill. It makes no difference. There is a clear distinction between being "talented and having mastered a skill.

Related to this question is another oft repeated query on Yahoo Answers: "Do you need to draw good to be a graphic artist?" It may surprise people to learn that one does NOT have to be a "good sketch artist" to be a good designer. Design is MUCH more than drawing. Drawing is what an illustrator does. A designer might BE an illustrator, but doesn't have to be. Look at the layout to these blog pages. Someone had to lay out the areas for text and images. Someone had to select colors, place tabs and everything else involved with putting this page up on the site. Not one component appears to be an illustration or drawing, but SOME ONE had to design the page.

Without the other skills a designer needs, then these pages would be nothing more than random groupings and placement of elements. Most amateurs, or people without training cannot do this. Not every layout is technically demanding, but ALL good layouts should be carefully considered. I know of several good, professional designers that can't draw a polar bear in a snowstorm. They don't need to. They DO need a good eye for composition, color harmony, flow, psychology and other elements of design.

Here is a graphic illustration created for one of those advertising slides shown before a movie starts. It depicts the music department for one of our local colleges

It is an example of an illustration that required absolutely NONE of my drawing ability. It only required some observation and a sense of composition and color. I knew what a guitar looked like and I had some idea of how a piano keyboard is laid out. (I actually went out and looked at one to be sure I had the correct arrangement of black and white keys.)

The entire graphic was created in Photoshop using, only, the basic rectangle and circular selection tools, bucket and gradiated fills, a bit of copying and pasting and one or two filters, including the add noise and crystalize features. Pencil and pigment NEVER was lain on paper to create this. No digital tablet was harmed in the creation of this image. It was all done with a mouse using only click, double click and click and drag functions.

As usual, here and on Yahoo Answers, I strive to give accurate and useful information. I may give MORE information than is needed, but, I try to give ENOUGH information to answer the question

Bye, for now.

Luv,

vince

More Drawings and Sketches

I recieved a good response from friends and family about my display of artwork. I am still hesitant about actually putting these up for fear of copyright infringement by unscrupulous net users. So, I am trying an experiment. I spent some time reducing the size of the images to make them less usable by someone downloading them. It IS a fine line between making them too small to use, and yet, remain visible for someone to actually see and enjoy.

So, here goes.

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Number one on today's hit parade is one of my fantasy characters. Most of these will have some kind of back story associated wit them, but not this one. What I wanted to do was to depict, not only an alien being, but one with a cultural background as far removed from any human reference.

Looking back at it from the distance of time, I can see that it appears to have a LOT of unintentional human reference. I see what appears to be a short Japanese Kimono on this guy, as well as a Japanese-like red mark on his headband. The top of his staff has bird feathers as might be seen on American Indian regalia. Oh, well.

Done entirely in marker pens on Strathmore marker paper. NOT done for a client, but just for my own entertainment.

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This is one of those that did not successfully translate to the smaller size. Much of the detail is absent, and, in this one, it's the elegant detail of the surrounding plant life and the character that contains much of the charm in the original.

I did a whole series in which I anthropormorphised many differnt animals by giving them weapons. Not a noble cause but I had great fun doing it. Among others, I have a parakeet in the cockpit of a fighter jet, a fish holding a spear and others. Some will appear in later posts. The back story for most of these is a world wide war to hold back a periodic swarm of cats that are set out to take over as much territory as they can. They swarm because of over population pressure. All the other animals, in all the other lands must resist until atrition finally relieves the pressure.

This was done by stippling a black marker pen on drawing paper. Stippling is/was one of my favorite forms before going nearly 100% digital. If I can figure out how to do this with as much detail, on my computer, I may pick it up again. I generally like the results of stippling on all kinds of subjects.

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Again, a lot of detail is lost in this image, (especially the bee's wings) but, I think you can get the idea of what is happening. Stippling is used to good effect, particularly in shading the forms to give it a full, three-dimensional look. It is much more pleasing an effect than is cross hatching. In the full-sized original, the depth of form is very rich.

This piece, which I titled "B Troop." was done with color marker, then scanned and brought into Photoshop for a simple, gradient fill background.

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This little critter lives in the same universe as the other creatures in my Cat Swarm story, but is so small, doesn't participate much. What they are is primitive beings that manage to create a simple technology by building things that, either make their lives a bit easier, or, sometimes, just for fun. This little guy has managed to fashion a device to help him cross a span. He pedals the machine which moves him along some kind of cable or wire. I call him "Crank." Others of his kind fold large leaves to make a kind of hang glider. Some make boats out of nutshells. You get the idea.

Done with an ordiary Sharpie marker on copy paper.

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This character was not created for the Cat Swarm series, but is part of that antropormorphising set. The Cat Swarm characters are in an early to mid 19th century culture. This guy has managed to build himself a rocket or jet pack. For more about his backstory, I refer you to the next image.

Sharpie marker on copy paper.

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I like this guy. I call him Professor Skree. Not of the Cat Swarm universe, nor of the armed animals series. Another series of works are a set of cartoons that attempt to tell an entire story in a pargraph or two, along with an illustration.

In this one, it's hard to tell but, there is an engine and propeller driving this device. The engine is covered in some kind of woven wicker basket and the wings are made from a similar material.

The story/caption for this one reads, "Professor Skree was determined to prove his detractors were wrong when they said that 'Birds were not meant to fly"

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Another piece, done just for the fun of it. Actually, it was a challenge by a student friend of mine who just did not belive that using marker pens could create legitimate art. I decided to show him up by redifining what he thought was "legitimate" art and that markers were a viable medium for creating it. I managed to fit it into that series of one paragraph stories by captioning it, "The frog prince and his giant green slave."

The frog is wearing something like an ancient Greek warrior's helmet, necklace and a jeweled dagger on a belt. There is opaque, black smoke pouring out of the goblet/font in front of the frog prince. The joke is, of course, that the central figure is NOT the big green guy, but the little frog.

Done with marker pens on drawing paper.

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I hope these pieces are as fun for you to look at as they were for me to create. As always, I welcome your comments and, I also invite you to participate in Yahoo Answers.

luv,

vince

More Images: Cartoon Sketches

Lazy, lazy me.

I can always find something OTHER do do than what really needs to be done. If not the BIGGEST procrastinator in history, I must run a close second.

Rather than compose a piece of one of my usual ravings, I decided to post more of my illustrative work and write about them. It may not be particularly instructive, but, I hope it can be fun.

This first one was a rough sketch for a client who ran a Karate dojo. He wanted a design for his line of tee shirts. He actually posed for this one. The only differences between this sketch and the final design is a more dramatic stance, with him squatting deeper and, of course, thicker, cleaner lines. The final piece was a white image on deep red tees. I can't show you the final design because he bought the exclusive copyrights to the piece.

This was scanned from the original pencil sketch that was inked with an ordinary Sharpie marker. Sharpie is my favorite inking tool, chosen after years of drawing dip pens, Rotring and Pentel technical pens.

This was an illustration for a piece written for California True West Magazine. It was a comic parody of the classic "High Noon" showdown gunfight story.

This piece was done with charcoal on Strathmore drawing paper. I chose the medium, over the more traditional pen and ink because it had an "older," more 19th century look and I thought it more appropriate.

Anyone following my Yahoo Answers posts already knows that one of my favorite subjects that I do "for fun," is Science Fiction and Fanasy illustration.

This one is a pencil drawing, done with an ordiary number two pencil on ordinary copy paper. It depicts some kind of "prisoner" in a zero G environment. His cell is barred with something that appears to be a kind of flexible wire instead of metal bars. Even I don't always understand the logic of what I draw.

I tried marketing a "Women of Power" series of illustrations to a couple of Science Fiction magazines in the seventies. The series was never picked up, but I have to say that I was pleased with the way the drawings turned out.

In this particular piece, I wanted to show a female hero beating the crap out of a male antagonist. She is, clearly smaller than the bad guy, but he appears, at this point, to be pretty helpless against her onslaught.

Sharpie on copy paper.

No action pose, but this next "Woman of Power" is intended to look very capable and still quite feminine. Unlike many of the others of the series, I never did think this character through other scenarios than the one here, just posing. For example, what did I think she would do with the spear if she was shooting the bow? Or vice versa. I guess I should have had, either, the bow or the spear strapped to her back in some way.

Sharpie on copy paper.

Another in my "Women of Power" series depicts a woman of some unspecified "futuristic" time working at some typically male dominated job. She is shown operating some kind of power assisted suit that is meant to amplify human strenth by mechanical means.

Before anyone else makes the mental connection, I'd like to point out that my illustration PREDATES the outfit used by the character, Ripley in the second "Aliens" movie starring Sigourny Weaver.

Sharpie on copy paper.

This is just a rough pencil sketch on a piece of graph paper. It is meant to show a construction worker in space. The sketch was drawn decades before the International Space station and, is probably intended to show work being done decades afterwards. Note apparent lightness and flexibility of the suit, compared to the bulky EVA suits current astronauts have to work in.

I consciously was working out some zero G problems, such as how a weightless worker would drive a rivit by bracing himslef against a beam, directly in line with the thrust of the tool.

Clever, huh?

That's it, for now.

Luv,

vince

Photo Samples

I recieved another request to post some samples. In this post, I'll put up some of my photographs, along with a few words about each shot and how the look was acheived.

This is our cat, named Mommie Kitty. (yes, not particularly original, but she had this moniker when we took her in) Mommie is shown doing her fourth favorite thing, after eating, playing with a string on the end of a stick and sleeping. She's an indoor cat but thinks she's roaming free in the jungles of South America, Africa or India. She loves the fresh air and we like to give her as much as she wants, short of letting her outdoors. The plant in the background is a bouganvillia.

The shot was one of those happy "accidents" that photographers love. I was in the kitchen, just finishing up cleaning my lens, when I spotted her in the window. I was very worried that she'd move, so I quietly and quickly installed the lens, turned the camera on and set it to full "auto." I centered the viewfinder on her dark fur and hoped for the best. I can admit that I would have wanted her fur to be better exposed, showing off her grey on grey stripes, but, the result is still a stunning shot, almost as if I'd set it up deliberately.

Let's see, technical details. A Canon Rebel Xsi, with an 18-55 mm lens. I did do a little cropping from the left and right sides of the frame.

I've lived in my house for almost four years now, and I STILL don't know the name of this plant. All I know is that it is fragile in that it seems to "die" out quickly for lack of watering, but, is actually almost unkillable in that it always comes back, in spring and summer to reveal these stunning and totally weird flowers. They actually seem to bloom inside out, with the stem coming around from the back of the petals and joining up with that strange growth in the center. The petals stretch BACK towards the main stem.

These beauties seem to attract humming birds and these enormous, black bees. I haven't yet "captured" a humming bird in my camera, but a lot of images of these beautiful bees. Besides their shiny black bodies, they have beautiful, glistening amber colored wings. You can just barely make out the color in this photo. I DO have a better image of one of those bees on another flower, but I couldn't located the file today. I'll post it later.

Again, a Canon Rebel Xsi with that 18 to 55 mm lens. I used the macro setting and let the camera set it's own exposure. Shot was taken in daylight, but under a carport, between two houses, so it was in full shade.

This photo is an example of how an artist can make something of beauty, even from the most humble of sources. (No, it's not ME that's humble. Far from it!) This was taken at the seaside town of Capitola, California. It's a view through a shop window of a mobile and other assorted wares inside the shop. One can, of course, see the reflections of buildings and a palm tree across the street, plus the glare of sunlight and blue sky. But, with the judicious applications of several Photoshop filters, I think I managed to breath a kind of fairytale "life" into the setting. Among others, I applied "Poster Edges," "Motion Blur," "Sharpen Edges," and "Solarize," not necessarily in that order.

Canon Xsi, 18 to 55 mm lens. Shot at f-8, 1/200 sec. ISO 100. About mid day, early Summer.

Oh, how I always wanted to get a spectacular shot of multiple fireworks bursts. I've wanted to capture that image most people remember from fireworks shows; that of a moment, at the end of the show where they set of streams, sheets, curtains of firey colors and burn one's retinas with that image.

What I finally DID manage was, by trial and error, to set up my camera on a tripod and catch a small, community fireworks show and capture a handfull of individual bursts. I then assembled them in Photoshop. Not quite the "curtains of flame" I wanted but, they tell me that a Fourth of July comes around about once every year, so there is still hope.

This was done on an older camera; An HP 465 or something like that. For a point and shoot, it had some pretty advanced features, but, that night, I just set it on full auto, mounted it on a tripod, aimed it at some likely spot of sky and "shot from the hip," so to speak. After the first couple of bursts, I had a pretty good idea of where they would go off. I aimed the camera in that direction and then sat back, with my finger on the shutter release. I watched for the telltale streak of a rocket going up and then guestimated when the burst would go off. It was pretty much a chancy thing as this camera had a long, and very unpredictable shutter lag. I have just as many frames of black sky as I caught of any fireworks. It was a short show, so it only yeilded less than a dozen decent shots, but there was enough to create this composit image.

More images, coming soon. I plan to add them to my regular postings of rants gleaned from my Yahoo Answers experience.

Please remember that ALL of my images are copyrighted. Plus, some of them are from paid projects done for clients. While I own the copyrights, the use of these images can "dillute" the value of the work my clients pay for, so, please, respect those rights. Thank you.

luv,

vince