Abstract

After a year of occasional snapping with the little green camera….and another year of slightly more serious shooting for the purposes of this blog….my understanding of photography has shifted in a big way this week.

Up until now, I thought that photographs should come out of the camera in as finished a form as possible.  I saw only three reasons for playing about in Picnik or negotiating the (to me) unfathomable mysteries of Photoshop:

1)  If you were a sub-standard shooter who needed to rescue a less-than ideal image
2)  If you wanted to collage or resize pictures
3)  If you were a seriously amazing photographer who had reason to do clever things that are, at the moment, utterly beyond my comprehension

How wrong I was!

Suddenly, I get that an out-of-the-camera image is simply a starting point….raw material for a whole lot of creative fun.   And I’ve been helping myself to some of that fun!

Above is a picture of a tree I shot one morning this week with my Lensbaby.  Below is what happened after losing myself in textures and colour for an hour or two….manipulating it to create something atmospheric and - I hope - rather delicious.

Do you like it?

Comments

[heather]

yes! I actually started to learn photoshop when taking a digi scrapbooking class. The digital darkroom doesn't have the allure of the old skool one, but all the same I find it very relaxing. I mean Ansel Adams used filters and darkroom tricks, yes? lovely!

[Vivienne]

So delicious!

[hillary sloss]

i LOVE it! you go, girl! go crazy!
and check out LightRoom, while you're investigating post-processing options (it's also great for archiving).

[Chesteraud]

Amazing. Turned a beautiful picture into something extr beautiful. Well done Helen.

[ali]

i do. i love it!

[ab]

I do love this. I think it's fun and creative to play around with software. Your photographs have come a long way since you've started this blog. I really like the progression.