Surreal Photography book

October 14, 2013

Happenstance

happenstance

So……

I’ve been playing around with apps lately.

This image is the same image from yesterday’s post (can you believe it?) – amazing what you can do with apps these days, isn’t it.

I would share the technique I used, if only I could remember what it was!  I’ve been going back and forth between two books; Surreal Photography: Creating the Impossible, by Daniela Bowker and The Art of iPhoneography, by Stephanie C. Roberts (ironic, considering I’m using an Android at the moment), and I’m not sure which app I ended up using for this image.

But both of the books are great and full of inspiration.

Its a lot of fun to play with apps; to select an image already in your gallery,  and just see what happens.

I mean, look at the difference between these two photos!!  And this was from (literally) about 3 minutes of experimenting time.

August 25, 2013

“And the day came…”

fairy lee with trees

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. – – Anais Nin

I got a new book!!

‘Surreal Photography: Creating the Impossible“, by Daniela Bowker and its loaded with fun, fairly easy instructions for creating some ‘impossible’ photography.

Photoshop is such a great tool but sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming – for me anyway. I am NOT a technical photographer.  AT ALL.  My method of shooting mostly consists of: 1) aiming and 2) pressing the shutter button.

Not exactly highly technical stuff.

So you can only imagine what having thousands of post-production options must be like for me!  My post-production workflow (to date) is mostly basic stuff.  A typical workflow is tightening up the sliders in Levels, boosting the exposure (or not) in Raw, and, or maybe, tweaking  the Clarity slider.  That’s about as far as I go usually.

But I have ALWAYS, always, ALWAYS wanted to be able to create my own little fantasy worlds that conceptual photographers like Natalie Dybisz and Brooke Shaden create.

I realize I am NO WHERE NEAR this level yet but the book has helped me realize there just may be a light at the end of the conceptual tunnel!

And this image is a first attempt – it was late last night but I was anxious to try it out…and these were three images I already had on hand.

And yes, that’s me… 

What??…doesn’t everyone have images of themselves in fairy costumes??