Tag Archives: Creativity

Digital Creations

Cairns rainforest panorama Painting

One thing that is nice about digital photography is the plethora of options available to post process images & the ease of obtaining the software & learning how to use it. I mostly stick to using CaptureOne, but every so often I like to ‘play’ with an image to see what else can be done with it.

In the case of the above photo I’ve used Corel’s Paint It to convert a panoramic iPhone photo into a water colour sketch. On becoming a water colour sketch the fine detail in the photo is lost, though I still feel it conveys a sense of the location.

The sketch also provides inspiration. I’m slowly teaching myself how to use water colours; my preference is water colour sketching. Perhaps one day I won’t need software to create this kind of look. Although the beauty of Paint It is I’m not limited to water colours. There is among others oil painting & pastels, two things I know I’ll never learn. Transforming my photos to digital paintings will suffice.

Kim

Not Perfect, But Not That Bad

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Often when I view my photos when I return from a photographic outing, I find myself disappointed with the results. I see flaw after flaw & rarely notice anything that I like about them. Yet when I return to them later on, after a a week or more, I seem to be able to see something that I felt wasn’t there originally. Something happens in that time frame, which allows me to see the photos in a different light.

I think the time gap between first & second viewing puts space between what I had in my mind creatively & the resulting images. In fact often I forget what it was that I had intended to photograph. This space seems to let me see the images for what they actually are. By no means do I think I create a perfect photo, but more often than not if I give my images time, I find I’m happier with the results.

I also notice this experience with sketching. I’ll sit down & made a sketch of something & when I’m finished I feel satisfied with undertaking the act of drawing, but don’t think much about what I’ve drawn. Yet when I go back & look at that sketch again, I see that what is on the page is actually ok. Sometimes I’ve even made a sketch that I can say is good.

So I’m trying to learn to put distance between the completion of a photo or a sketch & making a judgement on the quality of what I’ve produced. I hope each time I try this I’ll get better at not judging my work so harshly.

Kim

birthdaytree

A Closer View

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I have been considering buying a macro lens for my X-Pro1 for some time. I’ve seen some amazing macro photos, and it’s a genre I feel I would enjoy. If I look around my current surroundings, there are a lot of things whose detail is often missed. There is the grain on the wood clothes basket, the patterns in the skin of apples, or fine details in my jewellery for instance.

However purchasing a good quality macro lens doesn’t come cheap. And I’ve so far had no luck obtaining a cheap second hand lens via eBay or gumtree. So for now, I’m content with using the close up filters I bought for my X-Pro lenses and using the macro setting in the  Camera+ app on my iPhone. These options don’t give me true macro, nor do they allow me to print large quality photos, but for now they whet my appetite.

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