Photo Manipulations by Erik Johansson

So I’ve recently started to muck about with GIMP – a freeware tool that gives most of the features of PhotoShop… legal and for free.

I used to be firmly of the opinion that if it came out of the camera “bad”, it was just tough. I still think one should be more careful about the image capture itself, and would like to think (with the help of some way more talented friends) I’ve got much better at making the camera do what I want.

However, I have also come to appreciate that there is a whole world of creativity that can begin with those captured images. They are not photographs per se, but are images, in the way a painting is a representation of an idea in the artists head, not necessarily a literal representation of what’s in front of her/him.

I saw “Go Your Own Road” a couple of years ago, but today I discovered more of the work by self-taught Erik Johansson. A couple of his pieces I think look really contrived, but most of the 18 here look very well executed indeed. See what you think.

18 Brilliant Photo Manipulations by Erik Johansson | Bored Panda.

Just to get an appreciation of the amount of effort involved, here’s a time lapse of the creation of “Cut and Fold”

That’s one very wet road…

It rains a lot in BC. But not THIS much.

OK, so it’s PhotoShop… but don’t under-rate the skill of execution and most importantly THE IDEA in the first place.

Kudos, I say.

Art and Photography.

You couldn’t handle TWO of me…

So the more persistent readers may recall that #2 offspring took my film Canon SLR out for a spin last week. Of the 24 exposures, at least 5 passed muster. I should tell her a little about composing the frame, rule of thirds, and all that – the little I myself know, and have been educated on by those more knowledgeable. But for a novice, I was impressed with her eye. (The one in the middle).

Doing my daily trawl through the blogs I follow, I found a posting about a Korean artist who paints images in the style of double-exposed photographs. The fact they were of skirts being swished tantalisingly close to exposing underwear (or not) was neither here nor there. Though on reflection it was undeniably closer to there . You can check out the Ho Ryon Lee posting on artstormer (always worth a peruse) or even Faith Is Torment.

Faith Is Torment: Ho Ryon Lee

So anyway, dragging this posting back on track, this reminded me of the fun I had as a student taking multiple-exposure images “in camera”, and I got to thinking whether there was actually an equivalent option with the digital reality of today. A cursory search seemed to indicate that most people just use PhotoShop or equivalents to do it now. A much more precise (but frankly BO-RING) method. However, I don’t wish to devalue the art in it… it’s just a different technique – more akin to photo-montage (which I suppose it is, but in the Z axis). Not what I was hoping for. I’ll keep looking. I’m sure there’s an in-camera way, even now.

That said, I came across this whimsical piece which I thought I’d share. It has several layers/multiple exposures (at least 6), and by using the steady light from the streetlamp, the shadows are kept consistent, making the editing a lot less fiddly.

Have a great weekend wherever you may travel, or be returning from.

foryoutoknowtice: Brad/Jeff fight

 

20 Childhood Drawings Transformed Into Masterpieces (PICS) | Digg Offbeat

If 3 year olds could use PhotoShop as well as they can use a crayon…

20 Childhood Drawings Transformed Into Masterpieces (PICS) | Digg Offbeat.

I love you man…

So I am generally grateful to misfits’ miscellany for his wit and repartee. He takes the time to not only visit these questionable pages, but oft times leaves some witty remark, reference or occasionally a faint smell of urine in the corners. In a comment elsewhere, he led me (via the power invested in me by Google) to this image:

Worth1000: Big Step

It may not actually have been the one he intended, but I’ve never let a little thing like a fact get in the way of a potentially entertaining yarn.

So a little more reading tells me that this was on a site with regular competitions for digital artists. A picture is indeed worth a 1000 words. And it can be manipulated so much more effecively than Telly Savalas can sing! This specific competition had the contestants begin with a standard stock photo of a bathroom, and pimp it up with Photoshop or whatever. A more recent one called for them to take a celebrity photo and “give them a new ‘do”. I encourage you to check out the whole site, it’s a scream, but here are a couple of my favourites from that particular contest:

Worth1000: Clint

 

Worth1000: Donald Trump

Thanks MM – who loves ya baby?