Every once in a while I feel like I’ve become stuck in a rut in my photography. When that happens it’s time to change things up.
And now for something different
Two days ago I decided to simply experiment with simple images to create abstracts that are more designs than anything else. Rather than photograph realistic scenes I looked around for materials from nature that might yield interesting results when photographed, combined with other photos, and manipulated in Photoshop.
I have a hanging basket of flowers that has decorative trailing foliage along with flowers. The foliage seems to be very tasty to insects and some of its leaves are riddled with holes. So I picked a couple of those “holy” leaves and photographed them against a white background.
Here’s the first image I made of the leaves:
I also found a dried up leaf with so many holes in it, its entire texture was lacy. So I photographed it also.
It’s not totally in focus but for the composite I have in mind I don’t think it will matter
Then I took the “holy” leaves image into Photoshop and duplicated it, turned the duplicate layer upside down on top of the background layer and set the blend mode to darken. In the darken blend mode only the dark leaves showed up on top of the first image. I topped those two layers with a copy of the second leaf, enlarging the leaf so that it filled most of the frame of the darker leaves, again using darken blend mode.
The resulting image captured my imagination. Were those spotted butterflies or strange flowers, or what? And the softness of the lacy leaf photo actually helped to keep the dark “holy” leaves the focus of attention in the image.
Though this image is not one which I would call a total success, I’ve learned a few things and may continue to play with this idea in the future.
Accumulating Brush Miles
I also painted another watercolor landscape yesterday as I watched another Angela Fehr landscape painting class. Color me surprised that I actually ended up with a painting that I liked. Though similar to the one Angela made, there are a lot of differences as well. My skills are still very much beginner skills. Watching her mastery of brush strokes, paint, color, and water is alternately inspiring and daunting.
In her online lessons and in her writing, Angela talks a lot about the need to “accumulate brush miles.”
I love that idea. It helps me to think that every time I sit down to paint I’m accumulating brush miles. Just as it took me making thousands of photos (shutter miles) to build my skills as a photographer, it will take thousands of brush miles to build my skill level as a painter.
How about you? As a writer, do you need to accumulate pen miles? Or if you’re a fabric artist are you accumulating needle miles? Photographers, how are you doing on your shutter miles?
Along with steady practice, variety and play are also helpful. Any time we try something new and different we open ourselves up to beginner’s mind and new ideas.
Are you feeling in a creative rut? Maybe you need to try something different too? I think that playing with many different mediums and creative past-times helps make me a better photographer. What new creative activity do you want to try this week?
May you walk in beauty.
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