Here Lies the Magic

Here is brief pictorial of how I put together images to create a piece of work. Sometimes I start with a vision of where I want to take a piece, sometimes the piece takes me.

First I start with a photograph that I've taken. This photograph focuses on a single rose in a bunch of white roses I bought at the local Trader Joe's - I loved their creamy color with just a touch of green.

The original photograph, a watermark is added.

I took the photograph and loaded it onto my computer the same day - I began to work on it, but then because I was not sure of the direction I wanted to take it I closed the file and "slept" on it.

I think the rose is strong enough to stand on it's own, and I may revisit it another time. But for now the vision I had in mind including incorporating another photograph I'd taken of a statue. I liked her expression and I thought she would work well in combination with the roses.

The statue, watermark added.

The next morning I re-opened the file and began to add processing, textures, and the statue photograph. The piece was evolving.

I have added a screen shot of all the steps I took in Photoshop CS6 to create the final piece. As you will see I used two texture layers, Color Effects Pro by FX, the statue photograph, and some duplication of the rose photograph.

This is a "short" version of what I did - the actual doing of it involved quite a few steps and a couple of hours (which included some trial & error). You will also see that I label my layers (or steps) so I can keep track of what I've done, this also comes in handy if I want to repeat some part of the process on another photographic art piece.

Screen shot with all the layers showing the steps. 

 

 

And finally, the finished piece.

Here Lies the Magic

And that is the process, shortened and brief. Now you have some idea of the work that goes into creating a piece of photographic art.