Sometimes less is more…..

When we travel to alien cultures our first reaction can either be “WOW” look at that, which causes to tend to try to capture too much of what we see in one photo.  Or, in some cases we feel, “how can people live like that?” Which will cause us to try to capture too much of what turns us off.  The essential beauty of this shot of the young man on his horse on a beach on the coast of Ecuador is one of a relaxed time and his weathered and time worn saddle which tells it’s own story of it’s history.  Slowing down and assimilating into the pace of a new culture is necessary to begin to see the beauty of a different way of life.  Many cultures progress each day with far fewer expectations than our own and that is the beauty of experiencing a contrasting pace of life. We must allow yourself to “go with the flow” in order to appreciate it.  This is when you will begin to see the beauty of of the flip side of life and expand the parameters of your vision.

This man is patiently waiting for a student who would like to learn to surf.  A customer may come or not and either way is fine.  The hammock is standard equipment for life in this small fishing village.

Left Brain…Right Brain

If you are reading this, you are either a photographer (or aspiring) or just interested in good photography.  If you have ever wondered what it takes to make wonderful images, let me clear it up for you somewhat.

Many people have asked me after viewing one of my images, “wow, what kind of camera do you use?”  Lance Armstrong summed it up when he said “It’s not about the bike.”  Neither is it about the camera.  Some of you feel that if you were to go out and spend a pile of dough on expensive digital equipment, you will be able to take shots like the pro’s.  Many of you will get your thrill by just fondling the gear and marveling at how it looks and sounds as well as how sharp the images are.

Serious photographers have a bit higher standards than that.

On the other hand some of you may have some wonderful ideas of great subject matter that you have conjured up from your right brain approach to life.  Problem is, your short cut approach to sharing these with everyone easily through photography is exactly that – a short cut.  A right brain dwelling artist must master the left brain requirements of photography and camera science before those marvelous images can flow to the public unfettered by poor technique.  Just as the gizmo freak must get in touch with their inner artist, kick start the right brain in order to shower us all with his/her inner sensitivities.

I will state here that it is my opinion that the best photographers have a balanced, left brain – right brain approach to photography.  If you find yourself a bit lopsided, find the stuff you need to balance yourself out.

Authentic watercolor effect

I discovered this technique after experimenting over a few years to try to find an authentic impressionistic effect on some of my travel images. All who have seen the finished images find it incredulous to know that they began as photographs.
This technique assumes you have almost any version of Photoshop.
1) with the image open on your desktop select filters>artistic>dry
brush>. Set brush size to 10 and brush detail and texture to 1. Click ok. Larger files may need a second and third application.
2) select filter>stylize>find edges.
3) Fade effect around 40% to 50%.
4) using curves, drag the bottom anchor (black) to the right until the tones come back, get a good black and adjust the mid and lighter tones as needed.
Play with the controls and customize the effect for each image and you should get some great images.
Also, experiment on reducing the size of the beginning image and go through the whole process and see the exaggerated effect which you get on smaller files.
Happy experimenting.