I dabble a bit in photography, something I’ve always found to be fun.  I don’t (yet) have the fancy cameras, but I still like to do it.  I think, especially being an artist and a graphic designer, I have a decent eye for composition.

I also like dabbling with duotones when I’m working with photos.  Full color is fun, but I really like altering the perception of an image based solely on it’s color. If you aren’t familiar with the idea, images can be (and this is really simplifying things) full color, grayscale (“black and white” to most  people), and toned. “duotoned” as in two colors, “tritone” as in three colors, and so on.

To duotone something (and I just call it duotoning, your mileage, as my friend says, may vary), you take either a grayscale photo or a color photo that you’ve removed the color from, and add only one other color to enhance the black.

For example, here’s a photo that I duotoned. It uses the first color of black, and the second color of a sort of rusty/orangey color:

You get a certain emotion, a certain feeling from this photo.  I’m shooting for historical, maybe patriotic in a sense, but something different than the full color version.  Here’s the full color version, and while I like it I think the duotone gives it something extra:

The color photo is a decent photo, and still dramatic (I think).  But the duotone adds something else to it, something that’s not necessarily there in the full color original.

Here is another one that I duotoned using a different effect.  In this case, the image is really two layers in Photoshop.  One layer is a blue and black duotone, and the other is a yellow and black duotone.  By laying one on top of the other, and using Photoshop’s blending modes and masking abilities, it looks like this:

I purposely left it a little flat, to give it a more “matte” effect.  That’s the beauty of Photoshop, as I could easily have given it a more contrasted, harsher feel, and it would still add a great drama to it:

This feels more militaristic, like there’s a battle being fought (or about to be).  I like that Photoshop can leave it up to the artist to covey what they want, in whatever method they feel.

All in all, I just like taking the photos.  Here are a couple of others that I thought came out nicely.

Opinions, as always, are welcome.

Family trips aren’t always conducive to finding those unique places that are either interesting, affective or both.  But my wife’s family is from Oklahoma and Texas, and both states offer places that we visit when we are in the area.

Above is one of the empty chairs from the Oklahoma City National Bombing Memorial, and it’s a site I’ve visited a few times now. I’m sure most people out there know the story (or you can find more information here), and the memorial is a beautiful, respectful area in downtown Oklahoma City.

I think as an artist and, more simply, as a person, visiting places like this are important.  Not only to remember what happened before, and to see a part of history, but to simply remind us that we can’t forget that there is true evil in the world.  Evil that must always be fought against.

For me personally, I visited the site a month and a half after it happened in 1995. It was early on a Sunday morning, a little over a week after the building had been imploded to prevent further collapse. It was eerily quite that morning, and the immense power of the place was evident even then.

Below are a few photos of the site I took, as my daughter and I walked around.  She took a few pictures herself with our other camera, but she really just looked.  I think history is important for our children to learn, and I don’t think they get enough of it in school.  I also think when they get the chance to see a place that’s important in our history that we should encourage them to see it, to ask questions, and, simply, to remember.

There are all sorts of stories and blogs out there about doing art from nature, learning landscapes, all that kind of thing, so I’ll do my best not to bore you to tears.

Yes, I’ll wait patiently here while you’re out.

Hello?  Anyone?

So the two of you that are left reading this, I’ll say that there is plenty to learn from in nature.  There are so many textures, views, styles and all kinds of visuals that an artist can easily spend a lifetime learning just the natural side of art. Case in point, a simple trip to the local pumpkin patch can be a huge boon to the imagination.

So we’re looking through the squash, gourds, vines, pumpkins and all the other plant life, and we find sort of the typical lineup of a pumpkin patch:

Everything normal, except for the ZOMBIE SQUASH GETTING READY TO EAT THE OTHERS!*

Up to this point, I thought just the oddly shaped gourds you find in the pumpkin patch, with their twisted fins and designs, were about as weird as they get. Note exhibit A, especially the green funky one at the top:

Unusual?  Sure, at least for city boys like me. But it’s not ZOMBIE SQUASH™!

That thing is just terrible looking, all gnarled and wrinkled and textured. I think it started crawling towards me too:

Then it turned over and went back the other way:

After it ate one of the kids, it finally occurred to me that this is exactly what nature can do.  Nature (and let’s not forget the farming involved in this too) created this unique, textured and thoroughly inspirational piece for me to work with.  It fires the imagination to think of all of the things this could be, and then hurrying on to write stories, or paint pictures or make movies or whatever it will be that inspires you.

Is it a crawling zombie worm?  Is it an alien larvae? Did someone leave an apple in the sauna?  With a quick flash of nature, and the sense to open up your eyes and look at all that’s around you, you can be inspired to create things that are unique to you, and to your vision.

For me, I saw this:

and immediately saw in my head the terrifying creature coming from the heavens, a violent, tortured look on it’s face, to destroy us all.

Awesome.

*Note: It’s actually a Blue Hubbard Squash, but I like ZOMBIE SQUASH™ better.

I’m still getting settled into our new house, but I thought I’d best post something (just so no one thinks I died or anything).

These photos were taken on our trip to New Mexico in May, and I thought they turned out pretty well.  These in particular are from Santa Fe, though we went a few other places too.

Hopefully there will be some new art posted before too long as well, keep your fingers crossed.

For my day job, we’ve used a number of my photos for computer wallpapers.  I thought I would post them here too, if anyone wants them.

Little Rock Bridge
Lincoln Memorial
Cathedral, Santa Fe
Washington National Cathedral
Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield
Parthenon – Nashville
Church in Portland, Oregon

Feel free to use them on your personal computers, just don’t post them anywhere as yours of course.

I posted one photo to each of my duotone and photography sections.  The two images also appear below:

They are both from Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, near Springfield, Missouri.  It was a great trip overall, and I liked visiting the battlefield.

This is sort of an entry about the trip I just went on to Texas, and sort of showing off a bit of photography, so bear with me.  We came back yesterday from a big trip to Oklahoma and Texas, and I’ve uploaded a few choice shots to the site and I thought I’d share.

And here… we… go:

First off, for those that know me and the expressions I use everyday, this needs no real introduction:

Next, my son and I captured these photos of some sort of spider-creature in Cuero, Texas.  We have no idea what it really is, so if you do please let me know and I can pass it on:

While we were in Fort Worth, I also took several shots of the “walk of fame” discs embedded in the walkways around the Fort Worth Stockyards. Being an artist, I thought I’d show this one:

I also liked this sign (and it’s location anyway), and actually I didn’t think the shot was too bad either.  Since there’s little chance I could’ve parked in there anyway:

These last shots are of the Alamo, and of San Antonio’s Riverwalk.  They include the (former) Aztec Theatre on the Riverwalk, and the so-called “flat” or “2-D” building:

Opinions, as always, are welcome.

It’s just a point-and-shoot Canon 880, but it’s a far more advanced camera than my 4 1/2 year old Kodak.  It takes some pretty decent shots, and I think it’ll be a good camera overall.  A few shots…

This one shows off the macro ability, which the Kodak never had a chance of doing.  The Marvel Zombie statue is  maybe 8″ high, and check out the cobweb on the left.

I also tried the “color accent” ability of the camera, in this case I had it pick yellow to see what would happen.  Not sure how much I’ll use it, but interesting nonetheless.

Since I had the camera out, I also took a picture of the mask I picked up in Portland.  I thought it was pretty cool, and it’s fitting to my work.  It’s the Lord of Death and Destruction.

I just returned from a very long trip to Portland, and I snapped a few pics for the website. As always, if you have any comments just let me know on my MySpace or LiveJournal.

I like old signs, especially the faded ones on the sides of buildings:

I also have a tendency to experiment with photos, here are a couple of duotones and one that’s a little more involved:

I also had a lucky shot at the local wildlife with the slowest camera on the earth:

Finally, here are a couple of other architectural shots.  I’d love to get back to Portland just to check out the eclectic architecture.

While we were in Yellowstone, the Tetons and Montana for vacation I snapped a few pics.  Here are a few selections below for your enjoyment.

The first one here is an abandoned attraction near Casper, Wyoming, that I visited as a kid.  Hell’s Half Acre was always a cool stop (the “planet” in Starship Troopers was filmed on location there).  A little sad, and I ran a few Photoshop techniques on it.  They gave it a look like a “model” almost.

This next one I just used Photoshop’s Black and White adjustment on, which I thought turned out nice.

These (and the above) are from Little Bighorn National Battlefield, a place I’d always read about and finally was able to stop at.

These below are from the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, in no particular order:

Whether I’m a good photographer or not is up to everyone else (and probably depends on getting a new camera), but I don’t think I’m too awful.  Unless there are other opinions…

Russ