An experiment.

[JBW]

hmmmm, how about taking a shot of one of your authentic helmets and make it look a photo of a painting? maybe it is time for less coffee and more sleep?

[Wayland]

Seems to me that you are going for an oil painting look? i wonder what would happen with a slightly subtler look, a very slight canvass effect and (Lord forgive me for this suggestion) a wooden frame?

That is the sort of effect I am aiming at and the end result would be printed on a rough art paper ready for selling through framing shops.

I probably wouldn't go the "Limited Edition" route because I want it to be affordable rather than elitist.

I don't know if I really like the post work over the originals, not that it's poorly done but just because the originals are already so beautifully done.

I SO WANT to see more of your environment! It's fascinating and seems to be an enchanting place. I took a peek at Waylandscape, you just gained another fan!

Glad you like the site David. It's slowly getting upgraded as and when I have the spare time, so keep dropping in to see what changes.

[Wayland]

hmmmm, how about taking a shot of one of your authentic helmets and make it look a photo of a painting? maybe it is time for less coffee and more sleep?

Like this you mean?...

[Manfred M]

Ouch that really hurts. Personally I go along with the gambler, every hand's a winner and every hand's a loser. There are times when a shot has potential that can only be realized by taking a walk on the wild side.

I believe that photography has the potential to be art and that art is finding a way to express a shared reality in a new way. Ways that may one day (but not yet) include a tone-mapped grunge filter.

The only way I know of to improve is to push myself past my comfort zone. It does not always work the way I envision it but it always teaches.

Brian - it's not about you, rather its the filter you happened to demonstrate. If you are like me, you go a bit overboard in the demo to show what it is about.

[Manfred M]

A friend of mine sells "digital paintings" produced with Corel Painter from original photographs and seems to find a reasonable market for them. He is art trained so for him the use of brush techniques on a tablet comes more naturally.
.

I was rather thinking of that direction as being appropriate too and using the base image as your model and then hand painting on top rather than using the filters. I knew someone who used Photoshop as his painting tool and then printed out the final result. Granted, he was scanning in hand-sketches and colouring them.

To me the issue is the filter; it looks rather mechanical, but if you can make money with it, try that.

When I look at photographs in galleries that sell for a fair bit, they tend to be quite abstract, manipulated during the exposure and during the post-processing stage.

[Wayland]

Another interesting side effect of this technique is that the "Artwork" tends to mask the negative effects of up-scaling which opens the door to producing much larger images than I would normally produce from my files.



For example, this is an image up-scaled from an old 5 megapixel compact taken back in 2003.

Far too small for large printing normally but the final image is now suitable for reproduction at 28"x19" if required.

[JBW]

Like this you mean?...

yes I do! If it turns into a best seller can i have a discount?

[JBW]

Brian - it's not about you, rather its the filter you happened to demonstrate. If you are like me, you go a bit overboard in the demo to show what it is about.

[JohnRostron]

I have Topaz Simplify. I have enjoyed playing with it, but have not produced anything that
I would want to show the world.

Having said that, I do like your 'artistic' version.

John

[chauncey]

black velvet paintings of Elvis

Hmm...that has a familiar ring to it. I'm looking for a niche myself.

[Kaye Leggett]

I like all your 'art' images. Yes they're different, but so what ? It sounds like you have had fun doing them too, so that adds to their merit imo

[Wayland]

Thank you Kaye, I am enjoying the process actually.

I've been building actions to do most of the heavy lifting so that just leaves me to brush things in where it's needed.

They take 10 - 20 minutes to complete now depending on the work needed but it's taken a couple of days to get the actions just right.

[DanK]

I'm in the camp that likes your originals better.

I know a number of photographers who find very effective ways to make their photos less realistic or representational. I like a lot of what they do, even though I am personally incompetent when I try to do that. This particular direction, however, doesn't appeal to me. I agree with Manfred. This is why I dislike most HDR photos and instead use exposure fusion if I have to blend different exposures.

As for a market: I generate a market for my photos by giving them away. Works really well. I have only tried to sell photos once, and I failed, even though I thought I had a great angle: the price was a contribution to Oxfam, nothing to me. I'd like to sell a few, just for a validation of sorts, even though the probability of earning back what I have spent on photo equipment is essentially zero.

[Wayland]

I think there is an essential problem with the sale of pure photography and it's getting more pronounced as time goes on... These days everybody has a camera in their pocket and the results they produce are steadily improving.

Although that has democratised photography it has also devalued it to a large degree.

Social photographers now struggle in a market that often doesn't see the point in professional photography any more. News photographers are being layed off left right and centre and the internet is awash with stolen photographs because the general public does not even understand that a photograph is somebody's property.

The final straw for me was when I found a major organisation like the National Trust using one of my images without permission. That is what finally led me to start putting a logo on my work, something I had avoided for many years.

Personally, I love photography and have bought a few images for my walls but as photographers we value photography very differently from the general public.

As a friend of mine is fond of saying, there is no point in complaining about the air if there is nothing else to breathe. Pandora's box is now wide open and there is no way of putting that widespread change in public attitude back into the box. It's something we have to live with.

I'm not interested in being a professional photographer anymore, done that in the past, didn't enjoy it much.

I do enjoy taking pictures of landscapes and that is what I will continue to do for my own pleasure for as long as I am physically able. I'm lucky that I don't need to earn back the cost of my equipment because it's use in my business has already justified that.

What I am curious about is the possibility of generating an additional income stream in the future from my extensive stock of images which, realistically, have little or no value in their current format.

[Wayland]

The images I've posted so far have had a dark border for screen viewing.



This is more like the way I intend to print them.

Incidentally, the border is unique to every print yet also directly related to the content of the image.

I've been working for a while on that process as well.

[JBW]

The images I've posted so far have had a dark border for screen viewing.



This is more like the way I intend to print them.

Incidentally, the border is unique to every print yet also related to the content of the image.

I've been working for while on that process as well.

perhaps the highest praise I can offer is that you are an artist.

[Wayland]

Just so long as you don't give it a capital "A" I'll take that as a compliment.

However I have no illusions about that, I doubt if I'll ever exceed the honourable station of craftsman.

[JBW]

Just so long as you don't give it a capital "A" I'll take that as a compliment.

However I have no illusions about that, I doubt if I'll ever exceed the honourable station of craftsman.