An experiment.

[Wayland]

I've been experimenting a bit lately with using the technology to step a little away from "realistic" images towards something a little more impressionistic.

Don't get me wrong, I love photography but I also like art work. I like the way it can sometimes simplify an image by reducing the fine detail while retaining the overall structure of an image.

Unfortunately I have little or no talent with brushes and paints.



Many years ago I found a nice little program called Buzz Simplify which I used for as long as my old machines supported it but it dipped below the radar some time ago and I thought that was that.

Well, I recently discovered that Topaz Labs must have bought them out because they are using the same algorithm in their Simplify plug in and I've been playing around with it a bit.

For reference, this is the original image.



Not sure I've nailed it yet but I thought I would put it up to see what you though of it.

I'm using different strengths on layers and then brushing them in with masks to vary the effect in different areas if that makes any sense.

[bnnrcn]

Your artistic edit is just to my taste Wayland

[Shadowman]

Nicely captured and processed, nice to experiment.

[John 2]

I like the artwork Gary. Needs a block of bold colour and a simple (uncluttered) comp to bring it off. Out of interest, the original seems to have a graphic edge to it? - or is that just straight contrast?

[Wayland]

It was a miserable day so I've double processed the original to squeeze a bit more local contrast out of it.

[Geoff F]

And it has become a bit overdone for my tastes.

The first one looks best to me, but needs to be viewed from a greater distance than up close on a computer screen.

[Wayland]

You are looking at just 1/40th of the the full resolution of course.

These print to about 12"x15" and would be viewed across a room.

[Brownbear]

Hi Wayland,

I like the edit, but I absolutely adore the original image. Personally I think your photography is so exquisite that it is almost a sacrilege to change your original image...

[GBO25]

I like it Wayland. The bold colours and selective editing have really worked.
I enjoy this artistic retouching to images as well and sometimes play around with the "Brushstroke" app on my iPad but it can never compare with this.

[mknittle]

Very nice Wayland, I don't often like images of this sort but you have done a exceptionally nice job.

[chauncey]

Wayland, I'm liking that, but...once ya cross that fuzzy line into "art", it's hard to get back.

[dennybeall]

The edit is interesting but looks a bit plastic so I much prefer the original.

[JBW]

Gary, First I love your shot and I like your experiment. However I found the rock wall a little unbelievable. So I tried the following ( like you I am not so good with brushes and this was all done with various filters in Gimp);



I intentionally left just enough of the watermark for people to know it was not your work nor original with me. I use Gimp and without brushes or painting I was able to move a step or two away from reality and (at least I think I did) create a stormy dark mood centering on the wall, the boat and the rope?

[Wayland]

I don't know the filters in Gimp but that looks interesting.

Don't worry, I'm not about to step into some alternate reality where everyone calls their work Art ( Note the capital A. ). I hate the pretentiousness and snobbery of that World.

I love photography for it's detail, it's process and it's connection to reality however tenuous that may be.

This is just an experiment to produce additional and alternative type of images from my stock. A hybrid with the painterly look of artwork from the underlying structure provided by a photographic file.

On the capital A brigade, I found a great website that generates an Artist's statement for you.

This is the rubbish it made up for me:

My work explores the relationship between Bauhausian sensibilities and urban spaces.

With influences as diverse as Derrida and Roy Lichtenstein, new insights are crafted from both mundane and transcendant meanings.

Ever since I was a postgraduate I have been fascinated by the essential unreality of meaning. What starts out as yearning soon becomes corrupted into a carnival of distress, leaving only a sense of what could have been and the dawn of a new understanding.

As shimmering phenomena become reconfigured through emergent and personal practice, the viewer is left with an insight into the limits of our future.

Priceless...

[Wayland]

Another shot from the same trip back in 2012.



Original for comparison.

[Manfred M]

Gary - I'm really do like your landscape work, but can also fully understand that you are looking at ways of "adding value" to them. Unfortunately, I also think you are heading in the wrong direction.

I too have played with the filters available out there and while the effects can be interesting, I also find that they more often than not degrade the original image into something that is little more than a caricature of the original. Is there an audience for this type of art; perhaps, but it is likely to appeal to the same group as buys a black velvet painting of Elvis...

I find that I'm agreement with the crowd that likes your originals, and finds these efforts really don't work. If you think about it; a few seconds with an automated process is unlikely going to give you something to get excited about. I find the originals that you posted quite nice; but the enhanced versions are really "over the top". I find the one Brian added even more so; it looks like the tone-mapped grunge filter that seems to be rather popular amongst some "photographers" who seem to feel that a mediocre image can be made to look special by adding funky effects. This never really works....

[JBW]

. I find the one Brian added even more so; it looks like the tone-mapped grunge filter that seems to be rather popular amongst some "photographers" who seem to feel that a mediocre image can be made to look special by adding funky effects. This never really works....

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.

[JBW]

Another shot from the same trip back in 2012.



Original for comparison.

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?

[Texas Dave]

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!

[Wayland]

Part of my thinking is that the market for "black velvet paintings of Elvis" seems to be much bigger than the market for Landscape photographs.

I found the same phenomena many years ago when I made historical replicas. It didn't matter how good the craftsmanship was or the time you put in, people would only pay what they thought the materials were worth.

I could spend a week making a beautiful authentic iron helmet but struggled to sell it for anything over a hundred pounds.

In a couple of hours I could produce enough simple silver jewellery to support myself for a week, because people's perception of the value of silver was much higher. As a result my profit margin quintupled overnight.

I've never really thought much about marketing my images before but as I get older I suppose I'm starting to think about alternatives to the Viking business.

I've made a bit of pocket money from card sales through the Landscape Photographer of the Year awards but the card market is already crowded with good photographic imagery.

I guess I'm poking around to see if there might be an alternative or niche market somewhere. Kind of thinking out loud.

People see photographs all the time but very rarely buy any. Framing shops are full of prints but few of them are photographic, they are prints of paintings but people look at them and value them as if they are paintings.

I have a good stock of photographic images but no real market for them at the moment.

Although filters are part of this process, they're only the start. There is an important creative input that determines how different layers of detail are blended to make the image, much the same as an artist would build a painting from simple background washes adding detail as the image is completed.

Reducing the photographic detail to render them more like paintings is exactly the point.

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'm searching for a way to access that sort of market which plays to my own personal strengths. I'm not quite there yet in my opinion, but the feedback that I'm getting from outside the photographic world, which tends to be where the market place is, seems fairly positive.