Digital Photo Art – Trees & Leaves

A few months ago, I mentioned that I was playing around with a new technique I called digital photo art that combined my photos with digital collage.  I shared a few pieces with you then, but with travels and all, I neglected to keep up with the sharing.  This set of pieces all have trees and/or leaves in them, making up a nice grouping.

Fallen Leaf

One rainy morning, as I walked from our home to my studio (a major hike of about 30 feet!), I noticed a leaf that had fallen off a nearby bush.  I was first drawn to the rain drops that beaded up so perfectly on the leaf, and secondly, to the color of the leaf, not brilliantly colored, but not completely brown yet.  I decided it would make the perfect image for a photo art piece, including birds migrating for the winter and trees stripped bare of their leaves.

Along the Road

The central subject of this piece is my favorite deserted cabin.  This image was shot before it began its final collapse.  I added some moody background paper and some vintage handwriting.  Whenever I see deserted cabins or other buildings, I can’t help but think of the history thru which they existed, and the handwriting is meant to capture that.

Prelude

Ah, in this image, my cabin has begun its decline.  I also included some distressed looking background, a vintage birth certificate and sheet music.  The title comes, obviously, from the sheet music, but I selected that specific music because I thought it sort of reflected the different preludes we have in our lives.  The birth certificate represents the most obvious prelude – to life.  And, the cabin is in a sort of prelude to final destruction.  I added some paint daubs, coffee rings, bare trees and other digital paint brushes to complement the overall feeling of the piece.  Its complexity makes this one of my favorites.

Silent Song

When we were camping this past summer, we happened to get caught in a very low fog one morning.  The tree in the center of the piece looked so lonely and forlorn against the fog that surrounded it and us.  I added to that an image of some stormy clouds I took a while ago, and then complemented them with a vintage postcard, some specialty brushes, and some butterflies to sort of lighten the mood.  The butterflies also serve to remind us that the darkest days will end, and there is a brighter day ahead.

Time Passes

The background for this piece are two different images of tree leaves in the fall.  The photo in the image was one I took this past summer, of a deserted ranch house on a mesa in northern New Mexico.  Once upon a time, there was quite a settlement on the mesa, but over time, the ranchers left, so that only memories remain.  It just sort of reminded me of how time passes, and one way or the other, we, and life, just end up going with the flow.

Enjoy!



 

Digital Art – Foggy Morning

This morning, on our side of the mountains, the morning was very foggy and misty.  I think it was actually some very low clouds, but the result is the same.  Bright sunshine on the other side of the mountains, and a great photo morning on our side!  I took some of the images I shot and made them into some digital art – take a look!

Along the Road

It’s finally happened.  My favorite deserted cabin, just down the road from where we live, has finally collapsed.  I am very sad about that, but even in collapse, the cabin presented a great photo image.  I think I will still get some great shots during this winter.  It’s not quite flat to the ground, and that lends itself to character type photos.  This piece also combined some paint type background, text and some special brushes, with Photoshop Elements blending tools.

In the Past

When I captured this image, I just couldn’t help but think of the past, and the people who lived in this little cabin in years past.  This cabin is in the small town of Stanley, New Mexico.  One of the ironic things about this town is that, at first blush, it sort of seems like there are almost as many deserted cabins as there are occupied buildings.  Thinking about the past, I decided to create some digital art using this image, a vintage postcard and some painting backgrounds and textures, combined with blending techniques.

Deserted Town

I’m still in Stanley and captured this image of 2 different deserted cabins….kind of like a little town of deserted buildings.  I tried to capture the feeling of old and vintage paintings, text, special brushes and blending tools.  Oh, and I also used layer masks in here – first time ever! – and I really like the effect of it!

Single Sapling

I really like this image, and decided to go with digital art for it.  I think I’ll also do some other technique, but I kind of like the line of the tree to the specialty stamp of the leaves in the upper right corner.  It’s complemented by music, a vintage postcard and some text from a very old dictionary.  It’s not the strongest of the digital art pieces, but it does hold a certain appeal to me.

Enjoy!

 



Photographic Digital Art

I’ve recently started playing around with creating what I’m calling photographic digital art.  It’s a way to take my photographs to a new level, and present them in a totally different way.  Here are some of my initial results –

Brother Albert

This piece has the image of one of the deserted buildings on Johnson Mesa as its base.  The other element is a vintage postcard that I put in as a base.  I blended the 2 layers (postcard and image) to create this sort of surreal effect.

 

FEB 14 1911

This piece gets its name from the date shown on the vintage postcard that is the base.  The image is an old deserted homestead that I created a sort of vintage effect with.  I again blended the layers and then added a cool effect called a light leak, using Photoshop Elements.  I thought it gave the entire piece the feel of a photo taken with an old camera that did, in fact, have a light leak (that’s what did in my first 35mm camera).

 

The Story

A couple of weeks ago, we were in the semi-ghost town of Los Ojos, New Mexico, and I got a great image of the old deserted police station there.  I took that image and converted it to a black & white image and then blended it with a vintage handwritten page.  I thought of all the stories that probably were told in that old station many years ago.  I then added a few elements to add to the dark feel of this piece. 

 

The Birth of History

This is probably the most complex piece that I worked on.  It actually has three of my images in it – an image of grey clouds that I used as some background texture, the small deserted cabin that is not far from our home and one of my favorite subjects, and an image of a spider web woven among the pine tree branches just outside our back patio.  I added to that an old birth certificate, and blended all the pieces together using Photoshop Elements.  I then added some skeleton keys, just because I imagine that those would be the type of keys used to unlock the doors of the deserted cabin.  The name came from my thoughts as to the history of the cabin, combined with the birth certificate.

Enjoy!