Contemporary Nostalgia-a Process

I am always asked about my working methods, so for this blog, I have chosen a to break a recent piece down to demonstrate how I take an idea I have bouncing around in my head and finalize it using my photography, textures, and digital hand painting techniques to create a photobased digital fine art piece.

However, before I begin, I would like to say that as both a digital artist who has worked in the commercial world as an illustrator and concept designer for the last 12 years and as a photographer, who has studied photography since 1998 in art schools ( Hartford Art School and The Maryland Institute of Art, aquiring my BFA/MAT/MFA) I am passionate about defending both as separate "art forms". I will label all my works accordingly, so as not to take away from either field, nor contribute in anyway to the mass of confusion that exists between those two "worlds."

In my opinion, "Fine Art Photography" should be, photography that is created utilizing methods that mirror what we have been able to do in the darkroom and outside of the darkroom during the film days. The reason being is that the digital arts have been, for the last 20 or so years incorporating elements of the photographic picture within various processes used by digital artists. These techniques have been firmly established as digital art techniques and are recognized as such in the commercial/editorial realm and now within the "fine art world"(as slow as this later recognition has been among the upper echelons of the fine art world, who on the broad spectrum still view digital art with an err of caution and a touch of hokem.)

The fact that we have photographers utilizing extreme techniques that are conventionally used in the commercial/editorial world labeling their work as fine art photography, is adding to the confusion of what digital art is and what fine art photography is. Having said all this, those of us who have been trained in the digital arts world, can instantly recognize a doctored photo. Especially those photographers labeling their work as SOOC or done with "minimal" processing. We know who you are!

Nothing gets me so heated as seeing someone using their Photoshop skills to create a photo manipulated image and passing it off as a SOOC image to the general "gullible" public. Or using digital extremes to elevate a photo into the world of "digital art" but labeling it as "fine art photography."  I also have a major issue with a digital painter using a photo as a base and smudging the crap out of it, doing this doesn't make it a "DIGITAL PAINTING". That is still a photo based digital art piece. A true digital painting is, from start to finish, an image that begins as sketch, as in the traditional form, and is then painted digitally.

There are many shows and galleries now, requesting to see the digital working files and the references used  before accepting images, whether they be digital art or photographic art. Which is WONDERFUL news to me, as I do not want to see either art form lost to each other.

There will be new technology on the market that embeds, like a digital thumbprint, a strand of hexidecimal code into photographic and digital works that will in a sense, store all the information of that image. Meaning any digital art creations, will carry the code of ALL pieces of photography, web found images, and copyrighted images, etc within it! I am waiting patiently for this creation to come to fruition as such technology will greatly help in copyright issues.

The image that I am demonstrating with here, is what I would personally label as Photo based Digital Fine Art and not Fine Art Photography due to the amont of digital processing I used to create it.I created this one quickly, so I don't consider it to be at its best where technical skill is concerned. I created this for this blog.

 

 

The image above, is the main piece I am using for the final photo based digital art piece. My computers are custom built with the best processors I can have (or afford at this point and time in my career), as the only way to truly create print ready digital fine art, is to work as LARGE as possible, scaling and reduction apply to digital art just as it would with illustration and art created by traditional media. If I am creating a piece of work for a 10x10 print size, I generally work with 20"x20" at a MINIMUM of 300dpi, sometimes higher and sometimes larger. The final digital image resulting here, will be 80"x80", roughly over 6.5 feet, because I want the print to be 3.5' by 3.5'!

 

I use Wacom Tablets (Cintiq and Intuous), for final editing and proofing, I use a HDMI cord attached to my large screen TV to go over my image wtih a fine tooth comb. I just have to make sure the color calibration of that screen is similar to  what my computers are set at.  The large screen TV works nice and to be honest, I don't want to shell out 10k or more for a computer monitor that size, I am not a large scale commercial studio, so I have no need for that equipment, but if anyone wants to give me one, I will gladly accept it! On a side note, some of James Cameron's computer screens for the creation of  Avatar cost in excess of 400k.

 

People with limited processing capabilities may work at the 3.5'x3.5' size at 300dpi or more and hope for the best. Or they may work as large as they can at 72dpi 110"x110" or larger. But I have generally found that the larger I work both in DPI and actually image size, the better, tighter, cleaner, the final image is when reduced down to the actual print size.

 

I also want to note, I DO NOT ADVOCATE the usage of ANY commercial print company for the creation of true giclee prints etc, (as in meets the standard for archival and collectible insurance requirements). I use FAA to offer general customers an affordable option to true Giclee prints while offering published prints directly from my studio or if the job is too large, from my favorite fine art printer to the collectors who want a piece that can be registered, insured and handed down for generations. If you are wondering why the upper echelon collectors of the art world don't waste their time on FAA, Cafepress, Zazzle, etc, it is due entirely to the print quality etc. You can look for a blog about how to print true giclees and will be listing some wonderful fine art printers that I recommend for their quality of published prints in the future!

 

will be using the foreground of this image

 

will be using the background area of this image

merged backgrounds but not blended...see the line across the bottom

 

playing with color balance, shadow, of the subject image

still playing and tweaking

 

starting to blend the the two background images together

 

still blending and playing with colors and levels in the photo

I moved the subject image to the created background and decide I didn't like the background

 

I have taken out the distant portion of the background

I added more foreground to play with depth of field

I decided to add hounds from another image I had, what's a Master Hunter without a few of his hounds?



Added more to the sky with cloning and digital hand painting. Also decided to make the sky more "moody".

Tweaked the sky a little more with blue and the photomanipulation part is "done".

Prepping the final photomanipulation to get it ready for the digital art processing with textures and such. Basically playing with color, sharpness, shadow/highlight, grain, etc.

 

I am playing with four textures on top of this image after placing an ochre overlay set at 45%

 

I ran my dream blur action over the piece and applied three more textures to give it a vintage look and tone down the piece. This step is done to personal taste level as some may like the look of the above piece better, especially if they like saturated colors and a sharper look.

Slightly more tweaking of color which you may or may not be able to tell on your screen at this size, watermarked and done! Well, done for now. So in short, this was a rather "quick" example of a photo based digital art piece, which I entitled Contemporary Nostalgia. Centuries old sport and a Master Hunter Checking his Iphone :)