Ink Paintings

I did four ink paintings (artist references in sketchbook) of my landscape shots that I have so far and really like them. I did them to develop the idea of painting on Photoshop, because I would like to maybe do, for my book, a photograph of the place of the story, then an illustration of the story on the opposite page. I will try to overlay them over the originals in Photoshop next.

Another Tim Marrs Inspired Image

I love this image as the text is very effective and sums up the legend of the mermaid at the pool. I'm not sure on the brush strokes on the top right corner though...

Experimenting With Painting in Photoshop

I like the effect of the painting in Photoshop layered over the original image, it reminds me of this image:

http://goblinhood.deviantart.com/art/Sir-Gawain-and-the-Green-Knight-360182123

This is what the painting layer looks like not over the original:

I tried to do the same painting effect with this image but I really don't like it, it looks awful, definitely not as effective as on the Lud's Church image.

More Eerie Landscapes Inspired by Matthias Heiderich

I really like the way these images turned out, I used the same techniques as the first ones I did, but I used layer masks to prevent the bench in both images from going too dark because I wanted the bench to be a focus point. I think this works really well as it creates a lonely eerie atmosphere.

Editing and HDR Toning Experiments

In these first two images, I brightened the foreground using layer masks and levels, i made the vibrance higher, and I really like the way they turned out, however, in the second image, I didn't realise at the time, that the sky at the top was completely burnt out...

In these next two images, I tried using the HDR Toning effect in Photoshop and I love it, especially the first one. It improves the whole image, the brightness and vibrance and overall effect. I will experiment more with this effect in the future.

Fibonacci Sequence

It is pronounced as Fi-Bon-na-ci.

In Mathematics it is a sequence number
0. 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144 ….

HISTORY

Also known as the Golden Mean, Phi, or Divine Proportion, this law was made famous by Leonardo Fibonacci around 1200 A.D. He noticed that there was an absolute ratio that appears often throughout nature, a sort of design that is universally efficient in living things and pleasing to the human eye. Hence, the “divine proportion” nickname.

Since the Renaissance, artists and architects have designed their work to approximate this ratio of 1:1.618. It’s found all over the Parthenon, in famous works of art like the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, and it’s still used today. The divine proportion has been used by companies like Apple to design products, it’s said to have been used by Twitter to create their new profile page, and has been used by major companies all over the world to design logos. It’s not talked about in most photography circles because it’s a somewhat advanced method of composition and can be confusing to a lot of people. It’s so much easier to just talk about the “rule of thirds” because it’s exact, precise and easy to follow.

This ratio can be used in many ways to compose a photograph. Lightroom 3 even has a golden ratio overlay option when you go to crop on image. This way, you can line up a grid of the golden ratio to coincide with lines or points of interest in your photograph. At this point, you may be quite confused. If you are, please take a few moments to watch any one (or all) of these videos that seek to explain this ratio.

When you take the sweet spot of the Fibonnaci Ratio and recreate it four times into a grid, you get what looks to be a rule of thirds grid. However, upon closer inspection you will see that this grid is not an exact splitting of the frame into three pieces. Instead of a 3 piece grid that goes 1+1+1=frame, you get a grid that goes 1+.618+1=frame. Here are a few examples a Phi grid placed over some images that I’ve used it on in the past…

http://www.eidetic.me/fibonacci-golden-ratio/

I find this article and concept very interesting so I will experiment with the Golden Ratio/Fibonacci Sequence in my photography.

Lightbulb Moment

Just had a really long chat with Gwen about careers and university and what I want to do because I was torn between photography and painting. She asked me if I was told that I could do photography but never paint again, how I'd feel. I said that I'd choose painting. And if I could paint but never do photography again, I'd paint. I just love painting, I love making people go "wow" and speechless. 

I wanted to do photography because I felt as though the money and job prospects would be better and easier. But I've been told that if I love something an am passionate about something then the money will follow. 

But now what do I do? Do I change my project slightly so I can paint? Or do I stick with photography? Then after this course what do I do? Do I try the hnd in art at Stoke college? Or do I apply late for a degree? Or neither?