The Unfolding of an Image

In this blog I attempt to offer a little glimpse into the technical process involved in creating my photographs. It is a process that continues to develop gradually and organically, and primarily independently of any formal tutoring from anyone. The subject for this blog is inspired by Jearvi, a very talented female photographer with unlimited creativity and a wild imagination, and it dedicates itself to supporting the larger virtual community of photographers I have had the pleasure of meeting online, of which Jearvi is a part.

Perhaps I’ll begin by stating that I have never received any formal training in photography. I am self-taught, mainly through trial and error. I jumped into photography about two years ago, after my closest friend gave me a camera for my birthday. I had always wanted a good camera and was thrilled! I read through the manual and instantly put it to work, experimenting with the camera settings and familiarizing myself with it’s capacities. I reserved hours every week in which to give my undivided attention to my photography.

I seemed to be instantly moved to use my camera as an instrument for my voice. This naturally led to my creating self-portraits. The discovery of the ten second timer on my camera was enough to get me hooked! At first I lacked a tri-pod, so I used stools, counters, and chairs as stands for my camera. When shooting outdoors I usually carried a wooden stool with me, or balanced my camera on fences, or tree limbs! Finally I acquired a tri-pod.

I use a MacBook Pro computer, so when my photographs were uploaded from my camera they went directly into my computer’s photo software: i-photo. There I discovered I could adjust the colors on my images, and play with crops. About a year later, I became excited about what I was creating and wished to share it. I decided I would open a flickr account, though I was not very familiar with what exactly that was! The feedback I received from other flickr memebers proved to be most valuable, as I had unwittingly tapped into a whole network of professional and amateur photographers, eager to support one another. I began to feel as if I were a part of a photography-club of sorts, in which the members all offered one another encouragement, constructive criticism, lessons, challenges and, on rare occasions, even friendship.

Through my exposure to the other photographers on flickr I learned about photoshop and had it installed on my Mac. The potential of what could be created in this “digital darkroom” excited me tremendously! I taught myself to use other artists textures and then began experimenting with creating my own. Paintbrushes and textures opened up a whole new wold to me, as did the techniques required to create a composite image.

On Jearvi’s request, the following is a tutorial on how I create such images. I have chosen my latest image titled “In the Clover”. (There may be more effective, efficient means in which to do achieve this, but this is what I arrived at through my own uneducated efforts.)

First I began by taking this picture of clover growing on my front lawn. The sun was beginning to set behind them and I lay tummy down on the grass and used my zoom lens.

The next morning I took this picture of myself with my tri-pod and ten second timer. The sun was rising behind me.

In Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended I opened the image of the clover as my first layer, or my “background image” and gave it a little color boost. Then I opened the image of my self, and using the “quick-selection” tool I drew an outline around my body. Then I refined the edge, and copied and pasted it onto the background image of the clover and adjusted it's size. I also had to cut and paste some extra clover flowers around and in front of the edge of my dress, to create the illusion that I was standing amidst the little flowers.

I then took three butterfly images and cut and pasted them into the picture in the same way, duplicating them as well, to make a total count of six butterflies. Lastly, I adjusted their size and moved them to the places I wanted them in.

Next, I gave my image an antiquated look by adjusting the color temperatures and tints, favoring yellow.

Finally, I selected my photoshop brush tool and set the tip to 300% size with an opacity of 38%, color black and played around with darkening the shadows and giving the edges somewhat of a vignette look. I did this until I felt I had achieved the look I wanted. The finished creation consisted of a total of ten layers:

I made this particular image on a day I was not feeling well and lay in bed a bit frustrated that I could not go outside. I had that passionate urge to create, so I plopped my computer on my lap and looked for photographs I had already shot the week before, hoping to somehow piece them together into some kind of art. The end result was the image you see above.

I am very new to this, so there may be easier ways in which to do this, but I share with you what I have taught myself thus far, in the hopes that it will inform your own creations in a helpful way. You can see the evolution of my art, if you wish by visiting my flickr photostream. Lastly, I thank Jearvi for suggesting this blog to me and I refer you all to her beautiful photostream for an endless flow of imaginative creations of this type, involving composite images, and lots of original and inspiring ideas! Click here: Jearvi and enjoy!

Butterfly Freedom

Symbols and images are a very powerful means of communication because they can extend beyond the boundaries of particular languages and therefore reach broader audiences. When we create a photograph we speak in symbols and images. Shapes, shadows, flowers, postures, animals all say something. Although different people will interpret what they each see differently, there are always basic archetypes that extend beyond cultures or even time periods. I like expressing myself through such archetypes when telling the visual narratives of my life through the photographs I create. Today I will write about change and it’s symbol, the butterfly, which I portray myself as in one of my self-portraits.

It appears to me that human beings are naturally disposed towards those actions that will allow them to arrive at their goals without much effort. We prefer the smooth roads to the bumpier ones. However, there will always be those goals in life that demand our laborious involvement. In fact, who hasn’t worked hard in order to achieve something they deem valuable in life?

I once read a study that listed freedom at the height of human values, as we all long to be free to design a life of our own choice. Liberty, therefore, appeared as a reasonable prerequisite for experiencing happiness, peace, love, etc. But freedom from what?

I suppose there are many potential sources of oppression in life. There are those that are internally generated, such as destructive and limiting perspectives we create within our own minds. And then there are the many external forces we can all feel restricted by. Oftentimes to free oneself from limitations, change is in order. We change the way we do things in life to achieve different results. If we don’t like a certain aspect of our lives, or selves, we have to make a change somewhere: either externally or internally.

To me, life is about change. With each mastered change we reach a new level of experiencing life. Many people are resistant to change because it is often accompanied by discomfort of some sort or another. We tend to give little value to discomfort, but even designs of nature incorporate struggle and discomfort into making successful changes. The perfect symbol for this is a caterpillar, having transformed into a butterfly, trying to break out of it’s cocoon.

I recall the first time I understood that butterflies need that period of struggling -while breaking out of the cocoon- for their wings to be strong enough to fly. I was sixteen years old and had read it in a book. I marveled at how when scientists helped the butterfly remove the cocoon, their wings remained underdeveloped and useless, leaving them as easy prey to dangerous predators. But when the butterflies were allowed to go through the struggle to achieve their own freedom, they flew high and beautifully afterwords! It seemed to be nature’s way of informing us that uncomfortable,

laborious effort contained a certain value when executing a major change in life. That struggle, oddly enough, leaves us with extra assets we would not had otherwise.

I have had to contemplate such subjects over the last few years as I have been orchestrating major transformations in redesigning my life. I call it my metamorphosis period, as it has somewhat mirrored the way caterpillars turn into butterflies. Perhaps the image feels a bit cliche to many of you, but I have experienced myself going through a series of phases, that, curiously, resemble the same ones necessary for such a change to occur: sensitivity to timing, a period of labor forming the cocoon, then stillness, withdrawal, a hibernation of sorts, growth, a shedding of the old form, then a breaking out involving discomfort, struggle and the building of new strength. Whew!

So here I am, still freeing myself from my cocoon, looking towards spreading my butterfly wings and soaring. My photography has functioned as a recording of my metamorphosis. It also depicts my reemergence into life. I illustrate this in this photograph by giving myself butterfly wings and surrounding myself with lush, fertile grounds. I am not there yet, but this is my vision of where I am headed. It is a powerful symbol I draw from when the fight to emerge from the cocoon leaves me exhausted. It is freedom, and it’s lure is most seductive!