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| ISO 200 | 115mm | f 4.0 | 1/1250 sec |
Good ideas don’t just come naturally. You have to search for them, hunt them down, catch and bag them and drag them back captive. While ideas are a dime-a-dozen, truly good ideas are the hardest to come by and can take years of careful planning, searching, and capturing. The most brilliant ideas have eluded mankind for centuries and have yet to be discovered, but great discoveries are preceded by endless dedication and commitment, and a great deal of time wandering about.
The best ideas reside in some of the darkest places, their faint light casting an amber glow amidst the densely shrouded forms of indistinct flora and fauna. Darting hither and thither amongst these dark formidable figures, their rapid movements and nervous tendencies cause them to be a true challenge to procure, even for the seasoned hunter. Swift feet and a good net, these are true assets to anyone who seeks to catch a good idea.
When you do return with your bag full and glowing with new ideas, be careful not to unleash them all at once. Let them go slowly, one at a time, for once they are gone, they will never return. So many good ideas have been lost or spoiled by carelessness, don’t waste what you’ve been given. Cherish every idea that comes into your possession, do what you can with them, use the opportunity to grow and learn new things.
And don’t worry. If you ever run out of ideas, there’s always a fresh supply of them ready and waiting, all you have to do is go looking…
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This week was really an experiment in a whole different style of image compilation. I really wanted to see what I could do to create a kind-of 3D space composed of individual 2D layers (like you see in a lot of layered paper art projects). The idea was to create multiple flat plains/layers to represent different positions (or depths) in the image. The only way to distinguish the layers and their relative distances to the viewer was through the use of shade differentiation (distant objects are brighter than closer objects) and simulated depth-of-field (objects nearer the point of focus are sharper than objects farther from the point of focus). I must admit that I was quite surprised and pleased with the results of this experiment.
The setting for the image was not exactly an original one. While I was perusing Pinterest looking for inspiration (chasing those ideas), I came across some video game art/design that was rather compelling and interesting. I’m not a gamer, but I was intrigued by the styling of a certain game called LIMBO (see screenshot below). There was something about the simplicity of the monotone mixed with the complexity of the use of shades that caught my eye. It gave me something to ponder and challenged me to create something similar, just to see if I could really do it.
My image was composed of mostly photographic elements (all of the trees were derived from real photographs). It’s amazing how a little blurring, a couple levels and color adjustments, and some fog can really alter the feel of an image. I wasn’t long before my “photo composite” started feeling more like a drawing than a photograph. I did employ the use of some photoshop brushes (notably the grass) to fill in the voids in the image, but the vast majority of the woods are composed of images shot in camera and edited in post.
The bulbs were created in Blender and composited into the scene. I used Photoshop to add the “amber glow” effect. The self-portrait was shot outdoors in the rain (the overcast sky was perfect lighting for this shot), and added to the final image with some small adjustments (namely extending/re-shaping the butterfly net and coloring the bag).
Altogether this was a totally awesome project to work on, and it was cool to see the image work its way from concept to final product. While I probably won’t employ this technique/style in a lot of my work, it’s neat to be able to add this shot to my portfolio and have it checked off my bucket-list of wild and crazy ideas to try for my Dreams Project.
Hope you enjoyed this one and that it encouraged you to look through your sources of inspiration and see if there are any styles/ideas/works of art that you want to replicate. Sometimes trying something new is the best way to discover something amazing. Have fun this week and I’ll be back with more later…
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