Prague impressions
A digital painting created using Topaz Impression, of one of the many beautiful scenes I found in Prague...
While the majority of my photos are edited in Macphun products, I do like to pop over into Topaz Impression sometimes and get a little artsy!
I have used Topaz Impression since it came out and have always enjoyed it. There's nothing else really like it for creating digital art from your photos. It's fun to experiment with. When I come back from a big trip and edit a bunch of photos, it's inevitable that I will end up converting at least a couple of them to digital paintings in Topaz Impression. If you haven't tried it before, check it out! If you decide to buy it, use the coupon code NOMADICPURSUITS to save 15%! You can find it on the Topaz Labs site here.
Eiffel Tower textured
Here's the Eiffel Tower all textured up and looking cool!
I don't use textures that often, but have started experimenting with them more and have grown to really enjoy them. It really does take a photo in an entirely new and creative direction, which is awesome, and it's also quite fun to experiment with different ideas to see what you come up with.
This is the Eiffel Tower (rather obvious) and I shot it on a gray, overcast day in Paris. Historically, I would convert this to monochrome, or try some of my presets to see about getting a nice color version out of it, even though there wasn't really any color to work with.
But once I started in with a texture, I knew that was the answer. Sometimes it's fun to work on creating something that looks like art, instead of a regular photograph. I think I will do this a bit more often, because I rather like the result! It ended up with a little bit of a vintage feel, which I also thought looked kind of nice!
Street art in Florence
I found myself on a quest while in Florence, Italy - a quest to capture as much of the work by street artist "Blub" as I could find. I discovered 16 works by the artist, so here they are. They all feature either a famous work of art or a famous person (real or imagined), each fitted with a swimming mask. It's a fun diversion from all that other art in the city!
I found myself on a quest while in Florence - looking for street art by someone named "Blub". This is WAY better than Pokemon Go.
I'm a fan of street art (some call it graffiti, or urban art, or a million other things) and find myself photographing it just about everywhere I go. It's always interesting and beautiful. When I was in Florence, I found myself on a bit of a quest, chasing works by the artist known as "Blub".
You see, we spent over a week there, and while the town is amazingly beautiful and full of possibly the best art in the world, you can get "art fatigue" as they call it. You see so many historic and famous works that after a while your brain just wants to melt. Or you need a beer. Or gelato. Yeah, gelato. Florence has the best gelato.
Anyhoo, as I walked around the town I started spotting these works in all sorts of places. Generally they were pictures drawn of a famous person (William Shakespeare, or Santa Claus), or a famous work of art (Mona Lisa), all with a swimming mask on their face. Something about it just got me interested, so I took a photo the first time I saw one.
Then, I saw another one, and another one, and so on. The quest had begun. I ended up capturing the 16 photos you will find here today. And FYI these were all shot with my iPhone. It's always with me, and especially for a quick snap it's hard to beat. And these aren't great shots, just quick snaps of something interesting. I wasn't trying to create art here - it's already art, anyway - but rather just a quick capture of cool street art.
Sadly, in some cases someone had marked on these, or torn them, or otherwise defaced them. I hate when people do that. This is still art and should be treated that way in my opinion. Enjoy it with your eyes, take a photo, and leave it alone people!
So if you find yourself taking a trip to Florence, take a break from the famous art and go on a hunt of a different sort, chasing these also beautiful and interesting works of art, scattered on street corners and tucked away little spots all over the city. It's quite fun and a great diversion from the art browsing you will do in places like The Uffizi.
I sent one of these pics to some friends and told them I was chasing these all over the city, and they said it was like some "high brow" version of Pokemon Go. I don't play that game, but I get the reference and definitely got addicted to this quickly! And it was way more interesting to me.
By the way, I found this artist's Instagram page if you want to follow their work. You can find that right here: https://www.instagram.com/lartesanuotare/
Click any image to embiggen...
Painting a Danish sunset (and a great Cyber Monday deal)
Today's post is 4 images from a marvelous sunset in Copenhagen that I took a while ago, but converted to paintings for your viewing pleasure (and a side-by-side comparison). I think they look pretty awesome. And there's a MASSIVE Cyber Monday deal going on at Topaz Labs, the makers of some of my favorite editing software - click on through for details!
I love using Topaz Impression to create paintings of my photos - and there's still time to get it and all the other great Topaz products on sale!
Hi there folks - hope all my American friends had a wonderful and restful Thanksgiving weekend, and well, I hope the same for everyone else too! I just returned from 2 weeks in France and am making my way through a LOT of photos. A whole lot.
I spent 3 nights in Montpellier (which you can read about here) and then 9 wonderful evenings in Paris! As you have surely heard before (and hopefully experienced for yourself) Paris is just an incredible city. I took over 5000 photos on this trip, 4000 of which came from Paris. The city just begs to be photographed at every turn.
In other words, I have a lot of new stuff to add to my Top Photo Spots in Paris list. I will let you know when it is updated. I'm hard at work on that! And rather obviously, I am going to have quite a few blog posts about France over the coming weeks, so stay tuned!
And since I have been traveling, I haven't had any time to let you know about the wonderful Black Friday and Cyber Monday specials that are out there right now. One of my favorites is the current special from Topaz Labs, makers of Topaz Adjust, Topaz Simplify, and my current favorite, Topaz Impression. (Click those to read my reviews)
The special is this: get their Complete Collection for only $249.99 instead of the regular price of $429.99! That's all 15 products! Whether you are interested in applying stunning photo enhancements or getting artsy and going for unique and creative artistic effects in your shots - this collection is for you! I use their products all the time. I highly recommend this bundle.
So here's the deal - it ends today - Monday, December 1 so if you are interested, check it out!
This link will take you to the Topaz Labs store: http://bit.ly/1HP1CCy
Use the Coupon Code "BLACKFRIDAY2014" at checkout. And please note, the above link is an Affiliate Link, which is a short way of saying that if you use that link to purchase from Topaz, I will receive a small commission in return, which I invest in the ongoing costs of this website, and which helps keep the content flowing for free. However, your price is the same. And honestly, whether you buy it from my link or not, I still recommend you get their software, assuming your budget allows it. It's that good.
Ok, enough about that for now. How about a photo Jim? Ok, here's a whole group of them. I spent a couple of hours shooting an amazing sunset a couple of years back in Copenhagen, Denmark, and always thought it would look good as a painting. So I went into Topaz Impression and did just that! So, below are the "Before" images on the left, with the "After" image on the right, so you can compare the original HDR photo and the painted version. It's all good fun for me, and I will do more things like this with my Paris photos.
(click any photo to embiggen)
Thanks much for clicking by today, and enjoy your Cyber Monday! :-)
Painting Montmartre
Montmartre is a beautiful part of Paris, which is itself a very beautiful city. Today's photo tour of Montmartre is done in honor of the great painters who once roamed the streets here. I took a collection of photos and converted them to digital paintings!
Ah, the cafe life in Paris!
This won't exactly be a newsflash, but I just have to say it: Paris is awesome. There, I got that out of the way early in this post! And it is so true. You hear it so often that it's essentially a cliche now. But that is how things become cliches - they are just plain true.
Paris. Is. Awesome.
But Paris is a large city with a lot of things to see and do (and I have a list of places that are great for photography in Paris - hopefully I can return and add more to it!), and there are a lot of different areas to explore. You really never can see it all, but it's sure fun to try!
I loved the long shadows that the building cast on the street in this one.
I was there last summer with the family for about a week (that would be in June 2013, not this most recent summer - time flies!) and while I have shared some shots from there, I haven't really shared that many. And I do not know why.
It's probably that because of my travels, I am frequently shooting, and when it comes time to process photos, I generally think of the recent ones first. With a lot of trips over the course of a year, you can see how I start to forget about things. I get busy and process a few of the new shots, then move on to the next trip.
Here I liked how "Le Ronsard" is clear but most of the rest of the details are much softer.
Today I am going to correct that a slight bit and get these shots from Paris out there for ya! Specifically, I took all of these one afternoon while wandering around the Montmartre section of Paris. The area is best known for Sacre Couer, but today's shots are mostly just street scenes I came across and found interesting enough to shoot.
Interestingly, I had processed all these shots and had them sitting on my desktop, ready to be posted. But whenever it came time to create a blog post, I kept skipping them in favor of other shots from other places.
In other words, I wasn't inspired by the photos that I had taken.
Sitting at cafes in Paris - it's the life! (though I was busy shooting mostly)
So, I did what I have been doing more and more of lately - I decided to get creative. With the exception of two of these (which two should be fairly obvious I hope!), I processed them in Topaz Simplify so that I could turn them into a sort of digital painting. They became works of art, instead of just photographs. They came to life.
And now, I love them. Thank you, Topaz Simplify!
And by the way, I have a full review of Topaz Simplify here. It's a great product, and I am using it a lot now to bring life to an otherwise dull photo. It really gets me thinking creatively.
This is the HDR photo that I used as the basis for the painted version below...and I liked this one as an HDR...
...and this is how it looks "painted". I like it even better now!
And then you know what I realized? Montmartre used to be the home of some of the greatest artists ever - Picasso, van Gogh, Monet and others. I guess that's why I had never been able to get them off of my desktop and onto the blog. Something was keeping them there. Something kept me from sharing the photos. I guess they just needed to be turned into art.
Funny how things work out, isn't it?
Window shopping in Montmartre.
And in case you are the curious type (like me), I figured I should share at least one photo of Sacre Coeur. This was previously shared here a long time ago, so perhaps you missed it. And then of course, below it is the painted version, since I am in an artistic mood today!
I will have to come back and do another post on Sacre Coeur by itself. It's deserving of course, and I do have quite a few pics of it, as you can probably imagine. Sadly, there is a strict rule of no photography inside (and it's got an INCREDIBLE interior), so all my photos are from the outside. But, that's ok, I still love them.
This one has been shared here before. It's an HDR photo of the facade of Sacre Coeur.
And here is the painted version. It's quite a bit more colorful, but that's half the fun with art, right?
I will end with a quote about art that I really like:
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
- Oscar Wilde
THANKS FOR STOPPING BY AND HOPE YOU ENJOYED THE ART!
Painting Big Ben
Today I share some images of Big Ben in London - that are converted to paintings, using Topaz Simplify. Take a look and let me know what you think! It's been a great app to experiment with!
Have you used Topaz Simplify yet? You gotta try it folks!
There's nothing more fun than getting a little jolt of creativity. Are you with me? When I get inspired, I start creating, and then create more, and it just snowballs. I love that.
But it's not always like that.
I tend to get creativity in bursts. Sometimes I am on, and admittedly sometimes I am off. Lately I have been feeling a little off. I hope it doesn't reflect in things I share here, but it's hard to hide. This is me writing from the heart, and if I am not all fired up about something, I am sure it shows. That's part of being an artist I guess.
Recently, I got myself a copy of Topaz Simplify, which allows you to convert your photos into works of art, whether it's an oil painting, a watercolor, a sketch, or something else. It's very fun, and perhaps more importantly it has inspired me quite a bit!
In fact, I just couldn't stop myself...so I wrote up a review of the product here on the blog and if you are interested, you can read that review here.
So, today's post is a trio of images I previously took in London. I've been there several times thankfully (I love the city) and take a lot of shots when I go. I decided to give some of my Big Ben photos the Topaz Simplify treatment, and that's what you find here today.
Cool, right?
Canary Wharf abstracts
Don't forget to look up when you are wandering in a city like London! There's always something to shoot!
Do you ever shoot abstract architectural shots?
I never really do this stuff, but whenever I see them, I enjoy them and admire the vision of the photographer. These are often eye-catching shots (though I'm not claiming that about my shots here today LOL).
When we walk around in cities, we are mostly always looking ahead to see what we can shoot next, right? I always do that. I am totally guilty of infrequently looking behind me and looking up. But there's so much to see, and I miss a lot of shots because of it.
Well on the day I was out at Canary Wharf in London with my good friend Mike Murphy, we were wandering here and at some point he mentioned how cool it is to shoot "up" these buildings, instead of "at" them. Good advice, my friend.
This section of town is great for this stuff, because all these tall buildings are closely grouped. Makes sense if you think about it, but like I said, I never really do. So, I am going to try and think like this more often, because I like the results. Hope you enjoy them too!
Ferry Building impressions
I love the Ferry Building and tend to shoot it from this same spot on nearly every trip I make to San Francisco. It's just a beautiful scene in my opinion. Consequently, I have a lot of shots that look pretty similar though. But that's ok, because even though I shoot the same scene twice, in reality it never looks the same due to weather and lighting changes.
In this case, it was pretty dark already and this scene tends to sparkle a little more when there is more available light, at least in my opinion. This is an HDR image and when I finished creating the HDR, the overall scene was somewhat "blah". I briefly messed around with it and tried a few other things, but decided it was not going to make an impact. But then I had an idea: how about changing it up and treating this more like an Impressionistic version or a watercolor-type of painting?
So I popped over to Topaz Adjust and went to work. And you know what? Topaz Adjust saved the image for me! Thanks Topaz!
Dreamy Carmel sunset
Sunset on the beach in Carmel, CA is always a great way to wrap up a day. This one was very colorful, which is always nice! For this shot, I went with a little different processing, opting for sort of an Impressionistic look and a dreamy feel overall. It seemed fitting to do so, since I dream of going back!
An eye for the abstract
I feel like you have to really think differently to come up with good abstract shots. It's that out of box thinking that is hard to do though, at least for me. There is so much "do this, do that" in everyday life that sometimes it's really hard to get creative and abstract. Plus, how do you train yourself? It's something I am continually working on, because how do you know you really ever get it? It's sort of an interesting cycle of same-ness we get stuck in, and it's hard to break out of it.
This is a somewhat abstract shot of the London Eye in - of all places! - London. I think that a really good abstract photo makes you see something in a new light, and is even hard to recognize. This isn't one of those LOL! It's just a random, odd view of a very recognizable structure (that is at least if you have seen it live). But, I keep trying to push myself to grow and part of that is trying new views on old subjects. So, just keep clickin' I guess and don't be afraid to change it up!
I also wanted to thank everyone for the visits and comments last week, I really appreciate it! I was on the road at the end of the week, and am just trying to dig myself out of the pile, so to speak. However, while away I did hammer out a bunch of HDR's, so look for some new spots coming soon!
Cafe du Monde, painted
I have been messing around with the painterly effects in Topaz Adjust - if I recall correctly, the setting is called Painterly - Venice, or something like that. Anyways, it's a lot of fun. This is the famous Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans, LA. This is an older photo that I took about 2 years ago while visiting that wonderful town. If you want to see the original version, you can find that here. I don't often go back into the archives to reprocess shots - and not sure you can classify this as a reprocessing since I was going for a different look altogether - but once I started playing with the painterly effects, for some reason this old shot just popped into my mind and wouldn't leave me be until I created this version. So, here it is, and now I can move on to something else!
Also, I absolutely hammered it in Santa Fe today, taking all sorts of shots and witnessed a fabulous sunset to boot. Here's an iPhone shot of the St. Francis Cathedral that I took just a bit earlier tonight:
Pennybacker impressions
The Loop 360 Bridge (aka The Pennybacker Bridge) is a fabulous structure in west Austin which straddles the Colorado River (known as Lake Austin in that part). It's just a beauty, and I have shot it from all sorts of angles over the years. Recently we went out with some friends on their boat, and of course I brought along the Nikon. Once we headed toward the bridge, I knew I was getting the chance to shoot it from a new perspective. It was bright and sunny, as most summer days are here, so the lighting was not optimal. As you can see, I intentionally processed this one with a bit of a painterly effect. The colors are bright (and wrong!) but I thought it was fun. Have a great Saturday and get out there with your camera!
Impressions of China Cove
Ok, one more photo of Carmel and then I will give you a break! In this case, it’s more like an artistic rendering of a photo. I tried to turn it into a painting. I snapped this photo (the one at the very bottom) while at China Cove in Point Lobos State Reserve, just outside of Carmel, CA. That version you see is straight out of the camera. It’s not bad but wasn’t exactly exciting to me. Certainly I could do some things to improve it, but instead I thought it would be fun to get a little creative and mix it up a bit. I have seen a lot of photos turned into these Impressionistic images, and figured I would try it myself. So, here you go! I had never done this before, and frankly I am not much of a Photoshop guy. I do most of my work in Aperture and the Nik Software suite. However, I do have Photoshop Elements for things like this. So I just did a little Google search along with some trial and error, and here’s how it turned out! Kinda fun right?
If you are curious, here’s how you do this:
- Open the image in Photoshop and select Layer > Duplicate Layer
- Select the top/duplicate layer and set the blending mode to Overlay
- On the top layer, select Filter > Artistic > Sponge
- Here I just moved the sliders until I liked the look of it
- Then, hit OK
- Select the bottom layer and select Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur
- I used a radius around 4 pixels
- Then, hit OK
You are done! Afterwards, I messed with it a little in Color Efex Pro, using the Glamour Glow filter to soften it up a little more and give it that little something extra. All told, about 5 minutes work. Pretty fun! Thanks for visiting!
Here's the original, straight-out-of-camera shot, for comparison purposes:
Abstract art
I have come to appreciate abstract shots of random, unrecognizable things. I find them interesting. This is a portion of a sculpture hanging from the ceiling inside a building lobby in downtown Austin. I was on a photowalk with some local Austin photo friends a long time ago, and we stopped and I think we all got shots of this one. It's pretty interesting looking when you walk into a lobby and all this wild, colorful stuff is hanging above you. It's cool, at least to me.