Photography as art

I'm pretty sure that everyone has been to or has heard of "starving artist" sales.  They usually happen on the weekends, are located in the ballrooms of local hotel chains, and offer those huge paintings that take up wall space and can hang behind the couch.  You can actually find some very nice art at these sales at incredibly low prices.

The problem I find, is that the artwork is somewhat impersonal.  Oh sure, a big tree with interwoven branches thrown against a bright sky can be lovely in your family room, but if you ask me, I'd rather have a tie to the artwork that appears on my walls.

With today's technology, photo labs have perfected the art of canvas, and photographs are lending themselves well to being exhibited on this medium.  I actually have taken a number of my photographs and put them on canvas, to be displayed not only in my studio, but also in and around my home.

Sometimes, like in the above photograph, I will embellish a photo with some digital art as part of the editing process.  This pops the image and makes it fun.  In the image below, which was rather a dull photo that I almost deleted from the camera, a little digital art makes it an interesting photo with some colorful patterns on water.

The other day I followed our free-range chickens around with my camera.  It took them a while to get used to me and my camera again, since I didn't follow them around all winter (they hang out in a plush coop and do limited free ranging in the snow--they just don't like it).  Until they were accustomed to the sounds of my camera, some of the initial shots weren't of the quality I normally like to see.  Apparently chickens can hear camera lens motors clicking into focus.  

While they were either moving toward me or moving away from me due to the sounds of that clicking, a few of the photos came out slightly blurry.  I kept the original of the photo below and used some artistic filters on it in Photoshop Elements.  I'm going to have it printed out on canvas and place it in our guest room when I redo the room this spring.  The new wall color will really set it off, and we do, after all, live on a farm--so why not share some of the inhabitants with our guests?  This will personalize the space.

Good photos, on their own, are definitely works of art.  They can stand alone and really don't require anything but some minor touch ups in the edit room.  However, being creative with some of the photos you hang on your wall will definitely make a happy difference in your decorating scheme!