Blog Archive

Photography as Art

This image of an abandoned railroad bridge in upstate New York is an example of a stylistically-modified camera image. The picture was originally photographed in color of course. Reviewing the image later in my studio, I decided that a black & white image would better capture the lonely, abandoned spirit of the bridge much better than color would.

More succinctly, my using black & white for this image focuses the viewer's attention on the isolation and timeless nature of the bridge without the visually less directed character of a full-color view.

In processing the image, I applied high contrast adjustments, and image sharpening to make the bridge and surrounding foliage crisp and stark.

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This "fence" image is a derivative digital art production. In camera, the image was ordinary, though with obvious potential as a reference for creating a digital painting.

Choosing to create a digital painting using the photo as a reference, I selected the incredibly flexible and complex watercolor mode in Corel Painter 11. Of course I could have painted the piece in conventional physical watercolor, but digital is my medium now, so that's where I went.

Robert Wilkinson, LibertasImages.com, 2011