Art Photography

Art Photography - creativity in lockdown


Photography can be created in many ways. Traditional landscapes taken in beautiful places often with a tripod; portraiture, taken in studios or outdoors, often with enhanced lighting; action and sports photography, with fast speeds and long lenses; street photography, with discrete cameras; macro photography (at the close up detail level) and drone photography (at the elevated overview level); astro (night sky) photography and many, many more ...

I have been trying a variety of these types of photography, sometimes limited by the equipment that is available at the time. I really enjoy landscapes and details, although I don't have a classical macro lens, I still like to observe the small things in my surroundings.

Lately I have been learning a little about art photography and have tried my hand at ICM (Intentional Camera Movement) and using photo editing software to create art photography too. This has opened up a new area to play in and has encouraged my experimentation and creativity.

Here are some examples of the more arty and creative ideas I have been playing with.

Splash

art photography, photo editing, creative photography, artwork, abstract art
Splash

This image is based on a photograph of trees in winter with some swooping clouds above them. I copied and flipped this image and then combined the two. The sky area seemed too plain so I layered in another winter tree image then played around with masks and shapes and here is the result!

Daisies

art photography, photo editing, creative photography, artwork, abstract art
Daisies


With this image I had a go at scanography, using a photocopier to create unusual portraits of flowers. These have been layered with textured background images and inverted copies of the daisy images.

Seed Head Explosion

art photography, photo editing, creative photography, artwork, abstract art
Seed Head Explosion


I used a variety of techniques to produce this artwork. The main part of the image is a photo of a large allium seed head that I dried from my garden. This image was reflected and then I added a background layer filled with an image of a frozen pond which I then blurred using an adjustment layer. Next I added additional linear colour-filled masks for the squares and blobs scattered through the image.


Blue Splash

art photography, photo editing, creative photography, artwork, abstract art
Blue Splash


This image was created using software on my iPhone, again blending two images with a masked layer. It was an early version of Splash at the top of the post.

River Dane Winter

art photography, photo editing, creative photography, artwork, abstract art
River Dane Winter


This image is a multiple exposure of an ICM image of the River Dane in the background and an image of winter trees in front. I tried different blend modes when I merged these images to get the resulting colours. I also used parts of another image of flocks of birds that I took in autumn.

This 'playing' with layers and masks, colours and blend modes can be done in Photoshop or Affinity Photo, I have also been using a new AI photo editing program called Facet which is my favourite so far.

I hope this inspires you to have a play too, let's create some exciting art photography during lockdown!

Note: This post can also be seen on my photography website blog at


Prints of these artworks are available, please contact me for details.


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