Any Fine Art Landscape Lovers out There?

Well, if there are you ought to get busy looking at Gary Love's Photography!

Gary Love is a local artist who travels the world in search of nature's beauty in it's raw and pure state. He passes on that beauty to the world in flawless photography. Gary delivers nothing better than the finest of quality in every masterpiece he creates. I've seen some of his work in person at my Aunt Tina's home and was frozen in front of the glorious perspectives this wonderful artist is able to capture. I have two favorites of his from inside my Aunt Tina's home.

The first is "Born to Run" and the second is "Purple Haze".

When browsing Gary Love's Photography make sure and click on each photo to hear in Gary's own words how each fine art masterpiece came to life and his views on them. I couldn't believe what happened to him right after he shot the "Simple Twist of Fate" photograph.

The book cover shown above is titled "Artist of the West". It was a juried coffee table book for Western artists only. Gary Love has four pages in the book as well as one image on the cover titled "Break on Through" (panorama aspens). More on his published work here.

Gary Love's fine art collections are sold as Limited Editions in series' of 300.

If you see one you love you need to move fast. What's not to Love?
Each piece brings you in and grabs hold of your very soul.

Tranquility

nothing DULL about this one

For All You History Buffs

Clickiddiedoo if you choose. A cool time line here and some more interesting details such as the world's first photo here!

Nature Finale! (Maybe)

Whew! Are you as tired as I am? It's been a journey this week...I haven't shot this much of one thing-ever! I'm finding I kind of like it...

I think we all should take a fresh look at the things around us and appreciate the wonders they are...including the wonders we are!

I would go into detail on each of these, but I'm on my way to Vegas for the annual wedding & portrait convention. I hope to be able to share with you all the great things I learn while I'm there...and put them into practice in the coming months.

Beauty is all around us...in nature, animals and people...all you have to do is be open to finding it!

Enjoy your week! :)

Nature Part 4 (The Heavens Above)

The past few days I focused in on some small things in nature...this time I'm expanding to some of the largest wonders of nature...

Shall we start with the sky & clouds and the enormity of it? It's awesome when you think of it...the size alone. The shapes of the clouds is a whole different subject.

I decided to shoot the sky & clouds when I went outside today to do one of the days many mundane tasks and I was practically knocked over with the amazing beauty all over the sky above me-in every direction! This first one was taken of the sky and clouds above my very own home.












Then I went to an area about 5 minutes from home where I knew there were mountains and greenery surrounding. I was able to get the next few shots there. I really like this one b/c the clouds
seem endless the
way they are
climbing towards
the sky.












This next group of photos are a little more dark in contrast which gives
them a mysterious and spooky feel to them.




There were so many more great cloud photos-I just can't share them all today. Maybe I'll share them another day. Come back tomorrow and see the finale of my nature expedition!

I think there is rain on the way...hmm...how did I guess?!


My manipulation for this series...

"It's a Stormy World"

Nature Part 2 (Echoing Flowers)

So... I promised more nature and here it is! I finished editing the bright flowers and came up with some unique images to share. I placed the group of flowers (I believe there were 5 total) behind a single flower in order to get more color into the photo. I tried to do this without losing any of the wonderful reflections of the main flower. You will see that the background is blurred out which is called "bokeh" in photography terms. This technique isn't as easy as one might think and can take lots of practicing to get just right. This first photo has so many neat things going on. It has all the different colors in it, a great reflection of part of the flower and the wonderful flower bokeh in the background. I was super happy with this image. The next images will be a photo manipulation that I've made from this original photo.

This look is attained by making a mirror image of the same flower in the first image. Because the flower has the dark circular center it creates a look of "eyes" in the second image when mirrored. I think this photo looks like an insect and it has a feel of being made out of tissue or origami paper because of the petals looking like they've been folded and carefully crafted to make the mini creature. Some people won't like my manipulations, but I find them to be fascinating and fun to create...you should try playing with your photos this way too!




This image here is simply
straight off the camera.












This next image is yet the same photo, but turned into a "painting" style finish. The colors were enhanced a little by adding in more contrast to the photo. I think it gives it a very unique look and can be used as a great piece of art if printed onto the right material-such as canvas or linen textured high grade photography paper.













On to a different image all together. This next flower is actually one that I posted yesterday as the third image down on my blog. I wanted to show you how much you can do with a single image. It can have so many different looks. I basically used a one step editing tool to "punch" the image. What that means is the images becomes enlarged some and almost pops out of the photo. That's all I did...and you see it's so different from my previous post of the same flower! You can also "pinch" images to make them shrink backwards into the photo. I only encourage using these techniques when shooting objects or flowers. It doesn't work that well on people because it may make them look distorted.

This last flower is a twist on the previous one. It looks like I just converted it to a black & white photo, but that isn't the case. I used a special combination of effects to remove color from the photo while increasing the contrast and at the same time creating a "hot spot" within the photo. This is basically a more in depth way of brightening certain parts of a photo. So in the photo you will notice the flower is bright while the reflection is dull and barely noticeable. I sometimes find that creating several different versions of the same image-in this case-a flower, works well for collages or groupings to hang together as art.

That's all for now. Check back to see some wild dandelions tomorrow!

Just The Beginning of Many More Blog Posts To Come!

Thank you for joining me for my very first photography blog! I'm excited to be here and to be able to share the unfolding of my life's work with you. Check back often to see what's new...and feel free to leave a comment on any blog you find interesting. The following photo is a newer photo from about two weeks ago. I took it at a lake near my home. I have been calling it Midnight Waters. You will find that I name a lot of my photos-especially landscape or artistic pieces. Please subscribe to my blog to get future updates.