water water everywhere

the winter beach is so fascinating, the delicate colors reflected in the surface of the water contrast with the reality dangerous high surf from winter storms. my photo shows the light playing on the thin film of water over the sand as the wave washes out. the link is to the annual maverick surf competition where they sometimes confront 100 foot faces on the waves!
the detailed story of the most harrowing year yet is told by SF Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/31/MNGQCNS3NM1.DTL
in making this final image i had to return to the beach repeatedly to study the colors i saw. the camera, set on automatic white balance, had interpreted the colors differently than i. and when i first attempted to print the blues shifted darker and even more saturated than i intended. by the time the print came out my memory had faded. so i returned several days in a row at the same time of day so that i would not be influenced by the camera or the printer I i finally got the colors i wanted.

Using Photoshop

This is another of the images i created for the TV of Tomorrow Show. I thought i'd write a little about the process. it was very heavy Photoshopping!
Each image has three main components the model (guess who!) who crawled through a window multiple times, the monitor, and one of my art images. I first had to made fantastic selections to remove the model from the background. I don't use selections in order to place the image in a new background often. It's much more sensitive work than selecting part of an image to make a mask where the edges aren't critical. So i spent hours on it! In the end the best tool was using a paint brush in quick mask. I used my pen tool extensively and it's so much easier to draw well with that. I also had some frustration with selecting the real black screen out of the monitor. I don't have a steady enough hand for those long straight lines so i'd click the paint tool at one end of the screen, and then shift click on the other side to create a straight line between the points. well alot of the screen wasn't really so straight, it has a slow graceful curve to it!

When i brought all the elements into one image i used multiple layers of the art and the model in different blending modes. I created masks for each layer using a combination of gradients for a slow fade in or out and the pen tool for detailed work. In one of these images i used six different layers just for the model! some would be "color burn" or "overlay" but just letting the blend happen on her foot and hand, letting it slip over her shoulder a bit.
finally the forth element is the background. All of them are other art photos of mine. in this one i used a very new early morning blue waves shot to contrast with the deep orange poppy.
So it was fun, great exercise for the OCD side of me!!

I will be in the TV of Tomorrow show!

I'm very excited to announce that my images will be part of the TV of Tommorrow show (link above) being presented by Tracy Swedlow's InteractiveTV Today [itvt] http://www.itvt.com/
I created a series of images for the show about the future of TV. These images tell a story of the future TV which will provide immersive experiences including touch and smell: the breeze on my face, the perfume of the chaparral! Remembering a family photo of us kids staring open-mouthed at the boob tube, capturing the passive TV experience of the 60s, I created the family photo of the future, capturing the immersive experience drawing us into a complete environment!
The TV of Tomorrow Show, March 13th - 14th (Tuesday-Wednesday) in San Francisco, California at the famous Yerba Buena Center for the Arts http://www.ybca.org/ . The event will present the most thorough examination yet of the emerging interactive multiplatform TV space, will also include [itvt]'s inaugural Awards for Corporate Achievement in Interactive and Multiplatform Television. The event will focus exclusively on the delivery of interactive TV on multiple platforms (e.g. cable, satellite, telco TV, wireless, Internet TV, DVRs, handheld devices, iPods, game consoles, etc.). My work will be projected as part of a curated exhibit of contemporary artworks that exemplify the theme, "TV of Tomorrow."
OMG!!! i just checked and the early registration fee is $744.12!!!! Therefore i expect that all of my fans, friends and family to attend. order tickects early!

interactive TV

i recently heard about this show about the tv of the future put on by an organization that promotes interactive tv. my daughter had give an image of mine as a gift to the parents of her girl friend where she stayed over christmas eve. the friends mom is the organizer of the event and the have a juried commutation that results in your art being available for sale at the show. so i submitted a few pieces. now i know how come i don't think of my self as a conceptual artisit! the piece had to be about the future of tv, and had to have a tv or computer monitor in it. so this is one of the pieces. and this is what i said about it:
The future of Interactive TV is more than recording a show and watching it later or playing along with a game show. Even with PS3's technical advances, and even with Nintendo's Wii new motion-sensitive controller, I dream of more! I daydream of immersive experiences including touch and smell: the breeze on my face, the perfume of the chaparral! Remembering a family photo of us kids staring open-mouthed at the boob tube, capturing the passive TV experience of the 60s, I created the family photo of the future, capturing the immersive experience drawing us into a complete environment!