So here are some pictures we took with our new camera of some of the pretty places that are so close to where we live.

Technorati Tags: rural , country , scenic , farms , farmland , flowers

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But I failed to mention color schemes in the process. 

I have found the following to be a pretty good standard for colors.  If the colors appear together in nature, then they will work visually for your project.  Granted, this is a pretty loose judgement, but it seems to work for me.

The color scheme above is entitled Fire Flower, based off of the colors of the following image I took while on vacation earlier this year.

I haven’t worked out how to pull these types of color values out using free software yet such as gimp, but I have found a website that will do it for you. 

By the way, this is the flower I used for that really, really annoying post.

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The following is a series of photographs by Arne Olav Gurvin Fredriksen

These are all photographs taken by me, with minor and major photo
manipulation done by me.

Click the read more below to see more images from this photographic Artist.

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So, I have contracted out this little task to a great friend of mine who I help him with his blog on occasion, Claude Barclay has agreed to be my personal photographer for my artwork.

Claude is a professional photographer here in the central Ohio area and has been doing photography for… well, more years than I’ve been alive. He knows his stuff, and has the equipment to pull it off.

So let’s skip to the finished product, and then we’ll come back to what the process was to get there.

This is an abstract painting I completed awhile ago that is as of yet untitled still.

The dimensions are 24″x48″

Medium: Latex Enamels

The challenge: This is a very reflective painting as it was painted in enamels, so many of my personal attempts at photographing it resulted in weird glares and distorted lighting. I decided I needed a more controlled studio lighting environment for this painting to really be seen correctly.

Here was the first photograph that was taken using a softbox flash unit and a reflective umbrella unit.

One was positioned about 45 degrees above, and the other was an umbrella flash about 15 degrees in front of the painting to the right.

Both glared. But this gave us an idea of what we could and couldn’t do to get this particular painting to really show itself off.

Next, we decided to go a little more simple and just used one softbox at about a 15 degree angle about 3 feet above the painting. This brought out a lot more color, but that stupid glare still showed up.

So, as with most things that glare, changing the angle is usually the best way to accomplish getting rid of it. Here I am holding it at an odd angle to minimize the glare. (saves us time in moving lights to test it out this way). This worked, but the angle was wrong and I don’t want myself in the picture of course.

almost there…

We also decided that we needed to brighten things up more.

Lighting is like so. One softbox unit is almost directly over the painting (it’s not far enough back yet to get the glare off, but it’s closer)

A second softbox was bounced off the rear wall of the studio to give the painting more of a foreground look rather than just blending into the background. (which by the way is a black background paper and an easel covered with a black cloth)

This second softbox really helped out the overall look tremendously. The umbrella flash is no longer being used at this point either.

Here is the final image. Colors are vibrant, image is centered, glare is minimized.

We moved the top softbox directly over the painting minimizing glare and bounced the other softbox off the back wall. This gave us the gallery look we were going for.

Update: if anyone is interested in buying this painting, contact me at william@b5media.com

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if you want to view more, click here

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I’ve been hoping to write this post for a long time now and today it has finally come to pass. Darren Rowse, the Problogger himself, has brought Digital Photography School to b5media.

Digital Photography School – a website with simple tips to help digital camera owners get the most out of their cameras.

While it’s exciting to have Darren joining the ranks in the Arts and Design channel, he is bringing an amazing blog and community with him too. There is always something exciting happening around b5media.

Welcome to Arts and Design Darren!

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Here is another submission to you, entitled “Swimming in the Mist”. I hope you like it.

I captured this image with my Nikon D50 on the eastern shore of Pewaukee Lake. Taken in the early afternoon, this depicts early Spring and also features a “battle” between the Sun and the clouds, with a lone duck the only witness, it seems.

I used Photoshop in post-production to help the mood, highlighting the ray of sunlight shooting through the clouds.

If you would like to be featured on Artist Hideout please see how you can submit your work here.

Post from: Artist Hideout