Before/Afters

It’s been a tad quiet over here in blog-land, this past week has been quite busy with all sorts of random things on the go, but hopefully over the holiday’s I’ll be putting up a few more tutorials and posts!  In the meantime, I’ve put together a few before/afters of some of my recent images. I have a terrible habit of deleting images from my camera to save space  so I don’t tend to keep a lot of the before photos….must get in the habit of doing that!

All of the before images are before I’ve done the expansion, adding in about 10-20 more images to expand the frame and get more space to work with.

 

Extra Extra Read All About It!

About a month ago I had a nice interview/conversation with a reporter from my local newspaper. I’ve done short interviews over email but never face to face so I was a tad nervous but excited about the possibility to have my name and images in print. I waited and waited but the article didn’t show up, until today that is!

Let me just say that I am beyond surprised that it’s an entire page and that it is so wonderfully constructed! My town can sometimes focus heavy on the sports (hockey) and light on art so it’s amazing to see such a prominent article (I even made the header of the front page!) I’ve linked the image so that you can read it on the larger size, but I’ve also typed up the interview below

p.s. on an unrelated note, I am BLOWN away by the support and enthusiasm by my leaf tutorial. It’s been so amazing to see the beautiful creations that have come out of it and I am hopefully going to have another one up soon!

Happy reading!

 

(from the Cranbrook Daily Townsman)
Up, Up and Away with Joel Robison
by Annalee Grant

Joel Robison sometimes finds himself weightless, suddenly inspired by something that caught his eye. His body distorts into a seemingly impossible position, inverted over the Cranbrook Community Forest, and strange images emerge from the ground. This isn’t real life, though. This is Joel’s impossibly beautiful conceptual self-portraits playing out on a Photoshop document. What was a hobby has turned into a part-time job for the budding photographer, who spends two to three hours each day turning simple ideas and quirky thoughts into digital imagery that is slowly gaining an international cult fan base online.

“I’m a visual learner,” Joel says. “I really like to see pop culture kind of flipped around.”
Joel has never been taught how to use Photoshop, but simply learned through trial and error; anyone who has tried to self-teach the program knows this is a  daunting idea. When Joel was in high school he learned about film photography, not digital, but it seems he has adapted well.”It’s like learning to paint,” Joel says of the program. “The opportunities are endless.”

Endless, just like the worlds Joel has created from familiar scenes in the community forest, which is a short walk from his Cranbrook home. Joel is his own model, photographer, graphic artist and public relations person – and he likes it that way.”It’s kind of like my time to be in my head,” he said.

To build an image, Joel sometimes takes hundreds of photos before he’s satisfied. The shots where he’s floating in the air are sometimes made up of many different images all patched together, with objects he is leaning against cut out. He uses a hand-held remote so that he doesn’t have to run between the camera and the scene, and get into position before the shutter releases. “I don’t have to worry about running back and forth” he said. Joel enjoys showcasing the natural beauty of the scene around him and loves that the community forest is just a short walk or bike ride away from his house. “It’s a perfect place to take photos.”

Joel uses inspirations that are close to home. Throughout his childhood, Joel says his family encouraged reading and he grew up loving Disney characters. Images from books and popular literature appear in his art. In one image taken in Joel’s living room, Kermit the Frog sits next to him on the couch. In others, Joel rides a broom with a Gryffindor scarf, chasing after the golden snitch just like Harry Potter. “I enjoy reading,” he says. “Books are like an escape.”

Ideas that Joel uses can be simple, from sometimes on the table to a more profound idea. ”What if I made that cup really big, or really small?” Sometimes Joel takes on the world, and uses his favourite quote of all time to speak his mind. “You must be the change you wish to see” appears in many of his images”

The idea to use himself as the subject of his photos came out of the 365 project, a photography challenge that asks people to take a picture of themselves everyday to document small moments in their life that would otherwise be forgotten. The goal is learn how to use a camera and document life faster than with a blog or diary. Through the 365 project, Joel has managed to build a fan base and has launched pages both on Facebook and Flickr for his photography. Word of mouth has been spreading, and Joel’s been contacted by international photography magazines for interviews that have further lifted his burgeoning career. “I’ve been really fortunate,” he said.

What Joel hasn’t done much of since launching his photography online, is local promotion. He is branching out into some freelance work and hopes to someday turn his hobby-turned part-time job into a career. “It’s a hobby, so anything above it being a hobby, I’m open to try,” he said.

When he’s not out snapping photos in the community forest, Joel is an education assistant at Mount Baker Secondary School who works with students with special needs. The job itself is a constant source of inspiration and creativity for his images. “It’s a great opportunity to be creative, it’s a perfect fit.”

To view Joel’s images, visit his Facebook page, Joel Robison Photography.

Playing With Leaves Tutorial

I’ve been planning this tutorial for a few weeks, ever since I took the last of my “leaf” images.

 

I saved all the different photos that I took for that image and decided that I would just use the same base photos to do another image, this time explaining how I did it. The same method applies to all the other leaf photos I’ve done, but if you have any specific questions please feel free to ask. Hopefully I can explain myself in a clear enough way!

Step 1:

Your photo! Here is the base image that I’m using (without the leaf for now). This image in itself is composed of 9 different photos stitched together to give a bigger canvas to work with. You don’t need to do that if you’re trying this out, but I did since I like lots of space. Aside from adding the images all together, this is straight out of the camera.

Step 2:
Adding the leaf. In theory you could use almost any thing leaf-like for this kind of image, like a piece of paper or fabric or even a feather…anything that is flat and would be able to disperse. I had a few different leaves to choose from, but I went with this one and just pasted it on as a new layer. It’s important to have your leaf or paper on top of the base image as a new layer, don’t merge anything until the last step!

Step 3:
This is where the fun part begins! For this image, I’m using a butterfly brush but for the other ones, I used bird brushes and leaf brushes. This is the creative part where you can choose what silhouette you want to use in your leaf. You could have a tree, a balloon, a cityscape…it’s up to you! You can easily find brushes of almost anything (try DeviantArt).

The first part of doing this step is to pick the brush that you want to use and then choose the clone stamp tool.    Select a sample of the leaf ( pressing alt and clicking on the part of the leaf you want to sample) then you point to part of the image you’d like to see that butterfly shape appear and just click your mouse. You should get a butterfly with a leaf texture. Now, using the eraser tool select the same butterfly brush and click the mouse once on the leaf to erase a clear butterfly shape. 

 

Repeat this step using a variety of brushes and sizes. For this image, I did the cloning first and then went back and deleted the sections of the leaf. You can do as many or as little as you want. I always make sure that, using the eraser tool and the brush that I’m using, I erase the edge of the leaf,  leaving little details like parts of wings. I also use the blur tool on low opacity just to soften the edges a bit.

(this is before erasing the butterflies from the leaf)

Step 4:
It looks pretty good even at this point but it needs a little bit of extra pop to give it the impression that the butterflies are actually coming alive and leaving the leaf (ha!) I looked through my brush collection and found  this brush set (from deviant art) that is a set of paint splatter brushes. I tried it on a little bit of the leaf and it looked neat. I used the same technique as the butterfly step. Using the clone stamp tool, I used these splatter brushes (on a small size) and cloned the leaf texture near the edge of the leaf to make it appear that the leaf was breaking apart. You could use smaller butterfly brushes or other brushes if you like, I just thought that this worked pretty well.

 

 

 

Step 5:

The hard part is over, now you can tweak it to your liking! All I did for this after the brushwork was increase the contrast and brightness a bit.

 

I hope that made sense, if you decide to try this out I would love it if you leave me a comment or message so that I can see!

365 – A year In Photos

Today marks a strange day in my life. The first day in the past year that I don’t need to pick up my camera! For the past 12 months I’ve been working towards completing a 365 self-portrait a day challenge and yesterday I quietly turned my camera off and took a deep breath. It was like that feeling that you get when you finish a great book or get to the top of a mountain and you know that you’ve finished something really great. 

Now, it’s not my first 365 project…not even my 2nd, this was my 3rd project and I really think that the saying “third time’s a charm” really applied to this past year’s go around. I started the project with a bit of apprehension as I didn’t know if I would have the brain power to do another year of images and knowing that I’m extremely hard on myself and that I would finish the project no matter what. What followed after that first image was a year of amazing experiences that I’m so proud of and thankful to have been able to have happen. Never would I have imagined that I would meet so many beautiful kindred spirits, or that I would see my face on the cover of a magazine, or my work on a CD cover, or have people appreciate my work as much as they have. I’m humbled by the opportunities that have popped up in my world in the last year and I am so excited to see where my life will go in the next year and beyond.

 

The idea of a 365 project isn’t new, nor is it original but it is such an amazing chance to not only learn more about photography but to learn more about yourself as well. I’ve been asked (or had comments) regarding self-portraiture and 365 projects as being narcissistic or self-absorbed but it’s not like at all. Photographing yourself everyday for a year is a lot harder than you might think, there are days that you feel ugly, days that you feel tired or angry and you have to shoot through that. It really is an exceptional opportunity to learn about photography about how to create new ways to present yourself, your views and your artistic vision.

 

In the course of my journey through photography I have come to not only accept myself for who I am, but appreciate what makes me different. Before I began these projects, I truthfully had a hard time looking in a mirror or a photos of myself because I didn’t like the person that I saw. I remember one day a few years ago, finally looking at myself in the mirror, eye to eye and I realized that it had been so long that I had actually looked at myself that I didn’t even know the last time I had. Maybe it does seem a bit narcissistic, but for me working on these self-portraits has given me an opportunity to see myself in a new light, to appreciate myself and to be proud of myself. I’ve struggled with self-confidence for most of my life and this journey that I’ve been on in the past few years has really helped me to overcome my negative self-talk and to try to set a new course for myself.

I tend to be a perfectionist around certain things, when I sign up for something I have absolutely every intent on finishing it. I have a slightly intense competitive side which I think helped fueled my dedication in completing this project! At one point I was training for a marathon, running races each weekend, working full-time and still managing to post an image a day. Depsite the fact that my brain was being pulled in so many different directions, I felt inspired (I thrive in chaos, which you’d know if you saw my desk) and I loved the challenge of meeting all my goals.

I really appreciated the opportunity in the last year to get a chance to share my views, my imagination, my passions, my anger, my fears, my goals. I tried not to take myself too seriously and to have fun (which didn’t always happen!) and I really just wanted to put a tiny footprint in the world, a little chapter of hope, peace, love into the big world book. A 365 project is a chance to write a story, give a glimpse into a year of your life and begin a story that doesn’t necessarily have an ending.

I can say with almost certainty that I won’t do another 365 project, I feel that the need to post an image everyday has passed and that I want to work on a slower pace to create my images. There were a few frenzied days where I literally ran home from work, torpedoed through the house to gather my stuff and sprinted out into the wood to work on getting the images I had in my head, I won’t miss those days of feeling like time was running out and I was scrambling to finish on time (reminded me of waiting until the last-minute to write an essay!) I am looking forward to working on new projects, I have a few ideas for some series of images, and I am hoping to start a 52 week project in the new year which will give me an opportunity to keep a schedule. I know that the book is long and that this 365 was just a chapter and there are many more to follow.

With all that said, I really appreciate and I’m humbled by the support that I’ve been given by you through flickr, facebook and now this blog. You make it easier to stay committed to this and to challenge myself. I am inspired by your kindness, your passions, and your art.

Dreams

This may not come as much of a shock to you, but I’m a big time dreamer. Not just at night, when my eyes are closed and my brain takes over, but all day long!

I think I’ve always been the kind of person that was perfectly content being by myself. While my brothers would be off playing basketball or hockey, I would be inside drawing or reading or playing with lego. I think I didn’t mind being alone because I enjoyed being inside my own head, day dreaming. Dreams and one’s imagination are so close to each other that I think (at least for me) that they are almost exactly the same, I think that because I was such a dreamer growing up, my imagination and creative side of my head remained wide open instead of shutting down when I got to high school or into adulthood. There’s a quote by Neil Gaiman that really sums up the connection between dreaming and imagination and creativity: 

 ”You get ideas from daydreaming.  You get ideas from being bored.  You get ideas all the time.  The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it.  ~Neil Gaiman”

I think that it’s totally true. Ideas come from thinking, but not just thinking in constructed time but when your mind is wandering. When I was younger I had a paper route that would take me about an hour to walk through each day after school. That hour was almost entirely filled by daydreaming while I walked. I remember dreaming up this scenario in which I found a calculator type device that printed out money, I must have spent a few days dreaming up all the stuff I was going to do if I ever had that calculator!

Every so often, I’ll get a message on Flickr or Facebook from someone that asks me where I get my ideas for concepts. I feel like it’s a bit of a dumb answer to say “my own imagination” but it’s true. Typically I start daydreaming and my mind will just wander from thought to thought, almost like a bumblebee going from flower to flower until I find that one image that fits what I want to do.  The best time it seems, for ideas to come into my head is either when I’m just about to fall asleep and there’s a relaxed environment for me to start dreaming or while I’m running. I think my creativity is in hypermode when I’m able to get outside and run, that’s when my brain just turns into “running mode” and can dream away while my legs do their thing, it’s strange but it works! Even in the winter or when the weather isn’t so great, if I just suck it up and go  for a walk I feel such a sense of clarity that I start daydreaming within minutes.

I wish that my night time dreams were as vivid and had as much productivity as my daydreaming but unfortunately it seems like I dream of rather boring things at night. Typcially I find that I dream mainly of people or events that occured during my day, but nothing really crazy or whimsical seems to happen in those dreams. I try to analyze them a bit when I wake up but there doesn’t seem to be much there, maybe my brain is just so busy during the day that it goes into boring mode while I sleep!

 

What are your dreaming experiences like? Do you daydream?

The Sarah Slean Experience

This is going to be a bit of self-indulgence post as I’ve just returned from an AMAZING concert from my absolute favourite artist, the lovely miss Sarah Slean.

Have you ever had a favorite singer or musician, or author for that matter whose work becomes not just music or songs or lyrics, but they become intertwined into your own life fabric? Like the notes and words and emotions are tiny threads that woven into your heartbeat and your pulse? Sarah Slean’s music is that for me. When I hear her play, it’s like there is a part of my heart and mind that opens up just for her.

Here’s a back story:

Almost 10 years ago exactly, I was in 12th grade and suffering from either insomnia or stress and couldn’t sleep. While the rest of my family was tucked into warm beds, I poured some cereal and flicked on the TV, not expecting much to be on at 2am. In a moment of luck, or maybe fate, I happened to catch a repeat of a Canadian talk show. Normally I wouldn’t pay much attention but there happened to be this beautiful, pale skinned singer playing the most beautiful song I had ever heard. I was transfixed.  Now this was the age before YouTube and Facebook and I tried to find out more about this Sarah Slean but not much existed, in my half sleep/half awake mode I emailed the only address I could find, Sarah herself asking her when her CD would be released. A day or two later, I received a short but cute note answering me.   The connection had begun!

 

 

I picked up the CD the day it came out and I must have almost melted it in my stereo I played it much. Nightbugs was the name and it remains one of my favorite albums. A few months passed and I found out that she was going on tour, stopping in Banff, not too far from me. I coerced a friend to come along and I had no idea how amazing that first concert would be.  It’s funny the connections between that first show and the one I just attended. Both in sleepy snowy mountain towns, both very intimate in a heritage building with candles and beer flowing. That first concert was incredible, the band and Sarah played beautifully and just when I thought it couldn’t get better, we ended up backstage on the green room couch laughing with the band like old friends.

There have been many more concerts and several albums, but I don’t think that I could have ever thought 10 years ago that I would have had so many memories and key moments in my life thanks to one artist. A few years ago I ended up winning a contest to attend her art gallery opening in Toronto and through the beauty of friendship (friends I made through her website no less) I found myself flying to snowy Toronto and eventually standing in a fancy art-gallery shoulder to shoulder with some of Canadian music’s finest,  and having to pinch myself that it was real.

 

Fast forward to tonight, another concert in a snowy town. When Sarah steps on stage it’s like watching an old friend. She is as talented and beautiful as that first television broadcast at 2am and I find myself taking in as much as I can in the few hours she plays. After the show, she hangs out by the merchandise and if I thought seeing her play was like an old friend, than this is something even better. She gives a huge hug and knows me by name, asking how I’m doing and how nice it is to see me again before I can even get out a word. We talked for a while about many things; running, working, the beautiful mountains and snow that surround us. After we say goodbye and I thank her for an amazing performance, I find myself once again reeling with music inside my body.

I set back out into the cold mountain air, seeing my breath before me, hearing my shoes crunch on the snowy concrete and I smile for I am lucky to be exactly where I am right now.

Do you have a musical artist that evokes that passion inside you? If so, who?

The Seasonal Photographer

Yesterday, just as I was drifting off to sleep I started thinking about what I would write about for my next blog entry. Various ideas and words floated in and out of my head but I fell asleep before coming to an answer. This morning, when I looked out the window before heading off to work, I got my answer! Snow! Well, seasons in general!

Like I stated in my previous post, I live in a beautiful part of the world, the Rocky Mountain Trench, to  be more specific. Now having the mountains as a backdrop is one thing, but LIVING in them is another! Today, while watching the snow drift and pile up outside, I started to think about how photographers have to adapt to their surroundings. Sure if you have a studio, and you’re more a portrait photographer the freezing temperatures or rain storms might not have an impact on your work, but for those of us who use natural light or minimal setups, it’s all part of the process to incorporate whatever Mother Nature decides to throw our way.

When I look back at some of the ridiculous things I’ve done, all in the name of photography and to “get that shot”, the list is pretty long and a lot of it centres around the weather. I’ve strapped on my snowshoes and hiked into the woods for a few hours to get to “the spot” that I needed to use as a backdrop. Frostbitten fingers, numb noses and shoes encrusted in snow and ice may seem like painful side effects of a photography hobby but in the long run they’re really just tiny parts of a longer journey that help to make us not only heartier photographers, but for me, they help me appreciate being warm, having a fireplace to return to, a mug of hot coffee and a cozy pair of socks.

There is something really inspiring about getting out there and really seeing, feeling, experiencing the seasons. Using the changing colours, trees, skies to add depth and relevance to photos. For me, I love seeing how the same space can be transformed from January to December. The same field can be a barren expanse of white, then it can be filled with 6 foot clover and wild flowers before turning into a golden sea of wildgrasses. The natural lighting changes, the tones all change and for me, it’s cool to be able to not only experience it but to capture i and witness the changes through the camera lens.

 

For me, photography tends to be an organic experience (even if it is digital). It’s about using my surroundings, incorporating as much of the natural world as possible into the photos I want to create and when the seasons change I feel a surge of inspiration in the changes happening in the environment around me.  As much as I love the extended shooting hours that summer brings, I love the vivid colours of spring, the warm lighting in autumn and the stillness that winter can bring to an image.

What is your favourite season to shoot in?

The “i” Word

Inspiration.

In the past few months I’ve done a few interviews with some blogs and online journals and the question “What inspires you” seems to be the most commonly asked question. I wish that I had a simple enough answer, but I find that much like other areas of my life, it’s a theme that doesn’t have a particularly concrete answer. I would say that at least once a day I ask myself that very question; “Where does my inspiration come from?”

Sometimes I think that the answer could be as simple as “the World!” or “my imagination!” But it’s more than that, sure I’m inspired by nature but trees and water call out more to me than rocks and squirrels do.  It’s broad at times but it’s also equally specific, if that makes sense.

Yesterday while walking through the forest, a place that does tend to spark my imagination and inspiration, I was thinking about this very topic and trying to form a solid answer. I’m inspired by both the ideas of reality and how we can bend it. I’m inspired by taking something ordinary and making it extraordinary. Take for instance, a coffee mug. On it’s own it’s a coffee mug, a recognizable shape and size but what if you make it HUGE, or what if you have 200 of them rather than one or two, or what if you make it fly or float or balance in a stack that looks like one breath will knock it over. The idea of something so normal being seen in a way that seems impossible inspires me, it’s like being a magician or an illusionist.  

Aside from creating those impossible possibilities, nature does inspire me. I’m fortunate to live in an area of the world that provides me with an almost endless expanse of trees, mountains, lakes, fields, and every size of animal from mouse to grizzly bear. Growing up in this environment has given me a deep respect for nature and the natural world around me and has now provided me with the opportunity to incoporate itself into my work. If photography is my art form, the natural world would be my canvas. There are few things more beautiful to me than an open field with a wide view in the background, these spaces inspire me to fill them with imagery. Like a dancer wants to fill a stage with movement, I want to fill these natural stages with art, even if it is temporary or digital.

Another inspiration for me is popular culture, not so much in the broad sense but certain parts of it. I like taking something like the Harry Potter books or Kermit the Frog and finding a way to interpret them in my own way, putting them into my life or me into their world. It makes it seem like the line between reality and fantasy doesn’t exist. For as long as I can remember I’ve been a HUGE fan of all things Disney (when I was a kid and asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was always ’a disney animator’) and I love being able to take the imagery from those films and incorporate them into my life. For me it’s like taking a recipe and adding a few different ingredients to turn into something just a little bit different, it’s a new way to see something that already exists. I think people like Walt Disney and Jim Henson  are good examples of artists liked to blur the line between reality and fantasy.

Inspiration is something that constantly evolves, what inspires you one day might not inspire you the next. You may walk past the same tree or field or doorway every day but maybe one day you’ll see it in a new light, with a new perspective and it will provide you with a bolt of inspiration. For me, I try to pay attention to the small stuff, those coffee mugs, a stack of books, a leaf. They’re all normal on a basic level but if you look at them with a slightly skewed vision, they can inspire you to create something brand new.

Now that you know where my inspiration comes from and what inspires me, I’d love to know what inspires you?

The Beginning!

Hello there!

Welcome to my new blog, which will hopefully become a sort of home-base for my photographic journey.

Eventually I’d love for this little space to have tutorials, behind the scenes shots, question and answers, videos and all sorts of fun stuff that I hope will give you an insight into my world! Please feel free to subscribe, comment or just read along with my posts!

I decided to start this blog because over the past few months I’ve felt that I have an opportunity to share what I know with others and I really want to do that. Through my photography journey, mostly on Flickr, I’ve been so fortunate to come in contact with so many amazing people and I’ve learned so much and feel that the right thing to do is pay it forward, to give as much as I can back to the community that helped to pave this path for me. 

I have much to be grateful for and I have you to thank for a lot of it!