Instant Gratification Photography

Like I said the conditions were not ideal, no sun,it's been like this for a week, raining everyday, but I needed my instant gratification fix at all cost.

I'd have to post my whole gallery! While I never rush, I do obsess over each one and work almost continuously until finished. My newest work is always my favorite, until I get my next idea and back down the rabbit hole I go.

:)

Cynthia I totally understand, I could say this is true of every thing I have ever created, it's just something that is in my nature and I don't think I can tame it or really want to, it's almost like it has a mind of it's own and I got to get out of it's way and let it do it's thing, I talk about it, but I don't think I truly understand it, but it's the driving force behind my art.

Mario,
I love your work. And I am enjoying your new endeavor that you are sharing with us.

This is my latest creation that I obsessed over. It started as a normal photograph and I think I manipulated it with every effect available in my software. I just wasn't satisfied with anything I did until I used the solarizing effect.



Kathy K. McClellan
http://keppenart.com

I wanted to get some pictures of this ranch, since I was there, even though it was stormy and about to rain. When these cows came to me to look I decided to do a pano and fired of a series of verticals to stitch. You can buy a 72" print of this stitched pano. When the sky opened up I didn't want to give up so I took a shot of this cow in the rain from my car. My camera and lens got soaked, so I only got off one shot and left.

Thank you Kathy, and thanks for sharing Solarized Shadow Art it's a very unique photograph, I can relate to trying every effect looking for the right one! I am a button presser on photoshop, it's helped me to learn the software.

Bradford, I love cows and I love those images, I almost made a stop today as I drove by a beautiful location with awesome pastures with lots and lots of cows, I will be returning to that spot for sure. In your first image I like how the cows are all looking at you, they are the most curious bunch I've seen in a while. I sure want to try that pano stitch technique!

Mario,

I wanted to use Picasso somehow. His work is not in the PD. I finally decided to model from his work. I chose the most difficult painting he himself
might have ever made, Guernica. He worked from late April 1937 into early June 1937, six weeks, on Guernica. I did my work in about four or five hours.
I studied his work for about three days first. I realized there was a great deal in the background that I needed to somehow capture. I ended up using cut outs
in grey to capture how light came into the image. Guernica is an anti war image.

Separately I decided not to have a set of grays. So I chose a dark red to place in the body of the work. I then figured I could mimic Guernica in a rough way by placing images into the composition placed a bit like the master work by Picasso. Not an exact set of placements, but enough so to make for confusion and mayhem. As I went into placing images, I quickly realized that each image I used would have its own lighting. To get around this I conceived of a piece where the propaganda in each added image would have lighting as if spotlighted. As if each move to war in history was ramped
up with highlights of propaganda.

David that's a very cool creation! Lot's to look at and take in.

Mario

TY, there is repeating throughout the image. Two Napoleons, parallel gray ares, two cruxifiction scenes, and repeating Turner sunsets.

Plus a bull that represents Picasso. God on high breathing life into man. And just the silliness of Baroque royal courts imagining a tiger hunt.

My alter ego David and Goliath. And one more Turner, his English Parliament Building burning down as the tail to the bull.

The bible themes are throughout.

Dave

I noticed the tiger hunt, Lol , a very complex piece indeed! Thanks for sharing, it's nice to know I am in the company of obsessives, speaking in terms of art of course, other wise I am pretty balanced and easy going.

Cya Mario, time to hit the hay.

Dave

Some times when working on a new art work I don't even want to go hit the hay, but exhaustion dictates it. I don't start my art works in this "altered state" it's just something that kicks in once I'm in the middle of the creation process, I say or call it the need for instant gratification, but I think there is a lot more at play once this desire kicks in, it produces a sort of tunnel vision, an extreme focus, concentration and determination which allows me to work at a different level than if I just engaged the activity like any other activity, it's really not a choice.

I look at it as Instant Gratification, Instant Gratification #2 and Deferred Gratification.

I love being outdoors in a "shooting mode." I get to see the image in my viewfinder or on the screen on the camera (depending on which body I am using). That is obviously Instant Gratification.

When I get home I immediately dump the camera card to my laptop and then view all of the images again. That's my Instant Gratifiction #2 - which may be followed by editing the "one" that really catches my eye, the one giving raison d'être to the day - continuing the Instant Gratification.

Then, for Deferred Gratification - I will "eventually" go back through the day's shoot and choose a few other images to edit and post-process. Then I will also choose, or not, to upload to my AW or do a blog post about an image or two or three.

Of course, I'm just a grumpy old fart - so your mileage may vary. :)




---------------
~ Bill
~ US Pictures .com

Bill, that's a good way to manage gratification,ensuring one stay's gratified as long as possible.lol

What Cynthia said.

I hear you Marlene! Now I'm off to buy some lumber for a customers project, I want to get back and do art instead.

My middle name is "hasty"! If I have a Card with newly taken photos on it.... I will have to stay up late into the night and sometimes "all nighters", to work on those photos. I LOVE seeing my results instantaneously and I hardly ever can wait to get back to my computer at home and upload my shots. I never rush through them, but I do feel a complusion to complete them from start to finish. Sleep is always secondary to me.

Real life moments sometimes are not so pretty. To get on a boat and hope to see dramatic sunsets is a "wish". I have seen many blah, gray skies. But when I do, it doesn't really phase me as I know all I have to do is get home to my computer and add some dramatic skies of those I have captured at another point in time.

I need to learn photoshop.....I see the awesome effects some of you guys come up with and love it. I just figured out how to remove background distractions in lightroom, but want to learn how to remove an object from one photograph and place it on another without it being totally obvious what I did. I was so jealous the other day looking at another artists hummingbirds, they always seemed to captre them with the right light, and on clean backgrounds.......I have been going through my bird shots, and even taking shots to use as canvases to put them on, but dont know how to merge them into beauty. So I am sitting here with my brain burning wanting to figure this out, but I just can't get it right. It is a struggle for me as in the past I was a purist photographer-use nothing except clean non edited shots, but in todays world I cant compete with all of the awesome effects so am giving in.....

I'm the same way- I can't wait to get home and edit my photos after a shoot. I rarely ever get backed up with unedited photos. I also can't wait to get out and take more shots.

My latest project is trying to use hdr to balance light in photos. I got tired of taking photos with extreme contrast (shooting towards the sun for example) and having half the scene look dark so you don't blow out the bright areas (when that isn't the effect I am going for). I also hate when you push the shadows up and it makes the dark sections really grainy.

A few examples so far - I am still learning:

I'm starting to see this is a predominant trait many of us share in common. Well I knocked off early from work today, 1/2 day, well almost from 9:30 to 12:00. On my way home I ran into this handsome sandhill crane that was more than willing to pose while I took of few shots of him even though it was raining. I didn't even have to get out of my truck. I couldn't wait to go thru the images and this I think was the best shot, he was hanging with his/her family of three.



Alicia, I too am learning to use photoshop, and at the same time doing some reading on the subject of photography by well know photographers and am considering the merit of purist photography also, this could mean if I become better at taking the photo that it would require less processing, thus the gratification can come much sooner. Lol I am open to all methods at this point, I'm sure down the road I will gravitate and find my own style and have better reasons for my choices, but the key for me is to not stress over it and continue to enjoy the process, when it becomes a task ,I know I won't want to do it anymore.

Mario, that orange tractor photo from my other thread could be called "Instant Gratification" photography, it might be good enough to offer for sale as is, but then the perfectionist in me creeps out and says the crop is too tight but widening it would require a lot of cloning out of extraneous objects which is beyond my current skills, so most likely it will just get released into the world as is, at least for now.

Mario, your deep focus is not obsession; that's a mindless preoccupation lacking higher purpose.

You're referring to enthusiasm, which is the emotion you feel when you have deep engagement with your creation.

Tinting each blade of grass isn't obsessive; it's what the work demands for it to fulfill its highest expression.

I prefer to distance myself from my images as much as possible so that I can try to look at them objectively when it comes to editing. I do get some 'instant gratification' when I'm in the field if I capture something I know is going to work well. After that though it can be a good while before I have a finished image. To each their own.

I'm that way about my digital abstracts - start to finish - I seldom stop even to eat. But the photography - instant gratification has to be seeing it on the camera led - cause on a trip - I don't download - even if I have to get a new card - until I get back home to my desk top to see them, and choose the ones to use and work on them.

Instant gratification is one of THE best things about digital photography. I held out for quite awhile, but can't imagine having to wait to pick up the prints at the photo counter anymore!

David, I like your orange tractor and keeping it to sell is what I would have done also. My first sculptures were not as good as my later ones, yet I never threw them out waiting for the better ones to come along, and I'm happy I didn't, as they all sold.

Joel, tinting each and every blade is dedication! As for enthusiasm, I think that is what gets me to the process or act of creating, but there is something else, it could be emotion that takes over during the process or maybe like you say more enthusiasm, I really don't know what to call it, but I know it is essential in the creative process, it might even be something that gets triggered by chemicals in the brain, similar to what happens to a drug addict when they need that fix. I'm speculating of course, but I see it as a driving force to push me through the creative process, and that's where the time factor plays a role for me, where I seldom leave a piece unfinished once I start it.

Dave, I really don't know how to distance my self from the photographs, I am trying to be objective, it's the one thing I'm having the biggest challenge with. I am making some headway as I am choosing less photographs to upload of the ones I take, and I am also taking less photos going into a subject.But rather than distance, for me it's giving the photo lots of attention and asking myself the right questions about the image, their is a technical element that I know I have to grow or train my eye to better appreciate this critical area of photography.

Roy, my eye sight is not that great anymore where I can get gratification by seeing it in camera. I need that expanded view and I need my reading glasses on at that.Lol

Valerie, yes, digital is the ticket!