Category 'Behind the scenes'

There are some honeyeaters that flit about my house feeding on nectar. A few years ago one of them got trapped inside the house and after it eventually tired I scooped it up in my hands and set it free. After that I began to imagine a story where the little bird came back each day offering gifts. [caption id="attachment_3110" align="aligncenter" width="200"]Of course I grabbed my camera first. I, of course, grabbed my camera first.[/caption]   About a year later it happened again. Again it tired and again I set it free. But shortly after I heard some twittering at the front door. I went to look and found a family of honeyeaters flying about, tweeting like crazy and one flew right up to my face before flitting away. It probably meant nothing but I will forever believe that the family were trying to thank me for saving the trapped bird. Not so long after, a magpie started hanging around the house. It seemed to have something stuck inside its mouth so it let me hand feed it, and sometimes I would throw food in the air and it would fly up to catch it. When I sat outside on the patio it would sit on the back of the chair opposite me. This continued for a week or so before it (hopefully) flew off to his next destination. [caption id="attachment_3112" align="aligncenter" width="178"]Image courtesy of my father Image courtesy of my father[/caption]   I mention these stories because, clearly, I am Dr Doolittle. (I am! And I won't hear otherwise!) This image, 'The Woods Welcome', is the second in the two part 'Wildflower' series, and follows on from 'Where She Wanders'. That sure is a lot of W's. [gallery columns="2" size="medium" link="none" ids="3086,3115"]   In my first post about the series I mentioned how it was inspired by the urge to 'get back to nature' that many of us have. But it was also inspired by the nurturing instinct that humans have towards animals and our desire to humanise wild things. I'd always intended on incorporating animals into my work but I first wanted to make sure my compositing skills were up to scratch and, let me tell you, cutting out animal fur is definitely a challenge (but still not hard as my damn curly hair). I'm currently working with this method which is the best way I've found to cut out hair/fur, although it's unfortunately still not foolproof. The image is primarily composed of photos from Japan. The deer was photographed at beautiful Miyajima, the rabbits at Ōkunoshima (an island full of rabbits!!!), the background bamboo scene at Tenryuji Temple gardens in Arashiyama and the flowers at Kyoto Botanical Gardens. I photographed myself in my yard and the bird at Notre Dame in France. [gallery size="medium" link="none" ids="3108,3114,3107,3116,3109,3111,3119,3113"]   Like 'Where She Wanders', ‘The Woods Welcome’ is a limited edition print of 20. The cost of $200 (Australian dollars which converts to approx $150USD and 110 GBP) includes free shipping worldwide and a 5% donation to the RSPCA. It measures 10.9 x 25 inches excluding border and is printed on fine art archival paper. Prints are individually signed and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity. Purchase here.

Recently the opportunity to do a newborn photo shoot literally fell into my lap - when my neighbour handed me this doll and suggested I use it in a photo. Made by Reborn Baby Central, it's delightfully creepy so how could I resist? From Reborn Baby Central   It sat in my room for a few days mocking me with its lifelikeness and I had to continually check that it hadn't opened its eyes while my back was turned. But eventually I grew fond of the damn thing and so I decided to photograph it as if it were a newborn (or in this case, reborn) baby. I enjoy the work that newborn photographers do but I sadly lack whatever maternal hormones are required for baby-rearing and so being able to do a baby shoot without unintentionally hurting it, upsetting it, or getting pooped on was immensely appealing. People that are parents, I salute you. I did a little research into newborn photography techniques and learnt that with the right props, a shallow depth of field and some basic compositing skills it's not such a tricky thing to do. Although I'm sure the actual difficulty lies in trying to keep a real life child asleep or amused. There are a number of Photoshop tricks newborn photographers employ, like reducing skin redness, selective blurring and skin softening and I thought it was hilarious that this doll is so lifelike that it has red skin patches, wrinkles and discolouration that I needed to retouch just like a real child. I've also discovered how to use Photoshop's mixer brush to retouch skin which is my new favourite thing. [caption id="attachment_3077" align="aligncenter" width="300"]Actual background and before skin retouching Actual background and before skin retouching[/caption]   Naturally, being a vampire baby I then had to do some fancy Photoshop work to give the images a dark twist. I have tried to do this tastefully as someone pointed out that people may take offence. I genuinely hope this isn't the case and that these images can be enjoyed for the lighthearted fun they are. Let me know your favourite!   [gallery columns="1" size="large" link="file" ids="3063,3071,3067,3066,3073,3064,3070,3072,3065,3068,3069"]  

When I was small we lived in a house that backed onto undeveloped land and so the neighbourhood kids and I would grab our bikes and head off exploring, making up creation stories and brushing shoulders with snakes and wild brumbies. When I was a teenager we lived in a house that backed onto rainforest and so my friends and I would head off exploring, climbing mountains and swimming in undiscovered waterfalls. Perhaps because of these experiences or perhaps because a part or me is just a little bit 'wild', these days whenever I'm driving through the country I feel the urge to ditch my car and run off into the wilderness to befriend the animals and be at one with nature. But I'm not much of a camping fan and I really hate the cold so I have to quell my Disney-esque urges and just keep driving. Instead I decorate my house in a style that can only be called 'woodlands' as evidenced by this peek at one of my bookshelves. [caption id="attachment_3082" align="aligncenter" width="960"]Woodlands Bookshelf Mind the mess - perhaps I should have dusted first ...[/caption]   But this is why I love creating photographic art. Because now I can be the girl who wanders the forest wooing the flora and fauna, and yet still stay warm and dry. 'Where She Wanders' is the first image in the two part 'Wildflower' series. The second will be released in coming weeks. Trying to match the colours of the two images while still making each scene look realistic has been immensely challenging and has taken me nearly two months to complete, the longest I've ever worked on a piece, and most of that was just spent refining colour. A woodlands inspired fine art print   The poses for the images were photographed in my studio (backyard). The background bamboo scene was photographed in Japan at Tenryuji Temple gardens in Arashiyama and the deer in Nara Park. The grass came from Stonehenge and the birds from Notre Dame in France as trained by the fabulous Bird Man. The flowers came from a number of different locations after much experimentation to find those that fit. [gallery columns="2" size="medium" link="file" ids="3080,3083,3084,3081"]   It shall have pride of place among my woodslandy decor, acting as a reminder to always nuture wildness.   'Where She Wanders' is a limited edition print of 20 that will go on sale on July 10, 2016 at 9pm (AEST). The cost of $200 (Australian dollars which converts to approx $150USD and 110 GBP) includes free shipping worldwide and 5% of each sale will be donated to my local RSPCA. It measures 10.9 x 25 inches excluding border and is printed on fine art archival paper. Prints will be individually signed and are accompanied by a certificate of authenticity. Purchase here:  https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/ExposingIllusions from July 10. Where She Wanders print by Hayley Roberts Photography   “Like a wild flower; she spent her days, allowing herself to grow, not many knew of her struggle, but eventually all; knew of her light.” - Nikki Rowe

[box style="info"]   SIGN UP to my brand new newsletter featuring latest news and images and exclusive access to flash sales! Enter your email in the box at the top to stay in touch. [/box]   To get between work and home I regularly drive a busy highway and as those who drive highways know, the traffic can often stop for reasons unknown. During one of these particular ‘jams I was daydreaming about what could be the cause of the trouble ahead and I started imagining an oversized girl lying on the road. This is going to sound really weird, but when I was young I used to have recurring nightmares where I would forget the size of things; so big things would become small and small, big, and I’d get upset because I couldn’t remember the ‘right’ size of things. Because of this I think about wrongly sized things probably more than is normal. If any shrinks care to weigh in on what this might mean I’d be interested to hear just how crazy I am. I was quite taken with the idea of this gigantic girl so to create the image I literally took to the streets, photographing all kinds of roads, but being an annoying perfectionist I couldn’t find any that matched the vision in my head. So eventually I coaxed Mum into driving me up and down (and up and down) the highway while I took photos of the road. I love the random and weird experiences I have when creating images. [gallery columns="2" size="medium" ids="2912,2913"]   I shot the self-portrait twice because the angle wasn’t right. The second time was on a windy day and the backdrop kept falling over and smacking me in the stomach (so maybe not all the weird experiences are fun). I think the official term for this is “suffering for your art”. Especially since I never ended up using those second shoot images anyway. [gallery columns="2" size="medium" link="file" ids="2914,2916,2917,2915"]   The roadside trees were also photographed on my highway drive but as we were moving they are slightly blurred and were really hard to cut out, so I ended up layering many trees from different photos behind them to disguise the masking issues and give the image depth. [gallery columns="2" size="medium" ids="2919,2918"]   The mountains are created from different European scenes, while the sky and stars are overlays I purchased from Jessica Drossin. [gallery columns="2" size="medium" ids="2923,2920,2922,2921"]   Now, to that all important meaning behind the photo … I am obsessed with the stars and have been known to wish on a star or two (hundred) in my time. Some years ago I even started writing a novel about a man whose wishes on stars started coming true (which was also titled ‘The Luminaries’). But I eventually learned that the only person in charge of your destiny is you. If you want something to happen only you can take the steps to make it so. Perhaps the stars can align for you but you’ve got to already be pursuing your dreams to be able to seize the opportunity. So for this image I wanted it to be ambiguous – is she the kind of person who catches stars or the kind of person who creates them? (I‘ll leave the mystery of her largeness up to you.) Luminary definition And a quote I love featured in a photo posted recently by Damien Echols. [embed]https://www.facebook.com/damienwechols/photos/a.245185425537382.66621.215418411847417/1023696481019602/?type=3&theater[/embed]  

As part of my current gallery exhibition I had to create didactics, which are wall panels that describe your art. Being primarily left-brained I focused on the technical because 'how' an image is created is the most interesting part of the process for me and is the entire driving force behind my 'Exposing Illusions' brand. So it was a shock when the gallery curator flat out said I was doing it wrong. (Apparently art has some right and wrongs - who knew?) She said that when I write about my art I need to talk about the 'why', because that's what people relate to. The thing is, I don't know why my art comes about and so often my final images resemble nothing of my initial concept. It's ironic because in high school my favourite subject was art history and theory so I know how to analyse and write about other people's art, but have absolutely no clue how to write about my own. When you go into a large municipal gallery the didactics are almost always written by someone other than the artist and are an interpretation of what the art might mean based on an analysis of what was happening in the artist's life at the time. Can't someone do that for me? Anyway, Metamorphosis came about because our obligatory pastime for celebrating Australia Day is to spend 8 hours at the beach (Scarborough Point to be exact) and I'm incapable of spending 8 hours anywhere without doing SOMETHING with my camera. Whenever I go out for the day I chuck a bunch of props and costumes into my car and usually choose whatever items contrast best with my surroundings. Being a murky grey/blue day I reached for something pink and I vaguely wanted to create a weird, faceless deity rising from the water. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. [gallery size="medium" link="file" ids="2865,2862,2864"]   After photographing myself in the water I threw about the pink dressing gown in case I wanted to use the fabric in the image.   [gallery size="medium" columns="2" link="file" ids="2860,2859"]   In the editing process I blurred the water to give it a fantasy feel and after some experimentation decided to create wings out of the fabric. This notion of flight inspired me to add some birds. I then spent a lot of time perfecting the blurry water and the reflections of the fabric, none of which you can actually see in the final image. [gallery size="medium" link="file" columns="2" ids="2870,2871,2858,2866" orderby="rand"]   As for the pink flames, I honestly couldn't tell you what I was thinking about when I added them. I just sampled various colours from the image and painted them in at different opacities using a cloud shaped brush. [caption id="attachment_2861" align="aligncenter" width="297"]Painted fire Painted fire[/caption]   But what does it all mean?! Here's what I think ... to me the water suggests a baptism and the flames and wings suggest a phoenix so it's about some kind of new beginning or metamorphosis. When I created this image it was almost exactly a year since I started my art photography business and a year was the deadline I gave myself to either make something of it or give it up and pursue a different career path entirely. Some goals I failed but others I hit out of the ballpark and they were the ones that made me think I might be able to make a future out of my art. So it was created at a time when I was transitioning from  'can I?' to 'I can!' and the change of mindset that goes along with that. As for the mask, and the faceless aspect of the image ... 18 months ago I wholeheartedly believed there was nothing creative about me. Today I am an artist with a solo exhibition in a space in the largest gallery in my region. This has made me a very firm believer in how, with hard work, ANYONE can reinvent themselves and so I want this piece to act as an inspiration for those who dream of being something different or better. It's all possible. Unfortunately that's way too wordy to fit on a didactic. Now I'm interested to know, which part of this blog did you enjoy the most? The 'how' or the 'why'? ;)  

My next tutorial was going to be about making glass transparent so after some thought I came up with a concept that involved a girl in a vase gasping for air. I shot the base photo and the vase in my living room and set about compositing them together. [gallery size="medium" link="file" ids="2819,2821,2834"]   But somewhere along the line I decided I didn’t really like the pose so I swapped it for another pose I’d photographed. [gallery columns="2" link="file" size="medium" ids="2822,2820"]   Then I couldn’t think of a suitable background that helped further her story so I experimented with various stock images but nothing was working and I started feeling disheartened. Experimental background for 'Wonder Falls' But I kept at it, deciding that I really liked the flow of her skirt and actually, she looks much better out of the vase than in. Flowy skirt for 'Wonder Falls' I began experimenting with stock images of water to make it look like her skirt was merging into the ocean (I usually work with stock images first because they live on my laptop whereas my own photos are kept on an external hard drive that I’m too lazy to plug in most of the time). When I found this stock image of a waterfall I knew right away that I’d found the direction this image would take.   [gallery columns="2" link="file" size="medium" ids="2826,2825"]   But I always feel guilty using stock because it’s not an image I’ve photographed myself, however I only have a few images of waterfalls and none at the right density to become her skirt. So to compensate, I kept the waterfall part of the stock and then created rocky cliffs using my own images. In fact this is the first time that I’ve entirely built a scene out of composited bits of other scenes and it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it’d be. Unfortunately my creative process usually resembles this haphazard approach and is why, when someone asks me what my photos are about, I don’t tend to know because they like to take a journey all of their own with a destination that barely resembles my original concept. The mountain and moss on the left were created from a photo of this crazy girl jumping off a cliff in Yamba and a moss covered tree stump photographed at Binna Burra. [gallery columns="2" size="medium" link="file" ids="2828,2827"]   The mountain and moss on the right were also from photos taken at Binna Burra. [gallery columns="2" link="file" size="medium" ids="2830,2829"]   The foreground scene is from a sunrise beach photo I took in Noosa. There was scum around the edges of the pool so I used various photos of lapping water to make this look more appealing. I also used a photo of the ocean to create the pool at the top of the waterfall. [gallery link="file" size="medium" ids="2831,2833,2832"]   The sky is a sunrise image I photographed at Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, Scotland after a gruelling uphill hike. Then I added some blurry foliage to the image, also shot at Binna Burra. [gallery columns="2" link="file" size="medium" ids="2836,2835"]   The end result is nothing like I intended but it's probably my favourite image to date and, for the first time, I'm going to make a print of it just for myself. And, in case you were wondering, yes - the name is inspired by one of my favourite TV shows, Wonderfalls.  

It's been six whole weeks since I last released a photo which is probably more of a surprise to me than you. Back in November I photographed all the component pieces I needed for a photo that I hoped would be my biggest and best yet but I'm afraid to say that after weeks of work I became really disheartened with how it was turning out. I hear conceptual photographers say all the time that they had to abandon a project because they weren't happy with it but I've always believed I could make anything work. Until now. So I put it aside and started working on something new. Which didn't work out either. And then two others turned out to be a disappointment and I started to believe I'd lost it, whatever "it" is. It's a horrible feeling knowing something you've worked so hard at may have just been a passing phase. So I took some time out, worked on other things (including a new travel focused Instagram account at @hayleyrtravels) and thought a lot about what direction to take in the new year. But quite simply, creating photos is what I do and I wouldn't know how to get by without it. 'Run Red' was photographed at one of my favourite places, Yamba, NSW, Australia during a road trip I took after Christmas. The location was the beautiful Angourie Beach on a very busy and hot day. If you ever happen to go, there's a strange path by the blue pool that leads to a dense, dark forest and if you keep following it (after most turn back) you will find the place I shot this. I'm sure there were people walking down the path to the beach who spotted a flash of red in the forest below and weren't quite sure what they'd seen. [caption id="attachment_2786" align="aligncenter" width="960"]Angourie Blue Pool Angourie Blue Pool[/caption]   [caption id="attachment_2787" align="aligncenter" width="683"]Angourie forest path Angourie forest path[/caption]   The image is a seven shot pano and a frankenstein of different portraits. [gallery columns="4" link="file" size="medium" ids="2788,2790,2789,2791"]   My German Shepherd, Koda, needed MUCH coaxing to pose as the wolf. [caption id="attachment_2792" align="aligncenter" width="300"]Koda, wolf, woof Koda, wolf, woof[/caption]   It's not my best work but it is a work that worked which is exactly what I needed. And hopefully soon I'll be ready to retackle the pieces that WILL NOT DEFEAT ME!

'Wallflower' came into existence because I found this tutorial by Andrei Oprinca, which is a technique I've always wanted to try (mainly because of the shirt/wallpaper scene in Garden State) and also because I've been debating whether to do a tutorial on displacement masks. In a nutshell, displacement maps can be used to make a texture fit a shape (so if you apply a wood texture and displace it to a rose shape you can make it look like a wooden rose). I decided not to do a tutorial though because I'm not convinced the results are all that great and I don't want to teach a technique I don't 100% believe in (I think blend modes work better anyway). [caption id="attachment_2725" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Garden State[/caption]   To create Wallflower I first shot this pose of myself pressed against a wall and leaning back towards the camera. I then created a mask that only showed my arms, face and hair. Main 'Wallflower' pose   Then I shot this photo of myself wrapped in a plain fabric, making sure there were lots of ripples in the material. I did things slightly differently from the tutorial posted earlier but I basically removed all colour from the fabric and emphasised the contrast so the fabric ripples stood out even more. Fabric for 'Wallflower'   The floor was photographed at a friend's house and the texture I bought from Adobe Stock and made into a repeating pattern big enough to cover the wall so it looked like wallpaper. [gallery columns="2" link="file" size="medium" ids="2720,2719"]   I created a second layer of the wallpaper texture and placed it over the fabric. Then using a displacement map I tried to make the flower texture wrap to the folds of the fabric so the effect looked more realistic. This has worked in some places (towards the bottom) but not others (towards the top). Silly old me forgot to take a before image to show you what the displacement map did, but to be honest it wasn't that different. It has mainly distorted parts of the texture which I'm not really happy with. [gallery columns="2" link="file" size="medium" ids="2721,2722"]   Then I applied a whole bunch of textures over the top to make the wall look solid. The image only started to come to life when I added the window (shot in Venice), bird (shot in Paris) and the fallen rose (from Adobe Stock). Then I painted shadows under the girl, the window, the rose, and the dado rails to make them look like they belong in the scene. [gallery columns="2" link="file" size="medium" ids="2724,2723"]   Full credit goes to my Mum for suggesting I remove a rose from the wallpaper to make it look like a flower has fallen to the floor. She's full of good ideas that one, and is also responsible for the name of the image, Wallflower.    

Every September my city (Brisbane, Australia) turns purple when the Jacaranda trees begin to bloom. The purple flowers are feared by students because it signifies exams are about to start and relished by locals and tourists because they're such a beautiful sight. For me it means packing up my camera and heading out on numerous day trips to capture the trees in all their glory. Of course I had to create a conceptual image featuring the iconic tree and so I've been traipsing all over the city trying to find the best location. Jacarandas can be viewed practically everywhere and if you can manage it I highly recommend flying over the city when it has turned purple, but if you're stuck on the ground my favourite locations are here:

New Farm Park

[gallery link="file" size="large" ids="2631,2632,2633"]  

The lakes and surrounds, The University of Queensland

[gallery size="large" link="file" ids="2634,2636,2637,2638,2639,2640,2635"]

 

Roma Street Parklands - where you can see the rare white Jacaranda, although the trees are still only small

[gallery columns="4" size="large" link="file" ids="2641,2642,2644,2643"]

 

Evan Marginson Park, Goodna - which holds its very own Jacaranda festival

[gallery size="large" link="file" ids="2645,2648,2646,2649,2651,2647"]  

Anzac Park, Jacaranda Avenue, Logan Central (Thanks Jeff for the recommendation!)

[gallery link="file" size="medium" ids="2652,2653,2658,2656,2654"]  

Other recommended locations which I'm yet to explore:

City Botanic Gardens Brisbane River and Wilson's Outlook, Kangaroo Point Jacaranda Park, Yeronga The biggest problem in photographing jacarandas is that for some unknown reason there's always signs or poles or buildings or other photographers in the way. The location I chose for my image this week which I found by accident and I *think* might be Guyatt Park in St. Lucia had a bride and groom being photographed to the left and a guy photographing his girlfriend jumping up at the trees on the right. The base photo is created from a stitched panorama of three different images. [caption id="attachment_2660" align="aligncenter" width="300"]Brisbane, UQ, University of Queensland Original location for Dance with the Jacarandas[/caption]   Thanks to the magic of Photoshop I was able to replace the distracting elements in the original image with a new background of Jacaranda shots taken at other locations. Using the same tactic I also covered the ground with fallen petals. [gallery columns="2" size="medium" link="file" ids="2662,2661"]   I photographed myself in my backyard in a $5 dress I picked up at a theatre costume sale the weekend before. I had to be careful with posing because I was surrounded by dog poo and mushrooms. I added a different arm, a fuller skirt, and more hair, all toned to match the background image. Then I blended some real Jacaranda petals over my dress. [gallery size="medium" link="file" ids="2664,2667,2666"]   To finish off I added some more Jacaranda branches behind the trees on the top left to block out the sky a bit more. I also added some falling petals by using a photo of a single Jacaranda flower to create a Photoshop brush and using that with a motion blur to paint in falling flowers. [gallery size="medium" link="file" ids="2665,2668,2663"]   If you know where I can find other great Jacaranda locations in Brisbane, please let me know!

Seeing as Back to the Future day is now in our past and even I, a committed fan, am quite done hearing about it for the time being, I no longer want to dwell on why I made this tribute image. But I do want to talk about how I made it and what I learnt in the process. The easy solution would have been to Photoshop Michael J Fox out of the original image and replace him with myself but that'd be cheating! Instead I wanted to photograph myself and my Lego DeLorean and then recreate the scene using stock, which ended up being a fantastic exercise because I had to analyse every little piece of the image, figure out what stock I could use to replicate it and then draw on various Photoshop techniques for the effects. I wouldn't normally recommend copying someone else's image and releasing it to the world but this is an exercise I firmly believe every budding Photoshop artist should try to really hone those skillz. Back to the Future poster   I first had to figure out what I could wear to look like Marty. This ended up being a pair of my jeans, one of my dad's shirts, a red tunic with the sleeves and buttons removed in Photoshop (I had nothing else resembling a puffy red vest), a pair of 12 year old white sneakers that were literally crumbling whenever I walked, a denim jacket, a black Fitbit and my every day sunglasses (I didn't have mirrored ones). I used a stepladder to rest my foot on and I had a Speedlite set to full power facing up from about waist height to mimic the bright light from the car. I shot the image back to front and flipped it because I don't like the left side of my face. I also learnt that underlighting turns me into Seinfeld's girlfriend from 'The Strike' (the one who looked okay in certain light and bloody terrible in others) and all of these images will soon get deleted so I never have to see them again. To get the pose and camera angle right I had to keep running between the garage where I shot it and the living room where my computer was to reference the original image and it was hot in all those clothes and uncomfortable in those flaky shoes. Why I didn't just print out the image is a mystery for the ages. I shot the pose both with and without the tunic so I could easily remove the sleeves in Photoshop and still see the jacket below. Original pose   In Photoshop I smoothed the line of the jeans, replaced my watch hand (because I was holding the remote in it), replaced the shoe that got cut off, fixed the tunic and my messy hair, retouched my face and changed my eyes because they weren't open enough which explains why I look like I've had a botched facelift in the final image. Body fixes   I photographed the Lego DeLorean on my kitchen bench, trying to keep it in as much focus as possible, particularly in the area where I knew I would be standing. I had to shoot it down low to get the angle right and my mum shone a torch on the inside of the car where the bright light would be coming from. I then liquified the front of the car in Photoshop to make it look like its melting. Lego DeLorean   To create the scene I bought an image of a road from Adobe Stock because none of my pictures of roads had the right angle. Despite actually buying the image (I promise!) I somehow ended up with the low res preview version in the final image - oops! Road from Adobe Stock   I used my own photo of dark blue clouds for the sky and then overlaid a bunch of other cloud photos to get the billowing smoke effect. The pink and orange sky came from a sunrise photo I took in Edinburgh. [gallery columns="2" size="medium" link="file" ids="2580,2581"]   The light rays came from a band photo I took of the Presets, which was duplicated over and over and moved to match the ray positions. I used this image of a streetlight for the lights and a Graphic Stock image of a flare for the light itself which was added with the 'Lighten' blend mode. The mountain was shot out of a car window in Malaysia which I then blurred heaps so the trees weren't so detailed. [gallery columns="4" link="file" size="medium" ids="2585,2584,2582,2583"]   The fire is made up of about 6 different stock images purchased from Graphic Stock and Adobe Stock that I also blurred a bunch. I added a noise layer over the background and the car to get the really grainy look of the original. Finally I added a yellow outer glow around my body, drew in the shadows and bright light, and then toned the colour and lighting using about 50 different adjustment layers. Fire from Adobe Stock   The funny thing is there's a lot wrong with the original image - why the weird blue spot over the car on the left? why is there a bright white square on the road bottom right? why is Marty brightest on his right side when the light is coming from the rays on the left and the fire below? why are the shadows on his face and arms really red? why did they make the DeLorean look like it was melting? why are the fire tracks a weird angle and shape? Anyway! It was not up to me to wonder why, but how. And hopefully my image is more of an 'homage' than an insult to the world's greatest film franchise. :)   [gallery columns="2" size="large" link="file" ids="2575,2587"]

31
Jul

The making of ‘The Woods Welcome’

There are some honeyeaters that flit about my house feeding on nectar. A few years ago one of them got trapped inside the house and after it eventually tired I scooped it up in my hands and set it free. After that I began to imagine a story where the little bird came back each day offering […]

13
Jul

A newborn photo shoot with a difference

Recently the opportunity to do a newborn photo shoot literally fell into my lap – when my neighbour handed me this doll and suggested I use it in a photo. Made by Reborn Baby Central, it’s delightfully creepy so how could I resist?   It sat in my room for a few days mocking me […]

3
Jul

The making of ‘Where She Wanders’

When I was small we lived in a house that backed onto undeveloped land and so the neighbourhood kids and I would grab our bikes and head off exploring, making up creation stories and brushing shoulders with snakes and wild brumbies. When I was a teenager we lived in a house that backed onto rainforest […]

8
May

The making of ‘Luminary’

  To get between work and home I regularly drive a busy highway and as those who drive highways know, the traffic can often stop for reasons unknown. During one of these particular ‘jams I was daydreaming about what could be the cause of the trouble ahead and I started imagining an oversized girl lying […]

13
Mar

The making of ‘Metamorphosis’

As part of my current gallery exhibition I had to create didactics, which are wall panels that describe your art. Being primarily left-brained I focused on the technical because ‘how’ an image is created is the most interesting part of the process for me and is the entire driving force behind my ‘Exposing Illusions’ brand. So it […]

16
Feb

The making of ‘Wonder Falls’

My next tutorial was going to be about making glass transparent so after some thought I came up with a concept that involved a girl in a vase gasping for air. I shot the base photo and the vase in my living room and set about compositing them together.   But somewhere along the line I […]

17
Jan

Run Red, and some musings about failure

It’s been six whole weeks since I last released a photo which is probably more of a surprise to me than you. Back in November I photographed all the component pieces I needed for a photo that I hoped would be my biggest and best yet but I’m afraid to say that after weeks of work I […]

29
Nov

Wallflower

‘Wallflower’ came into existence because I found this tutorial by Andrei Oprinca, which is a technique I’ve always wanted to try (mainly because of the shirt/wallpaper scene in Garden State) and also because I’ve been debating whether to do a tutorial on displacement masks. In a nutshell, displacement maps can be used to make a texture fit a […]

8
Nov

Jacaranda season in Brisbane

Every September my city (Brisbane, Australia) turns purple when the Jacaranda trees begin to bloom. The purple flowers are feared by students because it signifies exams are about to start and relished by locals and tourists because they’re such a beautiful sight. For me it means packing up my camera and heading out on numerous day […]

25
Oct

Back to the Future

Seeing as Back to the Future day is now in our past and even I, a committed fan, am quite done hearing about it for the time being, I no longer want to dwell on why I made this tribute image. But I do want to talk about how I made it and what I […]