Find your style in photography - 7 - Luck or creativity?

Today I want to talk about Alan Brown's photographs which could teach us a lot about how to create good images. He seems to find beauty everywhere, do you think that he's a lucky guy or that he is a talented one? You know, sometimes one is lucky enough as to live in a paradise and have the opportunity to take good photographs, but if you think this you're wrong. You don't need to live in a wonderful place to make good photos and nothing assures that you would make them so.

Of course, Alan's photographs show us wonderful places but that's not all, he captures a special moment with a special distribution of elements and a special perspective among other details that make the image different from all that could have been taken in the same place. As he tells us in his bio: "I learnt quickly from the harsh critique of contest judges that great images are not taken, they are created, and that each image has its own story . This mantra has been a constant throughout my many years as an avid photographer." 

In the same sense, he's driven to create exceptional images, he's self demanding what leads him to produce excellent works. So, we can learn two different lessons through his work, the first one is that it isn't the same taking a photograph than creating one and the second is that if you don't have the strength to exceed the average expectations about a photograph your work will be very similar to everyone.

I invite you to click on the images below to enlarge them and know more about Alan Brown and his fantastic works that takes us to unimagined places that whisper stories. 

Find your style in photography - 6 - Make the Viewer to be There

Following with photography styles, as we have already commented, it's very important to find your own syle as a photographer, it isn't just a painters issue, as a proffesional you have to leave your mark on each of your photographs so that whoever sees them knows that image was captured through your camera and your eyes. 

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of styles with small differences between them. But, what is it that makes a photograph not only have its author personal impression but reach the viewer? Well, one of the answers would be to make the viewer like being in that place, convert the photo from a piece of paper to a trip, make feel the sensations and emotions that we ourselves have when capturing an image. It's difficult, isn't it?

First of all, we can't transmit an emotion that we don't have. If we go around with our camera and just shoot what we think it's nice to choose a good one later we can get some good pictures. But, if we go for what we want or if we go around and find exactly what we need, if we enter into communication with the environment and with what we want to portray, for example: an animal, if we get really involved with what we are capturing, then we get great photographs. However, even though I believe that this way of working can be learned, personally I consider it requires an innate personal condition of the photographer. We can all learn about everything, much more if we strive, but we also have personal skills that lead us to be better in one area or another. 

We have Carter Spade's works as an example of this. You feel close to the image as if you were there and as if you could touch it. As he says: "I want the viewer to feel the connection to the animal or place that I felt at the time that sparked me to take that photo. I try to find an angle that makes the viewers feel like they are seeing it for themselves.", and he always gets it. He's an animal lover (even his work is not limited to that), and we can really feel that those eyes on the image are watching us, and we can feel that connection of which he speaks about as if we were there. Therefore, although the technical and specific issues of photography are very important, not least is to convey feelings to the viewer. Click on the images to enlarge them and know more about Carter Spade and his wonderful style and photographs, you can also visit his site www.spadephoto.com .

Brushstrokes's Importance

I could have called this post "How to find your style in oil or acrylic...", but it's actually applicable for different techniques.

Artists sometimes think too much about brushstrokes, so much that they lose spontaneity, and it's not pleasant to see a non spontaneous painting, which has been too thoughtful, as if the hand had not known exactly what to do in each case. Others, try to make the brushstroke not to be noticed as if they were afraid of mistaking. All these is normal when we start to learn how to do things, but it's clealy shown in the final artwork.

Talking about this, there is a style that stands out by the force and the thickness of the stroke, without being impressionist, that plays with lights and shadows in such a way that the elements seem to shine from the canvas, almost as if it were a 3d effect. Obviously, only a very experienced hand can do this, taking the eye of the viewer to the whole work and giving it a relief that it still don't have.

It is surprising how this type of work, even without being realistic, may look like that providing an interesting visual game that leads us to complete the missing blur.

Therefore, it is important that we don't hesitate in every brushstroke, that our mental object can be represented by our hand beyond the hyperealist vision without losing the accuracy of what we want to show. Sometimes this takes months, other years, it all depends on how much we practice and how much we let ourselves go with regard to our own vision of things. We don't have to fear or hesitate when painting since sometimes it's better to make mistakes and learn from them than have lot of shy arts from which we learned nothing. 

As an example of this kind of artworks, I want to show you Samantha Black's ones. Currently, she basically works with oil and acrylic and she always knows how strong, thik, clear or dark the stroke has to be in order to give the viewer the perfect idea of what she wants to show. Click on the images to enlarge them and see her work on detail, you'll find she developed other styles with great skill to represent beauty as well. 

Beauty and Innocence

Hello my friends! Today I want to talk about Ashley Gore and her artworks. I use to give some advices and tips and then put an artist as an example, but this time I prefer talking about this artist since her work caught my attention in more than one sense. 

As you can read in her site: http://agore72185.wixsite.com/ashleyartgallery , she has a disease that she struggles with every day and which could be an obstacle for anyone but she decided to do something positive about it. What calls my attention the most in addition to the brave way she faces life it's how she transmits it through art. When we see her works, mostly made in acrylic, the first thing that comes to our mind is an innocent style that looks at life with a very particular candor. 

Her work is soft, delicate, feminine, with subtle lines and colors that celebrate life. Her works have a distinctive but not overwhelming symbolism, which leads us to see beyond the simple elements. In many of her works this artist seems to have a close relationship with nature, in how it is modified and what can affect it. She eliminates some superfluous elements of realism to add her own that give us a more intense vision of what she wants to express, such as a particular use of light that takes our eye to the right place, close-ups that indicate its importance and the playfulness between colors and lines.

Likewise, at some point she secretly reveals her pain, not as a complaint, but as a simple commentary on life which makes it even more revealing. In her work "She's gone" (you can find it below), for example, in that case she has an impressive creativity to show a fact of life (which can touch both physically and emotionally) from a symbolic and even surreal point. I do not like comparisons, but seeing that work reminded me Frida Kahlo's works in which her pain showed itself openly and not, since the beauty of the composition could only lead us to empathy. 

As I always say, I admire artists who go beyond, those that a flower is not simply a flower but rather says something else, who show us a series of colors that is not a simple composition for the visual but also for the spirit. 

I invite you to click on the images to enlarge them and know more about Ashley Gore, you can find her on facebook as well: https://www.facebook.com/AshleyGallery/ .

Simply amazing collages

Today I want to tell you about Alexei Gural and his artworks who says about himself  "I make digital collages using images I take from famous paintings, mix them up into scenes that are a little surrealist ...", but that isn't so simple as he thinks. 

Let's start saying that collage is a very widespread method in contemporary art and this, sometimes, makes the difference in what we can call "new art". Artists often use different materials, from clippings of magazines, photographs, or other less conventional as in the case of conceptual art. However, Alexei Gural's case is not conventional. I bet that if most of us tried to do the same thing like that we wouldn't get such an amazing result. 

To make the type of work of this artist, obviously, one has to know the classic works in depth and have a clear idea of what we need. In addition, we need an expert use of digital tools to show the aggregated elements as a whole in the set. Gural makes us fell that what we see is what was painting in fact, he has a delicate and sophisticated use of these tools which leads to convince us that it can only be an original work.

But the most important, in addition to the incredible skill with the digital tools and the softness that leads us to believe that we are really in front of a museum work, is his amazing creativity. Yes, it is "just" amazing. Alexei Gural's arworks are surrealist and are loaded with stories and emotions of what the artist wants to tell. The degree of symbolism of his works converts a conventional theme (from which he chooses his collages) into a complete and personal work that leads us to think and to ask ourselves as the best surrealistic artist can do. 

So, we come back with the question of what it is to be an artist. An artist, I have to insist, is who creates and transmits through his/her work what can not be seen with the naked eye, transmits emotions or makes us think, regardless of the method used. And now I invite you to click on the images to enlarge them and know more about Alexei, you'll be surprised by sure as I was. You can also visit his blog: https://alexeiguralblog.wordpress.com

Find your style in photography - 5 - Can photographs be more creative than some paintings?

It's usual thinking that paintings are more creative than photographs, but that isn't true, that depends...

I use to find out some photographs creations which deserve a higher range than some paintings and that's Lesa Fine's case. It's amazing how this artist captures the spirit of things and environment with her camera, she always has a special mood for each one of her works which makes us easily identify her. Lesa uses to tell us a story with her photographs since, as I use to say here and everywhere, it's not just about shooting everything we see around but finding those special details that make elements more esthetic and even touching. 

Lesa Fine has a personal style which, I believe, not only comes from her talent but from her way of seeing life and her feelings, and that comes out from her images. Her special mood, as you can see on the images below, takes us to her world as if she was taking us there by her hand. Beauty appears on her images which sometimes are warm and other cold but that always go beyond the simple elements. 

So, we could wonder what is to be an artist. Being an artist is taking a piece of your heart and soul and share it with the world, it's going deeper than the simple eye can go and it's making emotions flow in the others. That's why I say that, some times, photographs are more artistic than some paintings...

I invite to click on the images below and know more about this great artist that is Lesa Fine.

Art that Comes from the Heart

Artists have many motivations to paint and they are all valid. But there is one in particular that I, personally, have always considered remarkable and that is the one that comes from the heart.

It's interesting to see how people express their emotions and feelings in a different way. Some sublimate what they can not control in life through sport, excessive order, disorder, food, alcohol, drugs, ... among other things, while others, very few, do it through art. Art then becomes an extension of the spirit, of the soul. It is a way of dealing with pain, anguish,  uncertainty and all the emotions and feelings that the soul can shelter, which are almost endless. Sometimes situations or emotions overflow us and then our instinct leads us to behave either positively or negatively. 

Some people, I insist that few, manage to create beauty from the worst. While most would use all these destructive feelings in a negative way a few use them to create beauty. However, there are two ways of using pain and anguish in art: 1) create as a distraction and 2) get the pain involved in the work. The first case is one of the best ways to put our mind and soul somewhere else, outside us. But the second one, when pain revolves inside us and we're not even able to manage it but we instinctively throw all those feelings in a mass of creativeness, when we are able to pick up those sharping pieces of anguish transforming them in colors and shapes in a canvas, then my friends, then it is when you really are a great artist. It's about sensitivity and row soul, it's about your heart drawing and painting in an even unconscious way.

Of course art is a subjective issue, but paintings that tell us about inner stories are those that personally touch me since the author shows him/her heart naked. It's about courage and braveness as well, and that deserves all our respect and admiration.

I was inspired for this article on Emily Page's artworks, who knows much about feelings and emotions and perfectly managed to create beauty from sadness. Besides being a great artist she gives us a lesson as human beings. I don't want to talk a lot about her work since I prefer you to see it yourselves, I just have to say that she is a fabulous realistic artist who innovates in techniques, and artist with amazing hands and an amazing heart. Click on the images and know more about her, she deserves it. I also invite you to visit her blog  https://emilypageart.net/ and her site  https://emilypageart.com, where you'll not only  be able to know more about her artworks but also about "Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too", an Emily's book which I strongly recommend.

I leave you with this artist today who, by sure, will touch your heart.