The Flight


August 16th 2021
The Flight

Bird Graphic Textured

So I took a walk on colfax ave in Hudson Valley, and I was surprised at how little I actually found to photograph.  There weren’t really all that many people on the street.  The general architecture I found a little boring, and I just couldn’t find much to shoot.  I always wonder if that’s a mood based thing.  If you’re in a better mood you find more to shoot, or if you’re in a worse mood you find less to shoot.  I’ve never been able to figure out if that’s actually true or not.  I don’t think I was in a particularly bad mood, but I definitely wasn’t in some bouncing off the walls great mood either.

I guess the most interesting thing that happened was I met a curator of a nice little gallery on colfax.  He also did quite a few of the paintings in the gallery.  It w

as nice to talk to another artist for a while.  I really wanted to take some pictures of him while he was painting, but he wasn’t working at the time, so I had to just give him my contact info.  I really hope he calls.  I think I could have gotten some great shots, the lighting coming in the back of the studio was great.

It was an overcast day so the sun behind the clouds acts like the biggest soft-box ever.  Overcast days can be a great thing, wonderful soft light, no shadows.  My grandmother is actually the the person who taught me that.  She told me that overcast days are the best day to take black and white photographs.  I love those little bits of knowledge that grand peeps can give you.

After I spoke with the curator/painter guy for a bit, I kept walking along colfax, and I came across this abandoned storefront.  The weirdest thing was that someone had put up all these weird little bird stickers all over the windows.  I loved the simplicity of them, and the texture was great.  Honestly I got this nice camera, and then all I want to do is work with texture shots.  It’s goofy.

Anyways as far as this shot goes, I  started with the base shot that had plenty of texture as it was.  Then I added my own texture layers on top most of them in overlay mode.  Most of them are just regular texture layers, then I added a layer that is basically a bunch of pieces of tape that was then scanned.  It gives great random lines that don’t distract too much.  Of course there are plenty of layer masks in here to only get the parts of the texture that I wanted on the bird.  I also used a couple of “border” layers that are basically the scanned version of some medium format film negatives.  I really like the way that they darken up the corners and edges.

Hope ya like it.

-Dave