Filters open alien worlds
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Running across an article by chance has set off a firestorm of creative experimentation in the processing of my photos.
“The Sabattier Effect” – an article from the Digital Photography School – gave the outlines of how one might use various filters in Photoshop to beautiful effect. But for me it was just the starting point for re-imagining a variety of photos already in the can.
Recently these techniques found their way into a series of portrait shots I did with roller derby player Rowena Davis at the wreckage of a line of train cars north of Picacho Pass.
I was having a variety of troubles that day, ranging from a pair of guys in a jeep who were looking for cool scrap who kept getting either in the shot or where I wanted to shoot, and some technical difficulties to boot. But several times a train passed by, and we found all kinds of places to shoot among the torn steel and twisted wreckage of the empty cars, which got tossed off their tracks in a wind microburst event about a month back.
Still, most of the shoot was a bust.
But with nothing to lose I started fiddling with multiple layers of filters and out popped a roller skating warrior princess on an alien planet.
Here’s just a few examples.
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