Lady of the Sea

This image is available for sale at Photo4me, framed and ready to hang!

Where would our dreams take us if we allowed them? Where are we going even if we do not? This was actually taken with the boat sitting on grass, because what we see, what we can imagine, and what we think we see ay be completely unrelated. Sometimes it is best to let the current take us where it will, and instead of trying to control our environment we try to see what is really there.

The Coffee Cup

This is my image on Photos4me, where you can buy it.

In many ways I prefer abstracts simply because realistic art can be a series of traps where only certain expected types of image are popular, rather like what you would find typically on a photographers website like where the above image is hosted. By making an abstract it kind of frees the viewer somewhat from the need to decide whether the image fits a pre-determined category. Of course, whether someone likes and image or not is another question altogether.

175 Zuk and Ania

175 Zuk and Ania, a photo by gingerpig2000 on Flickr.

I created this image for an exhibition I had lined up of Zuk van pictures. I wanted to help break down the barrier you so often see between the elegant idea of life and the mucky bits that many people try to ignore. I also wanted to show the confidence one can feel in conquering such a barrier.

145 - Terror - Who Pays

145 - Terror - Who Pays
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

People think it is acceptable to put fear into others who are innocent, it is the simplest way of trying to achieve a gaol. I mean, you could pay to advertise, but they would rather use fear on the innocent.

Anyway, I drew this one from scratch, which made a nice change, and I incorporated things in it which I thought people would understand, as well as things which I understand.

I have been using this wipe technique for so many pictures it has become the method, nothing else comes close to expressing what I want to say. I mean here I could have just left it the original boxy graphics, the equivalent of a normal photo in my eye, but I want to put more life into it by blurring things that are not important and giving movement to those that are.

I see a lot of highly skilled Photoshop operators who can produce highly realistic imagery of fantastic scenes. You can imagine here how someone else might blend a man with a building, with an aircraft coming in to crash, all highly realistic like a cinema film. But would it offer any more than added realism?

144 - Ania in Three

144 - Ania in Three
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

I have really got behind in my blogging, just too much work going on - plus there has been plenty of action on the multiplayer internet game I play.

This is a triptych, actually three seperate images, that I have been working on for home display initially. I wanted bol, bright, a combination of techniques past and present, and not something I was trying to copy from other people's work - although the influence of previous contact, concious or not, is obvious.

This is Ania and this is part of the city that has been built while she has been living - 1970s in the background and the naughties in the foreground. Two different eras.

I could have arrange the image differently so that the crop cut different on Ania's head, but I don't want that purity of separation - body/legs/feet. Getting that purity in life is often the sign of something artificial, either in the physical world or the way we perceive the physical.

For example, Communism did not start promptly in 1945 and finish in 1989 - things from the near and distant past hang on either in the real world because it is impractical to remake everything overnight, and in people's thinking. So, most people live in housing from another political era, some still desire to escape back there, some are still trying to escape it. Nothing is fully translucent.

143 - Happy Mad Dog

143 - Happy Mad Dog
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

Not quite sure what this is supposed to be, but it was on the balcony of the family in the opposite block. Still working on this medium, but I think my previous cigar shot worked better as I treated the main subject and the background separately. I might try the same treatment here to get a bit more contrast between subject and background.

I* have no idea why they left it on their balcony for about a week, perhaps because to the child it was equivalent in size to a small pony.

142 - Trevor and the Amazing Cigar

142 - Trevor and the Amazing Cigar
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

We are not smokers, but we are open to new experiences. We bought a couple of cigars, which was an experience in itself, and then smoked them in our hotel room in Krakow with its view over the nearby monastery gardens.

The original was taken by Ania, and the colours were nothing special, neither was the background, but that was not a problem. Smearing the colours in a circular pattern was rather like the emblem background I did a few days ago, except that this time I used 100% wipe to demolish the background inconsistencies and to arrive at a swirling smoke vortex thingy effect.