September 15, 2005

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  The following post is part of a Weekend Topic Blogging Challenge by Naomi (Shahrazad1973) on the Featured Grownups blogring, covering the topic of CHANGE. To participate or read other entries, go to Featured Grownups.

  
  

  The topic of "change" could apply to a variety of subjects. I could write about "ch-ch-ch-changes" in my life, my health, the world, perceptions of society, perceptions of religion. I could write about "spare change" and the fact that I rarely have any these days. The topic is an "open" one, and is sure to spark much creative abandon among the members of the blogring. However, it is time for a PhotoPost feature here on WhenWordsCollide, so I have chosen some of my Photocomposite Artwork, which is freatured in the "Art" folder on my Webshots Gallery, which always gets lots of "hits", and from around the AllThingsMike WebUniverse. I have always believed that the creation of digital art and photo programs sparks creativity, and allows photographs and images to be "changed" so that they take the viewer to "different" places and evoke "different" emotions than originally imposed by the "original" photo. Anything in the imagination is "possible" thanks to the fact that images can be "changed" in photo and illustration programs on the computer. Here are some examples of "changes" in my photography, enhanced with other images, and composited overlays in the computer. If you click on the images below, you will see the full size images appear in another browser window, always the best way to view the photos and images on this blog.

  
  

  

  
  

  This is the first time I have featured this particular photocomposite on the internet. It starts with a photo of a courtyard in San Pedro, and overlaid is one of my "shackled angels" which is an image I photographed in a curio shop in Redondo Beach a couple of years ago, a pigeon, and some highland dancers, shot at the Scottish Festival in O.C. If you look closely, you'll see one of my Betty Boop figurines at the curb, behind the iron gate. So there are five photographic "elements" in this "changed" photo.

  
  

  

  
  

  The last major "website addition" I added to the "Cultural Blender" was the "Robots" site, and there is a complete section on that site with "Robot Composite Art". Here a group of Honda Asimo robots, lifted from the Honda Asimo website, are milling about on a nice summer day in Monrovia, CA, from a photo in my Monrovia: Small Town America in Lost Angeles webshots folder.  That's a Sony Aibo robot dog "doing his business" on the bush.

  
  

  

  
  

  This is Xanga correspondent Leigh Ann (youhavetosintobesaved) from a photo I got on her site, surrounded by flowers and clouds from some of my composites. This is a recent photocomposite, and is part of s "series" I am constructing called "The Xanga Girls". The background uses a "stucco" effect from the Picture Publisher program.

  
  

  

  
  

  Another "Xanga Girl", Sarah (SweetVendetta, I believe, but can't remember her Xanga handle) once told me she would like to see her name on the GoodYear Blimp, so I put her photo and Name on the outside of one of my photos of the blimp. This composite was done last year.

  
  

  

  
  

  This is an example of a "stitched" shot which was assembled from a panning video shot of the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland in Anaheim in 2001 and composited in 2002. The border was "created" in the Picture Publisher program. I like this angle ,taken from the left hand side of the castle, a view which is not widely seen in photographs.

  
  

  

  
  

  I had a page featuring my MikeVideo "ElvisMovies" on my site in 2003. This is the main image for that page, and uses a photo of Elvis Presley, lifted from the internet, adn overlaid with graphic effects and the title card. The "sky" in the background is one of my photos that has been "colorized" and then a border was added to the image.

  
  

  

  
  

  The original shot of seagulls flying over one of the beaches at San Pedro didn't have enough birds, so I copy/pasted more of them in this composite. I was trying to achieve a somewhat "balanced" look so the birds are almost swirling around in a circle.

  
  

  

  
  

  This is one of my favorite recent composites, and was featured on the main page of AllThingsMike last month. It is the main composite to the newly designed "Betty Boop Pages" seciton of my website, and this photocomposite has been shown here on the blog before. Betty is one of my Danbury Mint collectible dolls. The "parlor" through which she walks is actually a room in the Getty Museum in L.A., and the television was lifed from the web. The Betty Boop cartoon showing on the television is a video capture from a VHS tape.

  
  

  

  
  

  A while back, on one of my "Photo Expeditions" to the Long Beach Aquarium, I shot a lot of really neat photos of jellyfish, some of which have graced previous PhotoPosts. Here I composited some of the jellyfish above a starfield background, and I call this one "Jelly Fish In Space".

  
  

  

  
  

  This rather eerie photocomposite was inspired by Andy (Mr. Toad bcygni) who told me my eyepatch from the cataract surgery looked like one of those bug eye monsters, or words to that effect, from 1950s sci fi movies. So I doubled the patch, and put "eyeballs" in front of the patches, to create "Bug Eye Mike".

  
  

  

  
  

  This image of "Elvis Christ" and "Marilyn Angel" was composited in 2001 for the "Icons" seciton of the Cultural Blender. Neither are my own photographs. Elvis as Christ was lifted from the ElvisChrist website and I "added" angel wings to a photo of Marilyn's head pasted on a fantasy art body.

  
  

  

  
  

  This image of my "new left eye" a day after cataract surgery when they removed my patch, will show up in the "My Left Eye" article next week here on WhenWordsCollide. The moon image is also from one of my photographs. Nothing on the "eye" itself has been tweaked. All those bloodshot veins really exist. They are disappearing fast however.

  
  

  

  
  

  Lastly, in this series of "changed" images is the logo for the "Yes, But Is It Art? Gallery" on AllThingsMike, which has a section devoted to my composite artwork as well.  The images were all either taken from the web or "created" in the drawing program. The amount of imaging one can achieve on the computer using graphics progams is limited only by one's imagination. As the programs get better and better, it becomes increasingly easier to "create" art by photocompositing. Most of my recent work is utilizing my own photos, and I "take pictures" sometimes with the intent of using a photo as "part" of a "changed" composite.

  • 8:54 pm
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