Transition

We have been getting requests to help people "fix" and/or "paint" their pictures.  You tell one person you can touch up something and word seems to spread.  Actually, and it's a secret, we enjoy doing it because we really have to tap into our creativity and learn new ways to apply tools....But don't tell.

Wayne is getting really good at adding sky to pictures - and it's amazing how many nice shots lack good sky - and I'm good at covering up all kinds of things, and this week managed to remove a hand from around a beautiful dog's neck - very detailed and painstaking work.
So, I thought I'd share a sample of our work.   This is a rather ordinary photo of a peach orchard early in the season.  The day was grey and the light not good.  
These pictures progress through just a few of the steps:  original photo, enhanced color and light with a more interesting sky added, and the final painted version.
The total time involved in this is probably 3 or 4 hours on and off.  Love the finished product.

Painting

Wayne is learning a lot about painting photographs, so here is one of the latest.  It was a nice picture of a path in a botanical gardens.  With a lot of work, some touching up and tweeking, here is the Impressionist view. 

We have begun taking commissions to paint or fix photos for people.  Several have requested paintings of family homes or favorite scenes.  Most send us the photo they took and we work on it from there.  I'm getting pretty good at the photoshop touchups, like fixing reflections, flare and taking out things that just shouldn't be in the picture.  We are learning everyday and having a great time with it.  Not unlike massage where clients leave feeling better than when they came in: pictures leave looking more beautiful!

Going back

We finally got to go back to Hurricane Shoals county park in GA where they have the lovely Heritage Village that we couldn't photograph well in the rain.  Yesterday was a beautiful fall day and we were on our way to Clayton, GA so we stopped for a visit.  Much nicer in the sunshine.   This is a shot in one of the cabins they have moved to the site.  I'm not sure why the bed frame is there, but it makes for a nice photo.

I didn't have to change lighting and just saturated the bed frame color a little.

Open Studios bathroom

Bathroom as art?  We toured quite a few galleries and studios over the weekend during the Metropolitan Arts Council's Open Studios.  There is a lot of amazing and beautiful and challenging art in the area. Some we loved, some we thought about, and some we clearly didn't get on any level - and puzzle why the less we get it, the higher the price!!

Art Bomb is a shared space studio in a beautiful old building way out on Pendleton St.  We unfortunately didn't get most of the art, but the building and gardens are great.  The first is the wall and door to the outside shower...clearly the work of an artist, and the second is one of the panels inside the shower - rust can be so beautiful! 

Out for a walk

We have had A LOT of rain lately, and a lot just yesterday.  As I was walking the dog this a.m., I saw this hibiscus bush that clearly loved the rain more than I did.  The flowers were just beautiful, so dispite less than ideal light, I came back with my camera.  This is the reason we need to remember to always stop and smell the roses...

I have played with this a little to bring out the light as much as I could and this version has been "painted" with palette knife.

and, sometimes you go back

During our first trip up to Tryon and Saluda we began to lose the light....it was already fairly late in the day and the sun was slipping behind the "mountains."  We decided the views were worth getting up before the sun on Sunday and doing it all over again.  The day dawned with a spectacular sunrise that we were not in place to capture, then the early clouds began to burn off.  As we got higher into the mountains, the temps dropped into the 30's with a very brisk wind....We weren't all dressed for the weather, but did take some lovely pictures.

This view is just outside Saluda heading west.  There is a lovely view of about 180 and a farm driveway perfect for viewing.  As you can see, the color was perfect.

Wandering aimlessly all about.....

Saturday was another day to go exploring to see what we could see....in the end we wandered over to Saluda, NC, then Tryon and back into SC at Landrum.  It turned out to be the peak of color a couple of weeks earlier than normal so we had lots of scenery to enjoy and many pictures to take.
This is a view of the Saluda Grade - "the steepest rail line in America" but it is no longer running any trains :-(.   Wayne took this picture late in the day and then "painted" it with oils.

It would have been exciting to have ridden this line and been able to climb the grade during peak colors!!

Inside the shed

It sounds like a horror movie, but instead it was pretty neat in the shed on the farm we stopped at last weekend.  I just stuck my head in to see what was there, and this is what I saw....bat chairs!
This farm had days worth of photo ops..every door, every hinge, inside and outside of each building, the old fence.....The only thing missing was really good light, but unless you can come back, you take what you have and work with it.  Since this was shot inside a shed, lighting wasn't an issue anyway.

Here they are - the world's first bat chairs.....Inverted and hue adjusted.

An American Beauty

An American Beauty for those of us who were young and crazy in the 50's. Perhaps the cream of the crop: 1955 Chevy! This one sits with its friends in a yard along Hwy 55 in the upstate South Carolina just south of the NC line. Still proudly flying the stars and stripes!

It has been digitally painted and has reclaimed some of it's past glory, and, in fact, may have gained some with age (like the rest/rust of us)

It turns out that old cars lend themselves to photography and give us a chance to preserve their charm and nostalgia for a few more generations. Enjoy!

This and any other photograph you see on our site are available for purchase. We will soon have an internet site, but in the meantime, we can be contacted at backroadsandaliways@gmail.com

Nice folk

I wrote the other day about all the great pictures we were able to take on our way home from Wake Forest. I haven't had a chance to do much, but Wayne has "painted" a few. He also borrowed a sky to add to the drama. Enjoy.

Oh, this is at an old farm along a road we took by mistake. When we got to the "entering NC" sign we turned around and got to stop here and shoot to our hearts content. More to follow.

Great weekend

Just a quick note on a great weekend and art fair in Wake Forest, NC. The weather forecast was iffy, but other than a couple of brief spits of rain it was a great day. We are very encouraged by our sales and the reception.
On the way home we took some "backroads" and got some more great shots to work on. We found an old farm full of completely weathered buildings and the very nice owners let us shoot to our hearts content. Many thanks to them. We are not completely sure where we were at the time, but just tiptoeing along the NC/SC border just west of Charlotte.
Many pictures to follow in a few days.
We also came across an ancient gas station and some rusted old cars.
Backroading really is the way to go!

When it goes right

Last Saturday we took part in our first real "ART" fair. The others have turned out to be crafty, other than just art and attracted people not much interested in buying photographs, so this was going to be our first real test.

The day broke totally fogged in, a little damp and a little chilly. We actually couldn't find the park in the fog though at one point we could see it down below us. Using our human GPS and as much common sense as we could, we finally arrived to set up. Right from the start we were impressed with the quality and creativity we could see in the booths going up around us, so despite the damp, our spirits were lifted.

By the time we got set up the fog was lifting, and by the time the fair officially opened, it had become a bright, gorgeous early fall day and stayed that way right to the end. The occasional stiff breeze kept the temperature comfortable and our well anchored canopy didn't budge.

So, attendance was reasonable, sales were pretty good and people were happy and having a good time. Many who didn't buy still stopped to chat, so we met a lot of interesting people/characters and left feeling very positive about the day.

These are photos of us in the booth. This is our "good weather" set up. Less favorable weather results in different configurations, but we have a very flexible and adaptable booth. We are hoping we get to use this set up in Wake Forest this coming weekend!

Wrong tag

If I'd been paying close attention, I would have discovered that I had reversed the tags on the photos I submitted to the last juried show. So, the one I posted of the single flower may be a nice photo, but it was not the one that was selected.

This turns out to be good because I like the other one better and could not understand why it didn't make the jury cut.

So, this is a photo of the reflection in the window of an antique store in Athens, Ga one winter morning. There was a mirror in the window and other glass objects. I love how the window and the mirror reflect the building across the street! You may notice the the two pictures that have been accepted into the juried shows are both reflections.....I see a pattern here!

The only adjustments were slight ones to the lighting and saturation of the sky.

This is what I love about photography...it teaches you to look more closely at things and what you are actually seeing. I could have just walked down the street and taken a cursory glance at the antiques in the window, but by really looking, I saw more. With a camera attached, I could grab the image and keep it.

Juried shows

Part of finding one's way into a new field is just trying things. I think if we had done more research and some reading, we might have scared ourselves off entering juried shows, but we were naive and gave it a shot. We've entered two local juried shows so far and had one photograph selected for each. This turns out to feel really good!

The first is a photo taken of a vase in the window of a downtown restaurant on a nice sunny morning. I played with the levels and then inverted the original and adjusted the hue and saturation. I love all the little things that show up in the reflections.

The second is the photo that inspired me to try doing this professionally. It was the result of taking a professionally led field trip to beautiful DuPont Forest in NC. A lone flower on the shore of a little lake on a pretty fall day.

We are excited and encouraged to try more things and play more with our art. Photography is a great medium for exploration.

Finding our way

We took part in an "Art in the Park" event in a place called Hurricane Shoals County Park in north GA on Saturday. We had had rain on and off all week and the forecast for the weekend was pretty damp, but after much debate and checking the forecast, we decided to give it a try.

We managed to set up before the downpour, but that's about the only break we got. Finally we had to take down most of the framed art and cover the rest. Obviously almost nobody came to the event and at about 2:30 we decided it wasn't going to get better and packed up and headed home. We did not return on Sunday.

The event was billed as "art in the park" but there weren't more than 5 or 6 artists there. The rest were crafts, special interest groups, churches and food vendors. Therefore, the few people who did attend were not there to buy art.

The positive outcomes were that we learned to ask more questions before signing up for events in the future, and the chance to see a very nice and pretty heritage village in the park. It's worth a visit if you are in the Commerce, GA area.

This is a view from inside the little white church in the park looking out at the damp day. It is as yet untouched except to adjust the lighting a little. On a nice, sunny morning, this will be a beautiful place.

Public Art

One of our missions is to find the art that's all around us every day. I've been passing this sign for years and always meant to stop and take a few pictures. The other day I had my camera, blue skies and puffy clouds. Instead of a beautiful sign standing in an abandoned diner parking lot (the diner was torn down about 2 years after it was built) along a busy road, it's now a hangable work of art.

I adjusted the light a little and then posterized to get the mix of colors in the sky. Not sure of the title yet....Hop in Heaven?

News and views

One of my photographs was accepted into the juried art show at Upstate Visual Arts. Making the cut turned out to be nerve racking, but now I'm in. Results of the judging are tonite. It will be interesting to see what kind of art wins. I feel very honored to have been selected, and no, I'm not just saying that.

We are going to be in three upcoming events - and maybe more. Sept 19 & 20 at the Riverside show outside of Commerce - details when I get them.

Oct 3 we will be in the Trillium art fair in Travelers Rest, SC

Oct 10 at the Downtown Wake Forest Autumn Arts Fair in Wake Forest, NC.

We will probably also enter at least 2 more juried shows this fall.

We have come so far in less than a year and find we are looking at things very differently than we did and using our photoshop and painting techniques more selectively.

Here is one of Wayne's most recent works. We were on an errand and came around a curve to see this beautiful tree standing alone in a farm yard. Light and sky were about perfect.

...to the ridiculous

Disc Crow

This guy and his 2 friends are standing in a little, old corn field in Mauldin, SC. Someone put a lot of work into them, and now time, weather and morning glories have gotten the best of them. Still a little work to do on this, but it make me realize that I'd rather see this than another gas station or McD.

And sometimes....

And sometimes it's just nice to take a nice photograph of someone you love! In addition to the hundreds of the teams this year, some are just special. Great game, Tyler!

Never say Never

First of all, I just delivered by first works to a jurried show. Wish me luck...

Secondly, another lesson learned. My summer vacation was spent watching a lot of baseball in Charleston last month. I did manage to get over to Folly beach one morning with my camera. As I was heading East the sun was trying to break through the haze and was lighting it's way across the beach and sea. I took several shots but was sure that they would never work because the sun was too bright and there would be too much flare.

Never say never. A polarizing filter is a great tool and have come through for me again.

More fun with photoshop!

Did you know that artists get to go on cruises and teach basic skills in their field? Sounds like a great way to get a nice vacation.

I'm not sure whether I am totally in love with photoshopping pictures, but it sure is fun and yields very interesting results. It's one thing to fix flaws, or take out annoying signs or poles etc. but another to really alter the original by adding things in or layering other images. I'm not sure if I'll ever make up my mind about this, but here's one anyway.

This butterfly was shot in FL in 2005 and the sunflower a few weeks ago here. Now they are one.

Double Exposure

It was a good weekend of visiting galleries, a small art fair and talking with a multi-media artist. It's great to feel a part of the local arts community.

After absorbing so much art, Wayne thought he wanted to learn how to make double exposures digitally: either get a book or info online or just stay up really late and play with it.

There may be some fine tuning to learn, but the results show great promise. Watch for more in the future.

This is a double exposure of a longhorn and the Vet School at UGA.

Painting the Pond

This is a beautiful shot of sunset over a lily pond near Tifton, GA. There are 2 painting techniques used to give it the final result. The sky and trees are painted with an art brush and the water is done in a watercolor technique. Great combination.

Again a great example of how much beauty there is around us.

Title: "Frog Heaven"

fun with photoshop

I went exploring the far northwest corner of South Carolina last week and discovered a nice park in Oconee County: Chau Ram outside of Westminister. I got a few nice shots of my grandsons kicking the water and played with this one in particular. No real trick to it and I really like the results.
I merely isolate the legs and feet then accented the edges of the water and saturated it.

Around every corner

While taking a hike across the campus of UGA on Sunday morning - and it is an uphill hike - we wandered into a little courtyard and discovered a coi pond full of turtles and a few beautiful koi. It's a cute little spot and both the turtles and the fish hurried to gather in front of us. Clearly someone has been feeding them though we eventually came across a sign hidden from view that says "Don't feed the fish!"

Reflections create very interesting photographs. Here is one of my early favorites - "Koi in the sky"

Photography makes you buggy

One of the things we have discovered very quickly is that every picture has a story and many have questions. We like to photograph flowers and often find we have included bees or butterflies or ants, or an occasional small spider (I run from the big ones). Last weekend we were at the Georgia Botanical Gardens and spotted 2 strange bugs. The first were eating a bean plant and seem to have killed the nearby beans while the plant itself seemed to be healthy. The others were having a meeting on a leaf. They did not appear to be eating the plant, but it did seem to be a favorite gathering place.

We have not yet learned what either bug is, but thought we'd share. We will continue to look for answers.

Closer to home

When I first moved to Greenville 4 years ago, I went to a Sierra Club meeting and learned about a proposed new park in the county. At that point it was just a gleam in the eye of a few environmentalist. I quickly made a trip down to explore and loved the setting of wide river, shoals and the remains of old industrial buildings.

Yesterday I took my grandsons there to explore after learning that within a year it will be the site of our new park: Cedar Falls. The boys had a blast and I got some lovely pictures of the river after several weeks of daily rain.

Water is always fun and challenging but lends itself to all kinds of artistry. We are fortunate to have such a great recreational resource in our back yard.

This photo was converted to black and white on an "infrared" selection which gives it an interesting dimension.

Rural Georgia

While listening for the banjo music we found all kinds of interesting things on a short 100 mile ride through east/central Georgia. Towns we'd never heard of, towns that no longer exist and another covered bridge.

Along Hwy 77 south of Elberton just over the Broad River we came to a small intersection with a tiny extinct gas station. The pump in front reads $1.00 gal. It's 1 mile from the former home of an ex-Governor/Senator from the 1800, but "the house burned down years ago." You can, I suppose, go look at where it used to be if you want...the historical marker points the way.

Art is just everywhere. We find it each time we go out and we have covered so little ground so far.

We also passed through a non-town called Glade that used to have a little roadside store. It's not even on the map.

I hear banjos....

So, when you decide to become an exploring photographer and head down the backroads and alleyways, you should probably pay attention.....

Last week we thought we were following a map to take a backroad but the road became dirt, then got narrower and more overgrown then passed a very rundown house with Barcoloungers on the porch, then ended....Cell phones didn't work and the car was scraping dirt as we tried to wend our way out. In fact, we lost a turn signal light, but did not have to get out and walk. We joked about hearing banjo music coming from the old house at the end of the road....

Today we heard about "the oldest church in Georgia" from some nice folks in the little store in Sandy (can't remember), GA. It was "off a dirt road" but "there are signs." Thinking that it would really be something to take pictures of a church that was built in the 1700's, we set off to find the dirt road. There were signs.....and then pavement and then, the drive to the church. As we turned in the drive, we could see a very foreboding and run down house in the overgrowth next to the drive. In great anticipation of a neat discovery, we headed for the church and found....a little white building that had been resided, reroofed, repainted, reporched and restepped......just a little white building/church. The support pillars may have been in place in 1788, but not much else was. So... there was this old house at the head of the drive that needed exploring.

Banjo music now!

The woods, vines and poison ivy have completely captured this house. It clearly used to be something (maybe a parsonage?) but most of it is missing now. Curiously, there appeared to be some straw inside. Suddenly there is a loud noise overhead and 3 very large birds take flight through the trees and off into the distance. My guess is they were large owls. Heart beat slows back down. Wayne tries to get closer to the front of the house and something moves inside......loud, large and sounding alarmed.....I peer through the trees but can't see anything. Just then there's a loud running sound and something big bolts out of the back of the house and into the woods.....clearly hoofed. Cloven?

All in a day's fun, but a reminder that we are not always masters of our environment.

These are two pictures of the house. We could have gotten closer but decided we did not want to disturb anything else and would let things return to (para?)normal.

The pain and fun of art

As you know, we love finding everyday art and capturing it to share. Sometimes this can be painful. We've missed the poison ivy so far this year, but fire ants, ticks and a lot of scrapes and cuts is about par for a weekend. I HATE ticks!

Last weekend we went to Watson Mill Bridge State Park outside of Colbert (as in Steven) and took some wonderful pictures of the covered bridge and a strangly colored heron. Upon leaving the park we found a herd of cows milling along a fence near the road. As usual, I had to try to get a picture. Sometimes cows run when they see a camera, but these were publicity-hungry cows who wanted their pictures taken. I waded into the waist high grass along the fence to try to get another good cow picture. "Blackberry" claimed the front, but soon 10 or 12 cows were trying to get into the picture and pushing and shoving. The longer I shot pictures, the more cows tried to be included. This is just one of the many of the crowd and one of Blackberry who was the champ.

However, on the way back to town I started to ITCH. Deep, intense, can't make it stop kind of itch on my stomach. I couldn't see anything there, but it was completely distracting and made me wonder what might be crawling on me. As soon as we got home I put Tea Tree Oil on the itch and it stopped immediately. The next day it started again but the oil again stopped it. It was quiet on Monday but Tues a.m. it was back and now I could see a series of bites...yuck. I have no idea what got me. I do have to wonder what creature/plant we will encounter next and when I will learn my lesson.

Learning history

As usual, we headed out on the backroads this weekend to see what was new and interesting. There was a lot to see, but for me the most interesting was a beautiful farm south of Colbert, GA. We came to a very rural intersection and right ahead of us was an amazing spread with rolling hay fields, a huge brick barn, a small lake, horses and all framed by a brown fence that ran as far as we could see. As we explored a little further, we came to an old brick house next to a huge white frame plantation-style home with a brick silo. There was a gated drive onto part of the property and a sign that said "Tucker Plantation."

The 3 brick horse barns and the brick house all had large iron S on them. On the map this area is called Smithsonia as is one of the roads that runs by.

One would think I could look up Tucker Plantation or Smithsonia on Google and learn about the area. Not so fast. The plantation site has a short website about weddings on the grounds and mentions that the farm once belonged to Kenny Rogers. Smithsonia, GA shows up as being near Atlanta and nowhere near Colbert (as in Steven, we claim).

Clearly there has been a huge and impressive farm here for some time, but at this point it's history remains obscure. And Cindy and Jewett Tucker, the current owners, seem to be strangers to Google.

Next stop is the GA historical society, I think.

But, this is why backroads and alleyways are so much fun. There is fodder here for hundreds of great pictures as well as historical research.

This picture is of the first sight we had of the farm as we approached. More to follow.

Apparently....

Apparently it's not enough to describe the "great shot" you just took, but necessary to post it.....

This is a picture I took early this morning following a hard storm last night. The day was clear and bright and the morning sun still low in the East. This picture could go either way...artistic or way over exposed.

I like it, so it's a keeper. Feedback is welcome.

Beauty and Joy

On a heavily overcast May day in Georgia, we went for a ride. Along the way....we saw strange bovines in a distant field. Ignorning the first drops of rain; many, many fire ant hills (ignored but not missed, unfortunately) deep wet grass, the possibility of snakes and ticks, we tresspassed just a little to get a closer look.

Not what one expects to find in GA. These beasts were in a rolling green field with a nice muddy pond at the bottom. They seemed very content, but three of them decided to let us know that they were HUGE just in case we tried to cross the fence. It NEVER entered our minds! I have now determined that they are Cape Buffalo. No idea what they are doing in Georgia, but we are going to try to find out. Google tells me that Cape Buffalo are very dangerous.....and I believe it.

After taking as many pictures as we could as the rain beat down, we drove on to find the most beautiful corner in the SE with an old, old house with a little mother cat and her 4 little kittens enjoying the sunshine on the front porch - yes, the weather can be quirky. We also met 5 more donkeys and a few more gorgeous cows.

Here is a nice portrait of the mother cat just to offset the beasts. All in all it was a great day for photography.

Color

Again, on the subject of color change: some pictures adapt well to "messing with color" and others don't. These two pictures are another example of what happens when you experiment a little.

These were taken at our latest county park, Cedar Falls. This tract of land lies along the Reedy River in the southern part of the county, west of Simpsonville. It's the site of an old mill and dam that has been overrun, abused and misused for years. It's taken many years for the county to acquire the site, but now the process of cleaning and restoring is under way. The river is quite wide at this spot and there are a few small rapids.

This shot was taken along the shore where the water was running fast. I call the second picture "Maxfield Parrish" after the painter who created the more amazing colors and blues in his work.

Enjoy!

By request

I thought I'd post a before and after view of a shot I took last week. The first is the shot as I took it and the second is inverted with photoshop then I messed with the hue. Many photos don't work well with this technique, but then I find the one that does. Once the picture is inverted, it can be changed to almost any color. Fun!

Critters

And there are little critters everywhere. This one was hanging out on a bridge over a creek. He seemed to want me to take his picture and hung around so I could. I've never seen one just like this before, but soon found out they are voracious eaters of garden plants. At the same time, they are also food for the beautiful herons and egrets. It's the circle of life!

Just for the fun of it, I tried him in a different color.

Art and Architecture 2

This picture is from Orlando last week. Lovely day, lovely view. Glass can make beautiful art. How nice to walk down a busy street and see this! I do have to wonder how many birds fly into this building???

Art and Architecture

I just missed getting this submitted for a contest...a day late reading the email, but I've had a couple of requests to post it.

I took this early on a Sunday morning in downtown Athens, GA. I took the shot looking into an antique store window in which there was a mirror and several glasses and other objects. The only adjustment I made was to deepen the color a little.

It again shows how beautiful common objects are if we just look a little closer. Reflections are a particular favorite of mine.