Sunrise

Scan of slide from around 1975 or '76. Sunrise over the Grand Canyon, Arizona. Rare, in that I've never liked to get up early.

"Painting" type manipulation in one of my editors.. forget which now. We'll be getting away from the ladies for a little bit, because I was starting to get a bit out of control with the tricks, so it's not likely you're ever going to see a full size version of this creepy image:



I have some in the works, combining old and new images, that are a little less over-the-top, so there's that.

She Walks Away.

..and no matter how much you want her to, she won't turn back.

This is another of those "this and that" processes, most of which I can't even remember.. try this? Nah. Try that? Yeah, that works. Let's add something else. Original color print. Some Photoshop Elements, some ACDSee Pro.

Hey!, you wonder, is that Margaret? Why yes.. yes it is.

POV#3: Committed.

What once was a black and white, homemade porn snapshot, may not be quite your idea of "art", but you gotta admit, it ain't what it was.

POV#2: Curiosity

Like a headstone.   Pun intended.  Or maybe like plucking morel mushrooms.

"Embossed" tool from ACDSee Pro, colors from Picnik.  Original B & W negative.

Sheer.

Every day could be an exhilarating, terrifying adventure.

Starting point: a very small size digital file, (under 50 KB) from a scan of a Polaroid SX70 print. Using ACDSee Pro,eEnlarged to around 450KB, added "glowing edges". In Picnic, painted out all undergarment lines to accent the sheerness of the dress. Played around with light and exposure to get an effect of "nothing under the fabric". Added border.

POV#1: Discovery

First image of an erotic tryptych.

On The Prowl For Sausage

All those lucky bikers must be just around the corner...

Old School Racer.

You'd be hard pressed to find any rider wearing the nearly non-functional "hairnet" helmets these days. But this image was taken around 25 years ago at a street race in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I'm thinking that when this lady has her hands down on the bars, she's probably not very aerodynamic. Then again, that's not really a bad thing, is it?

Because it's "old school", I used the "1960's" filter in Picnik.. fades the color and puts those weird rounded corners on the image. Just like all the snaps in your parents' attic. It's also been lightly posterized.

Trouble.

....And if you can't see that, well, you're on your own, friend.
.

Girl On A Swing

Except for cleaning dust specs, and increasing saturation, this topless young lady is posted "as is"...

Coldstone Creamery.

It's OK. It was a _________________ cemetery. (Insert a religion you love to hate. Easy one for me.)

Haven't posted a picture of the fabulous Margaret recently, and this one hides a secret I won't tell. See previous.

Air-Cooled Part 2.

First, let me state right off, that my Photoshop skills aren't all that well developed. Over the years, all the photo manipulation that was needed was performed by Margaret.

Turns out that the task of removing the rest of the model's bikini could be accomplished with ACDSee Pro. The extra accoutrements were added using Photoshop's paintbrush tool.

Which version do you like best?

Air-Cooled Coochie

(and I spelled it right without having to look it up)

I bet my friends who were involved with this project will scratch their heads in puzzlement, because they won't remember this, until they realize there's some digital undressing going on here. My technical skills aren't quite at the level yet where I could remove the top as easily as the bottom, and we weren't paying her enough to do it "live".

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Just a quick "oil painting" conversion of a mirror self-portrait from either very late 1969 or January of 1970.  My very first 35mm camera, a Yashica TL Electro, purchased at the DaNang PX just prior to coming home. Eventually, I would learn to hold the camera properly.

Let The Sunshine In...

Click to play

Another day, different colors.  The sun makes it warm.

Like yesterday's image, from the same session, this was first converted to black and white from the original.  Needed a lot of cleaning up, as the scanner was really picking up the "silk" texture, and all of these old 5x7 enlargements are really starting to curl bad.

Added the sun in ACDSee Pro, the graduated tint for "sunlight" in Picasa, then painted the colors back in in Picnik.  The original:

Leave Them Be?

Some of the images I’ve run through the flatbed scanner are complete works in and of themselves.  They’re enlargements from actual photo shoots where I was attempting to be serious, rather than 1) sneaky, or 2) prurient.  They would require very little in the way modification to get posted here, except…  they were printed on really obnoxious silk-like texture paper, and the texture shows up in the scans.
In this particular case, I used the smudge stick filter in Photoshop Elements 5.0 to cover the silk texture, and added a border in ACDSee Pro.  The image was also obviously cropped, and inverted from the original.  The result is a more hand-drawn appearance to the image, without going overboard.

Here are a couple more images that have pretty much been left alone.  The interesting part here, is that these are scanned from 120 film square negatives… in a 35mm film scanner.  It was tricky, but I got it to work.  The image on the left, was a candid taken of customers at the counter of the camera store I managed in the Seventies.  I cropped out the surly boyfriend, (you don’t want to see the original!), and  used the Sepia tool in Picasa.  That’s the extent of the changes.  I was amazed how the feel of the picture changed with just that little bit of modification!
The image on the right is of one of my oldest friends, (although I haven’t seen her in more than 10 years).. we’ll call her Suzie.  She wanted a portrait for her husband at the time, and I was happy to oblige, being a perpetually  broke college student at the time.  I borrowed a friend’s apartment, gave Suzie my suede “hippie” hat and got to work.  This is also a scan from a 120 black and white negative that I somehow shoved into the 35mm scanner.   It was also given the sepia treatment, along with the soft focus tool.
There you have it. Not all old images have to be turned into weird and wacky abstract works.  Sometimes they’re just fine the way they are. 

Dark Into Light

 

Original- Black and White negative.  A little bit of everything here..  Picnik, ACDSee Pro, Photoshop Elements 5.0, Picasa.  Altogether it creates a moody setting.  There was a lot of trash to take out!

Promenade.

Some time in the Seventies. Somewhere on the Cape. On a honeymoon. Wedding followed some 5 months later.

From original (washed out) color slide.

Shower Door

Another of those ambush shots. In most homes, these lanquish, hidden in the bottom of the sock drawer. Here they become part of the gallery.

35mm black and white, with effects from ACDSee and Picnik.

Memphis Belle.

It's time for another image of the love of my life. Yet another medium is represented here, as this is a Polaroid black and white original.. (in fact, the sharp-eyed will see the box and some other prints! I've had this image since it's capture and I just noticed it today while zoomed in for the hand tinting!)

The picture was taken at a park somewhere in the Memphis, TN area when the young Margaret came to visit a lonely sailor. And dumped him.

At least it wasn't via a "Dear John", and of course, things eventually worked out just fine.

Rippled water effect from ACDSee Pro, hand tinting and "60's" color with rounded corners and frame from Picnik.