Textures, photography and a bit more.

28/11/08

I really love images that were created by blending different textures and photographs together. If done properly and with care, the results can be stunning, unique and real artworks.

I am not an expert and I have only recently been experimenting with this technique however it is a lot of fun. As an example I will use the image that I called ‘Tinted Vintage’. My aim was to create a vintage rather than ‘distressed’ looking image, not a straight photograph. I wanted to give it more of an arty feel. Textured images are not that difficult to create but the challenging bit is to find the right images that will go with the right textures. It is all about experimenting and finding out what works and what doesn't.

I worked on this image for several days to make it look the way I wanted. A portrait and three images of different textures (a cracked wall, a letter and an art border) were used and blended to create the final result. I converted the final blended image to black and white and then to sepia as the original colours didn’t work together too well and were distracting.

I was also inspired by photographs that my Grandfather used to create. At his time, there was no colour photography so he would sometimes softly hand-tint his black and white images (mostly portraits) by adding a ‘wash’ of colour. The result is not a natural-looking but if done correctly, it looks very pretty and adds a dreamy personal touch. I tried a similar effect using Photoshop.