Soaring

The Devils River meanders through West Texas and finally reaches the Rio Grande at Lake Amistad. Devils River Canyon, which is partially flooded by waters behind Lake Amistad reservoir, is a spectacular sight. Vertical limestone cliffs rise a hundred meters or more above the river. The canyon can be explored by small watercraft for some distance upriver from the lake.

Updrafts along cliffs create a perfect environment for soaring birds. They can be seen rising thousands of feet catching thermals out above the arid landscape. You can watch the them starting out low to the cliffs, circling and rising to find warm air then disappearing to become small dots high above. There is something inspiring about this simple natural behavior. It is one of the many remarkable things to be found along the borderlands of Texas.

The Kiss

This is an experimental composite image I put together earlier today. My goal was to combine two photographs and textures into a surreal finished work to be interpreted by the viewer. The base image is a portrait I shot about tens years ago. It is composited with an image of an old man kissing someones hand. Various textures were also added along the way. To me the finished work resembles a diagonal slash of a face draped in folded fabric. The results while being a long way from conventional photography, do meet my goals pretty well.

Drowsy Boy

The source photograph for this completed work was made nearly eight years ago with my first DSLR a Canon 10D. Many of the photographs shot with that 6MP camera still print well up to 16×20 inches. You have to work a little to get good output in color but black and white output does not require much extra work to get acceptable prints.

This is another of my augmented images. It is composited with several textures in the background and blended into the image of the subject. One of the interesting things I’ve discovered while experimenting with compositing is that a small amount of texture often enhances a sense of depth in portraits. Perhaps the noise introduced by overlaying texture at low opacity somehow makes the human face look more natural. Not sure but it seems to work for me.

Download this Photo calendar in PDF format. Direct download links – No signup required.

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The North America calendar
Weeks starting on Sunday.
Phototrice Calendar No. 15 – North America

The International calendar
Weeks starting on Monday.
Phototrice Calendar No. 15 – International