Extra Credit

We were told to write about a photographer or artist as extra credit.. Well the particular artist I would like to focus on is Chris Ryniak.
Unfortunately, There really isn't even much about him on the web. In fact, he's not even on Wikipedia. But I did repeatedly find a little bit about him, about 3 paragraphs. So. Let's get started shall we?
Chris Ryniak was born in 1976 in the Detroit suburbs. As a child he spent every Saturday morning watching the Saturday Morning Cartoons and when he wasn't doing that, usually he was turning over numerous rocks and such in search of insects, reptiles, and ghosts.
As a graduate and former instructor of the Ringling School of Art and Design, he's now a painter and sculptor of all kinds of odd little creatures. His work has been exhibited in galleries through the entire US as well as Hamburg, Germany and Rome, Italy. In the US, his odd little creations showed up in Miami, LA, and New York. His paintings have also been published in many periodicals and various books in the US, As well as Singapore and Europe.
Now days, Chris resides in nice coastal Ohio Dutch Colonial with his two children, his wife, a lizard, a frog, and a cat. Though he still has yet to find any ghosts.
As for my personal opinion on his work; His creations are very bizarre and creative. They seem to have a pretty inspirational effect as well. I personally love his sculptures. The detail is astounding and the exotic blend of reality and cartoon like design on these creatures of his are just amazing.
I would like to invite you, to see these pieces for yourself. Simply click this link here... Be sure to check out all of the gallery. The New, The Old, and The Dimensional.
(The Dimensional works are probably my favorite.)

Quite sadly this is all I could obtain on this particular artist at the time, but I do thank you for reading.

Softening Effect

This was the finished product after using the Softening Effect which I learned from Ms.Miles and the tutorial at photoshopessentials.com. But I don't think it really added much to the photo because the way the lighting was on the original, it already lacked a bit of focus making it apear blurred/softened. So.. Not much change, but I did go through all the steps.

Photoshop: Brushes

We were told to use 3 colors that made sense, as in, they fit the image. Complimentary. So I chose red, obviously, black and white. The color scheme puts alot of emphasis on the color red and somewhat the black due to contrast. I'm actually really proud of how these came out.
The first image was my first experiment with new brushes. I found alot of cool brushes, but I've always loved the smoke and light streak brushes the best, and so I decided that I would use them in this project. In order to put most of the patterns behind myself, I had to select the background carefully with the quick selection tool, and therefore make it only possible to paint and edit the white space. I had to use a different layer for each color for a layered, thick, effect. After, I 'deselected' and put just a few streaks, smoke effects ontop of myself, to give it some depth.
The second image was a combination. You can't see it as well, but the brushes used in the first image, are behind the smoke layers. Basically, for the new smoke layers, I just repeated the same process with new layers. It then occured to me, maybe it's a bit too crowded? After deciding that it wasn't too crowded, because the intent was to make it all seem hectic around myself, like symbolic..
For the third image, I decided to try a new little experiment, that was with the saturation and the gradient tool. I had to copy every single layer, and merge them so that they'd All be effected by the saturation, and just in case I wanted to toss it. After playing around for a bit, I got the effect I was looking for. So everything on the edges got kindof dark, and dull, and greyscale. I actually really like the third one as well.
In the end, the three images almost turned into a step by step piece. But I'm proud of the way it looks. I've always loved Adobe Photoshop, and I love experimenting with new brushes and techniques, so this assignment was pretty fun for me.

Studio Lighting

Finally. I finally scanned and uploaded my Studio Lighting photos! It took me a while to decide. There were 12 different photos for this project in total, and they all came out fantastic. I finally had to ask for assistance in picking one from the model herself, Lisabet, and from Mrs.Alvarez. I decided I couldn't chose just one, and so I uploaded these two. I had the idea for the teddy bear on my way to school that day. We had missed the bus, Lisa and I, and had to take the city bus to school, upon getting off the bus, we stumbled across this teddy bear laying on the ground with it's head falling off. Why not put it in today's photoshoot? Overall, I really love the way these came out. This is deffinantly my favorite project of the semester. The lighting is always fun to play around with and the contrast... It all just looks great and I couldn't be happier with how this series of photos turned out.

PhotoBooth Project

This one was awkward. But it was pretty fun. I could've probably done better, I realize that, but I guess this one was worthy. Hah. I don't really know what I was aiming for when I did this one, I just needed them to look different. The first one kindof reminds me of an old cartoon my little cousin used to watch, and the other one was almost a mock of my grandmother. Both of which were fun to do. The bottom left one was just the original start, and the top right one was me trying to come up with one last idea. Overall, I do enjoy this one. It was pretty fun to do, and it looks pretty cool in the finishe product.