The General’s Wife told us the story of how she got her star. He was up on stage receiving his star as a one star general. After the ceremony was done he stopped and started talking ad lib. He told of how he was there not due to his own efforts alone but the support of someone else. He brought his wife on stage and choking with emotion said that I have a star within this star on my shoulder and it is my wife Cindy. He presented her with a jewelry box and inside was the necklace you see, a diamond star surrounding a diamond star in the middle. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house as you can imagine. She beamed as she told this story to the other wives and widows at the reunion. It made her very happy and that was where her beauty came from at that moment.
This woman was a customer at my hair salon. I had just got my digital camera a few weeks before and was anxious to try some ideas. She was actually getting her nails done, not her hair. I took some photos of her and the nail lady doing her work then asked her if I could take some close ups of her eyes. We walked outside in the shade (but with a very very bright parking lot right behind me as I faced her. She had the most gorgeous green eyes. I took photos looking straight into each eye so I could just see the side of her head at the same time. I combined the one in front of the right eye with the one in front of the left eye to get this look. I then layered the words, copied the collage onto a new layer and turned it grayscale, then cut out all the grayscale image that did not act as a background for the words. I then spent a great deal of time manipulating her face and eyes to get the color and depth I was looking for.
This image of my step daughter Caitlin was a simple color image. I worked it extensively within Photoshop, using the unsharp mask tool quite a bit in getting the high contrast and high grain. The color overlays were relatively random.
The quote is one of my favorites. I read it first in ‘sketchbook with voices’, a photo sketchbook I worked within back in the 80s. I have liked it ever since and think it is a crucial sentiment when understanding what an artist does in the world.
