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.
That little cloud coming down is what you might see when a tornado is forming. It was about a few miles away I figure, but it wasn’t anything to worry about we could tell. Turned out to just be a thunder and lightning show for us, the scary stuff was farther north.
