Art Or Bust

I just ordered two more prints from some digital photos I've been working on. One was a color shot of some landscaped gardens in Rockefeller Center. I Photoshopped it into a gorgeous watercolor-like 20X24 print that will look perfect right above the couch. Now, all of the major artwork in the living room was created by me. I'm not sure if any of it is any good, but I do know it makes me unbelievably happy to have created it.

The second photo is a B&W print I'm having done of a shot I took in Atlantic City back in 2004. I was wandering down the street that runs along the back of the main strip of casinos when I came upon a garden. It was landscaped with marble and gaudy columns I thought it might make an interesting photo. Instead, I happened upon a man dressed head to toe in a black pleather suit and boots. He was laying on the marble steps in the afternoon sun, sound asleep. If you didn't know better you might swear he was posed. He was solitary and sad and obviously, at least at that moment, defeated by life. Of course I'm projecting but that's what I saw. It was originally in color and I've been hanging on to it until the right inspiration came along. A couple of weeks ago I took out the color and began playing with the brightness and contrast. Every day or so I went back and adjusted it more and tried some filter effects. Eventually, I opened it three days in a row and didn't change anything. That's when I knew it was finished. I have a series of B&W photos of various sizes that run along the length of the kitchen hallway. Some I took and some are common prints I bought years ago. My intent is to slowly replace the purchased prints with my own work.

I've been meaning to tell you about the company I'm using to have these digital photos converted to prints. It's a site called Postersize-it (I know, horrible name) and they do digital photo prints as large as 24X36. I love the fact that you just have to upload a jpeg. or tiff. file right to their servers in order to place an order. The paper quality they use is superb and the turnaround time, from order to delivery, is super fast. At least where I'm located, I get my print in around 3 days. For somebody like me who requires instant gratification, that's wonderful.