To Start--Some of My Favorites

I love landscape and nature photography. Always have. I especially love photography that uses a texture as an overlay. The application of textures adds dimension and depth to a photograph. It also enriches the colors and gives a richness to the scene that I've never seen captured any other way. Seldom am I ever disappointed once I've found the "right" texture for the "right" photograph. In this first post, I thought I'd show some of my favorite photographs I've taken over the last couple of years with textures applied. I hope you enjoy.

My World In Infrared

I love infrared photography. I just recently discovered it. The bold otherworldly colors of an infrared photograph are like no other you will ever see. The black and white stuff leaves me feeling useless. But color infrared puts a big ol sloppy grin on my face when I manage to do it "right." The ones on display with this post were taken with a new infrared lens that provides "extra" color to the image. And as you can see, that is no lie. If you've never dabbled in infrared, I highly recommend it. There is a weird ethereal quality to it that makes a photograph glow. Add bold strange colors and throw in a texture or two and these are what you get. Let me know what you think.

Blooming

Blooming, a photo by DaraDPhotography on Flickr.

Just a little something I was working on tonight. Courtesy of Shadowhouse Creations, there was a free psd file with frames and textures you can mix and match. I kinda like this one.

Using Textures In My Pictures

Now that you've seen some of my photography using textures, I thought it was time to talk about textures in general. There are a slew of tutorials and you tube videos on the process of applying textures to photographs. Everyone has their own techniques. I'm no different. But what there isn't a lot of information on are the artistic considerations of choosing one texture over another. I look at other people's work and think wow how did they make that texture work into a photograph like that? So lately I've been actually thinking about my process of choice. Usually its an entirely visceral experience of what makes my eyes happy. But actually thinking about my texture choices has lead me to some artistic conclusions I make before, during, and after the texture[s] are applied. So in no real order of importance, here they are.

1. Overall what do I want this photograph to look like? Vintage, colorful, or what?
2. What is the color scheme of the photograph, the lighting SOOC?
3. Once I have a general idea of the answers to those questions, I next ponder my collection of textures. I wish I could say my texture collection is organized and orderly, but its not.
4. So at this point I'm now looking for the general color and feel of the textures.
5. This step is important..do a google search for "fine art textures" and check out some of the amazing artists online. A lot of them offer freebies. And all of them have reasonable prices for some really outstanding textures.Check out the links under "Sites Of Interest" for some of my favorite texture artists. I've also found some beautiful free textures on flickr. If you want specific recommendations, drop me a line and I'll tell you some of my favorites. 
6. The next step is to drop in on Totally Rad! http://www.gettotallyrad.com/ and check out a product they have called "Dirty Pictures." I use it and love it. It streamlines the texture application process and makes it easy breezy to try on various textures with various blending modes before you make your final texture decision. A+ product and I don't mind saying so.
7. Now I wish I could say I have found a true blue method of fitting a texture to a photograph. But honestly its just a trial and error performance. However the article below describes in excellent detail some of the artistic decisions in considering what textures to use for a photograph and why.

Related articles

• Tips for Texturing Photographs (digital-photography-school.com)

I hope this helps a little in understanding the decision making process for texture application.

Goat Island

I'd never been to Niagara Falls. The lady at the visitor's center said the best view of the Falls from the American side was on Goat Island. Boy was she right. This photograph isn't even of the Falls...just a view off to the side. It was a bright sunny day which made this bridge shine like a penny. And with the blue of the sky and the aqua tinged water, I thought it was a postcard. More shots from that day to come.

Amish Farms

I took these last week in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The barns were dotted along the countryside among rows and rows of crops and grazing cattle. It was a beautiful sunny day and those barns were just begging to be photographed. These photographs also gave me a chance to try out some textures by a wonderful artist I discovered a few months ago. Her name is Leslie Nicole and her textures are on full display for purchase on www.frenchkisstextures.com. I have a link to it on this site. I've been using her textures almost exclusively for the latest bunch of pictures I took. As you can see, they definitely add a little something "extra" to the tone and color of the photographs.