Wednesday, January 6, 2016

2015 Favorites

Happy New Year, and since today is Ukranian/Russyn Christmas Eve, Kristos Razdayetsya.

Every January I post my favorite art from my year's portfolio.  This year I have spent so much time doing scannography that I had to include a few of them. I would love to have you respond to these pictures and tell me which are your favorites, and why.  Critiques are always helpful.

I love the burnished colors of my oak leaves and acorns scan.

One of my earliest scans is still one of my favorites.  I love the texture in this photo of a sea fan and shells.
Gifts from the Sea


I have to include two of my photos from my genealogy series. I find this scan of my Grandmother Buchta's entry into the United States from Bratislava (and her original portrait) so beautiful.
Kristina Vanek


My grandfather Buchta's scan is simple and masculine.  He arrived from Skalica in 1910 at the age of 20.

The next two photographs are my favorites, not for the images, but for the technical skills I learned in producing them.  I guess you should not believe what you see in photography today as fact. Then again, could you ever?  Photographers since the beginning of the art have chosen what they photographed and left out much of the reality of the scene.   Think of  Edward Curtis's posing of Native Americans and the narrow focus of fashion or food photography.

The color in this photo was "painted in" using Photoshop.  I had changed the original color photo to black and white and then painted in a few of the tulips.


I learned to alter the color of the mountains in this scene, again, using Photoshop. 

My series of 4x4x4x4 was a delight to produce--4x4 prints taken at 4 pm in the 4th month of the year by the 4 artists in my Art group.  This series has been accepted for exhibition in 2016 at the Studio Place Arts Gallery.  The photo below was produced through silhouette art after I visited an exhibit of the work of Walter Wicks and decided to emulate him for one of the 4x4s.  If you are interested in learning more about silhouette art, visit my website: patricialyonsurrey.com

In honor of Walter Wicks
I did not produce many abstract photographs this year.  Here is one of the few.


A macro photograph of a peace lily.

And finally, when being in the right place at the right time pays off.