Neodigital Art – Update two

Neodigital Art - socially inclusive, you just need your computer and a camera.

Neodigital Art – Update two, Saturday, 26 March 2011

“These people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in the wood, on the river bank. Their teachers have been the birds themselves, when they sang to them, the sun when it left a glow of crimson behind it at setting, the very trees, and wild herbs.”
— Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

I find inspiration for my Neodigital Art everywhere but especially in nature. We didn’t have good light for taking photographs last Sunday and despite my friend wanting to go somewhere ‘pretty’ and out in the countryside, we didn’t go far. I took a few photographs of a canal, then found a Tudor manor house that I couldn’t get close to, but managed a couple of decent shots. We then went on to the lake that you see in the first picture. The colours were a little muted, it’s the end of winter and it was a dull day. I managed to photograph of a single daffodil that shows spring isn’t far away. The pictures contrast to the ones I took in the same place in the summer last year. You can use the Photo editing program in the Windows Live suite of programs. If you do start a collection of Neodigital Art of your own then please do a search for me on Windows Live by searching for my user name – Mike10613. We can perhaps share pictures and views.

I look for the hidden places and the canal crosses an aqueduct nearby and so we went to see where it went to and came to the river. It’s not one of England’s greatest rivers, it not much more than a stream and shallow enough to walk across but I got a few interesting photographs and that one is of the bridge that spans the river. It was hidden because few people go that way except for people who live there. You often find hidden treasures just walking down a path that is used infrequently.

If you have a camera and can see the wood for the trees - you can be an artist.

The next picture was taken on a previous outing and the sun was shining and the sky was blue. You may think a photograph of an electricity pylon against a blue sky with the vapour trail of an airliner crossing the clear blue sky inartistic. The art and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, some people see trees; some people also see the wood.

Neodigital Art : You may need to look up to see the image you want.

You need only a digital camera and some imagination and you can go out exploring, looking for the unusual in buildings and nature. I looked at a road on Google Streetview to find woodland and a sign said nature reserve and so we may go there this weekend. I found a building that was half demolished for some reason and held up with wooden supports; it made an interesting picture and I hope to go back and photograph it again. I lost the original when my computer crashed. You can set your camera on automatic and then you can concentrate on the subject matter rather than camera settings. I am now looking for better shots and will experiment with different camera speeds this weekend if it’s cloudy and dull. I have a spooky picture of the local church on one of my blogs that is monochrome; I took the colour out. That was taken when it was quite dark, just before a storm and it turned out to quite atmospheric. I will try some slow speeds this weekend that let in more light and see what effects it has on my photographs.

The next photograph has been changed using Fotosketcher and you can download that free for digitally changing photographs to sketches or paintings. This is an industrial landscape and is dominated by an electricity pylon, but this type of image gets the most comments.

Neodigital Art - Look for the unusual, even if it does appear quite ugly.

Check out some other interesting blogs, like ‘Daylight Robbery!’ or my usual Thrifty Thursday or Frugal Friday blogs. This will maybe a little more popular than my rant last Sunday but that is still worth reading if you missed it!

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