I have been playing rather seriously with photography for about ten years now, starting with digital, and then moving into film. However, for me, there is always something missing in photography, and that simply is working with my hands. I get rather bored, to tell the truth, of photography. I would rather do something with it, make something with it.
Coming home from Mammoth in August, seeing the desert, made me recall two things. One was David Hockney. The other was his photo collage – montage – joining – whatever – of the Pear Blossom Highway. There is just something about it I have always enjoyed.
Last weekend I decided to do something about it. I went out to the local botanical garden and took a whole series of images, all digital, to create something similar to Hockney’s Pear Blossom Highway. Altogether, I took enough photos for about a dozen panoramas, ranging from about 20 images to 70. It took a few days to process the images in post, and then to create a panorama, too, just to get an idea of what the final pictures could be.
I chose three that I liked. The pictures above are one of the three I sent to the Costco photo lab to print as 4×6 inch glossy prints. I have no idea if Costco will stick to my colors or not – no idea! That is part of sending them to an inexpensive photo lab. For 112 images, I am paying less than $20.00, so that’s a pretty cheap thrill. And, they will be ready in a couple of hours, so the fun can begin soon enough.
From all the images above, the one below is the merged pano, done in CS6, to give me a bit of a road map – like cheating on a puzzle??
Once I get the collage done with the prints, it will be interesting to see how it actually looks, compared to a computer-merged panorama.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 