Making Your Own Textures with Maryellen Stone

Maryellen's photography and creative approaches are just absolutely stunning. It's a real pleasure to invite her to present to Camversation, as I know she has supported the community for a number of years!

About the talk:

Making Your Own Textures to Enhance Your Images

Sometimes you look at an image and think what is it about this image that makes it different? What makes it stand out? What makes it look complete? Often the answer to this question is the addition of a texture, or two or three, (or more!). A texture can add a painterly feel to an image - it can hide a less than lovely background or add some sparkle or pizzaz to an image. For most competitions, from local camera clubs to international exhibits, all parts of an image must be your own. That means you must create the textures yourself. In addition to photographing an outstanding image with good lighting, composition, subject, etc., etc., you must be the creator of anything that you add.

In this session we will explore three main ways of creating your own textures to be used to enhance your images and elevate them artistically. We will explore textures that are created in-camera with a DSLR, or mirrorless camera, and/or your mobile phone. Often these images are created at the same time you are photographing your subject. The second method we’ll explore is images that are created digitally, using programs and apps that you can use to manipulate images you’ve already taken or create new images from (digital) scratch. Finally, we’ll have some good, old-fashioned play time creating textures by hand using a variety of materials that are too much fun to leave just to the children.

Now that you have your textures we’ll talk about choosing a texture or textures for your images and how to add them to your images in Photoshop.

A good working knowledge of layers, layer masks and the magic of blend modes in Photoshop is helpful but not required. Once you create your own textures and want to learn how to use them, you will be using layers, layers masks, and blend modes to take your images to the next level.

About Maryellen:

Maryellen Stone is a photographer and digital artist who explores the natural world, seeking color, light, movement, and all things unique and wonderful through whatever lens she has in her hand. She is grateful to be able to combine a love of animals and the outdoors with her photography.

Maryellen’s work has earned numerous awards and recognition in local, national, and international exhibitions. She enjoys learning and teaching creative ideas and techniques. Her aim is to elevate the ordinary and “…make the world more beautiful”, (Miss Rumphius, Barbara Cooney).

For more about Maryellen and her work visit her website. http://www.naturesimages.com

Our talks will be recorded and made available for FOUR weeks after the event.