From photo to painting - a few simple changes.

The walkway bridge at Meadow Gardens Golf Club.  Golden Ears Mountain in the background.

My daughter loves to paint.  She got hooked on that under the gentle tutelage of Lori Allan while we lived in Maple Ridge, BC.  Now, as an adult, she continues to ply her hand at the craft, and she uses my photos as the archetype.  Yesterday, she asked me to send her a vertical image of Golden Ears Mountain.  I have dozens of them, but many of them are in a horizontal format.  I found 5 good vertical ones, but took another 4 horizontal photos and reoriented them, with a twist.

The twist was to move the foreground relative to the background.  You can see in the above image (left) that the bridge and the mountains do not line up, and a straight vertical crop wouldn't render well.  My solution was to move the two main components of the scene so they would be vertically opposed (right).  I like the effect, and it was relatively easy to do.

The greenway, just below the tree line, crosses the entire photo horizontally and is relatively homogeneous.  I simply used my linear selection tool in Photoshop and selected the bottom of the original image, then moved it laterally to the left.  Conversely, I could have selected the top and moved it to the right; same difference.  I had to play a bit with cropping and moving, but the result speaks for itself.

Of the nine photos I sent her, this one ranks fourth or so in appeal.  Whichever one she chooses, I hope she enjoys what she does.  I know, whatever the finished product is, that I will love it.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com

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