Posts Tagged ‘Fine Art Photography’
It is only recently that I have dipped my toe into the waters of fine art photography, and even more recently that I have tried my hand at capturing the female body in photography. I have been reluctant to do so at least in part because I didn’t feel I had much to contribute to that genre. It is hard to think of subject more photographed than the female form…sensual or otherwise. From nudes in the woods to the naked female form on motorcycles…it seems it has all been done before, and yet, as an artist, I have always felt compelled to explore, shall we say, tasteful photography of the female body.
It took me some twenty-seven years, but I have finally started a series of photographic studies of the human body, not just women but men too, that I feel does offer something new. And in the process I have found that creating such studies, even when they aren’t something totally new and different, can also be fulfilling work.
What got me interested to begin with was a series of images I created of city lights using long exposure times…usually in the range of a second, while moving the camera. I was sitting at an outdoor café in Vietnam late at night with several friends and idly shooting long-exposures of the streetlights across the avenue from where we were sitting. The combination of blinking neon bar lights along with the movement of my camera resulted in a kind of “Liquid fireworks” feel. From that night on I have been hooked on shooting city lights in that manner. As I started to develop a body of work I was struck at the lyrical and even sensual nature of some of the images…and how some of them seemed to take on the form of the female body.
It was the sensual feel of some of those light images that first led me to decide to shoot the human body. I decided to shoot some nude photographs (of both men and women) and combine them with my long-exposure light photos, using Photoshop, to create a series of images that explore combinations of color, light, and nudes. In some cases I have the models take on poses that work with the lights…and other times I will start with the pose and look for lights that match the pose…or that I can manipulate in Photoshop to better enhance the photograph of the model. In some cases the lights take on the appearance of meridians and chakras…while in other cases the lights lend a sense of motion and or energy. Adding the light images can also add and enhance sensuality, mystery, and glamour to the final image.
I combine the images primarily by using clipping paths to create a tight, accurate selection of the body, then adding it as a new layer into the light image. I can then duplicate various layers re-arrange them, and use layer masks to create the impression of the light wrapping around and sometimes going through the human body. I can use adjustment layers with their built-in masks to add dimensionality to the bodies and or add color, intensity or de-saturation to specific areas of the composites. Hue and Saturation controls also allow my to intensify and/or change the colors of the light streaks. Some images can be very simple with only three or four layers, while others become quite complex. I have had some of these images reach up to seventy layers!
It was while combining those forms that I also began to take the nude body, photographed in my studio, and use Photoshop, again, to put the body into other environments…primarily cloudscapes. These I have done in a photo-realistic manner so that a casual examination would leave anyone believing the nudes had actually been shot in those environments. By shooting the bodies in my studio I can closely control the lighting enhancing the curves and musculature. By stripping the bodies into cloudscapes I can dramatize the sense freedom, expansion and just plain beauty of the photograph.
Now, whenever I travel, I always look forward to creating more of my long-exposure light studies. I have created those images using city lights from Hanoi, to Buenos Aires, to Mumbai to New York. I have long made it a habit to capture interesting cloud forms…and now I also visualize how they might work with the human body. When I get tired of my usual conceptually oriented stock photography projects I give myself a “reward”…permission to play with creating new combinations of the human body juxtaposed and interlaced with the light images from my library of lights and/or clouds. Playing with these images restores my energy and fires up my creativity. It gives me a change of pace and renews my sense of exploration, and instills in me the joy of creating beauty for beauties’ sake!
Photography is much more than images on paper. Photography is about visual communication, the artistic visual representation of brief moments in time, each captured for and in its essence. This is true for any type of photography, no matter what subject or purpose. Images speak the strongest language and it is universal! Marian Kraus Photography’s approach differs from others due to a rare combination of professional background and personal outlook. Pursuing his passion, photography is the influence of these fundamental facets of Marian Kraus’ life. With 20+ years of executive experience at an international conglomerate, Kraus has a keen awareness of the essentials of corporate dynamics and success.
Since 1999, after departing his corporate career, his commercial photography services have encompassed the architectural, advertising, corporate and editorial markets. His images have appeared in numerous periodicals as DuPage County’s book “Economic Powerhouse”. Kraus was selected by the City of Naperville for its 175th Birthday Photo Exhibit “Mirror Image” and his clients include Crate & Barrel, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Inc / ORI, Graycor, Inc, Chicago Double Decker Co., Erdman Company, Bovis Lend Lease, Inc., Mc Kesson Pharmaceuticals, RMK, Truefit & Hill N.A. and many others.
His commercial photography services encompass Architectural Photography of Institutional (hospitals, schools), Hospitality (hotels, spas, resorts, restaurants), Corporate and Retail Interiors and Exteriors, Architecture Photography of Residential Interiors and Exteriors, Product Photography as well as People and Lifestyle Photography.
Another area of expertise for Marian Kraus lies in Fine Art Photography. Marian Kraus’ fine art photography has been exhibited nationally and internationally and can be found in a growing number of private, corporate and institutional art collections.
Marian Kraus’ experience has shown that his fine art photography will transform the environment it was chosen for and set a mood filled with inspiration, peace of mind, awe and creativity. Allow Marian Kraus’ fine art nature and architectural art photography to take you on a meditative and inspiring journey to near and distant places. Inspirational art in the workplace or private residence is really part of a larger trend which is geared towards humanizing the work and living space.
Marian Kraus’ online fine art photo gallery ranges in subject matter from images within the realm of Abstract Reality, Scenics, Skyscapes, City Scapes and many others.
Custom designs are also available and examples can be viewed in the online art gallery under “Custom Designs”.
Usually referred to as art photography in short, fine art photography is an important part of professional picture styles that combine artistic creative vision with prints and special effects. Fine art photography usually makes the object of very classy collections printed in limited editions; the target audience of such albums are collectors and dealers, as the style of such photography is seldom used in advertising or the media. However, it is not uncommon to have fine art photography exhibitions organized, as a way of celebrating artistic variety and accomplishment. The history of fine art photography can be traced back to the Victorian age when a new artistic expression was found.
The fine art photography movement was exposed to several other artistic trends from the other domains: particularly painting and cinematography. Some of the styles presently seem out of fashion and little popular, and here we refer to the attempt to make photos as similar to paintings as possible. This trend marked the beginning of the 20th century and it is considered a step in the evolution of fine art photography. Little by little the gallery system was opened to exhibitions of various famous photographers particularly since artistic expression in pictures gained popularity.
Photojournalism and the snapshot aesthetic approach are tributary and somehow included in the fine art photography perspective, as pictures became one very touchy way of reflecting all sorts of social and human realities of our times. Art and documentary came to create a unique mixture in the evolution of present day photography, and the large number of prints and picture catalogs are just the way to prove it. Nowadays it is more than common that the regular canvases be replaced by framed and glassed pictures in a variety of wall-size prints; we could thus say that fine art photography has made its entrance in house design as well.
Staging and lighting are incredibly important for fine art photography, and very often the outcome depends on the type of camera used in the process. From medium-format and large-format cameras to digital cameras, fine art photography is definitely being more and more integrated in popular social artistic trends specific to the metropolis manifestation. Fine art photography remains however little exploited by the media, as it usually requires a well educated eye to perceive all the subtleties and the unique artistic details that remain unnoticed by the profane eye of common people.