The IR chrome filter seeks to recreate the effect of the olden-times kodachrome film, spares the blue and turns foliage rich reds and oranges. Intended for blue skies and such, but also a nice colour effect on blue-feathered birds, and the images don’t need the ‘colour-swap’ processing that most infrared camera images require.
Shot on a full-spectrum modified A6000
I foolishly/recklessly signed up to a ‘one week challenge’ for digital portrait painting, via @paintable.cc . I call this finished for now, if not really finished-finished (luckily, digital paint never dries). Following someone else’s process made me explore some bits of my drawing programmes that I’ve never used before, and it was all very frustrating at times, but good to do.
Tools: Autodesk Sketchbook on a Surface Pro for the sketching and most of the painting parts, and Photoshop with an elderly Wacom tablet on my desktop for the Photoshop finishing and detail parts.
#digitalart #portrait #portraitpainting #oneweekchallenge
I’m not much for conferring, but practical workshops . . . yes please. This year the Photographic Society of New Zealand conference was held in Lower Hutt, a mere 40 minutes drive from where I live. Along with favourite genres like macro and nature, I took workshops in genres that are definitely off-brand for me. Specifically, fashion photography, complete with giant soft boxes and carefully posed trained models. I’m happy with what I managed to snap, and maybe I’ll try that sort of style for real. Although with faces that have a little more weathering and a lot less makeup. But having the fancy lighting, that is nice.
We are enjoying a ridiculous one month whirlwind tour of Italy, savoring the mid-winter no-tourist vibe. Weather-wise it mostly like pleasant spring weather at home. Genoa was a one-day stop on the way to Nice, but turned out to be packed with surprises, and it’s been marked as “next time and stay longer” on the imaginary travel planner.
After a busy day wandering through the quite fab aquarium and history of the sea museum my husband, ex-navy and with a marine biology degree was in high degrees of happy place (and okay, I was pretty happy too). On the way back to our accommodation we happened to pass a former palace now a museum (as you do in Italy), an hour or so before closing. The art was excellent, the galleries pleasingly empty, but just as we were about to head down stairs a guard suggested there was just time to take the lift to the roof. So, amazing unexpected views across the roofs of Genoa, at about 4.45pm.
Lesson for next time: must remember to put the pocket tripod in ones pocket, just in case.
As corny and as scenic and nearly as crowded as I had feared and hoped and feared. I can’t imagine how tourist-crushed it is at peak season, but it looked darn pretty in the wintery frost haze.
(Infrared modified camera)
This collection of anatomy waxes in Florence is one I’ve read about for years. The official website that I checked before leaving on m’big trip was somewhat discouraging, describing a complicated process involving a phone call to apply for a tour place, and implying that the collection would probably be closed when I was going to be in Florence, between Christmas and New Year, as it was part of a University-supervised collection. So I sighed, and resigned my self to only seeing all the other ridiculously astonishing art and palaces on display in this amazing city.
Then . . . we came across the collection somewhat accidentally, at the first museum we visited, The Museum of Zoology and Natural History, next to the Pitti Palace. I’d gone there with my husband to see the old taxidermied animals (we’re those kind of tourists), and noticed there were anatomical waxes, behind an iron grill. The lady at the front desk said oh yes it was the collection, and possible to visit with a guide today, should she put our names on the list? Oh yes. Photos were fine, although no flash of course. The thick old glass cases were a challenge to photograph through, although to the eyes, it was perfect. Amazing to see in the round, and to see the original dioramas in wax that inspired the whole project, astonishing little works of gruesomely gorgeous art by Gaetano Zumbo.
Tiny wax models, by Zumbo
The colours have shifted since the models were made 200+ years ago at the behest of Leopold II, then Grand Duke of Tuscany. But still the work is all so delicate, so precise, so so so everything. Beautiful, art and craft serving science. There are several ‘Venus’ models, which I have seen in miniature in other medical collections, but here were the originals, as created by Clemente Susini, life size with long (real) hair, a string of pearls, and a belly made to be removed to reveal the inner workings of females (the glass case and angle meant I didn’t get a photograph, but there’s a discussion of them here).
There’s fine summary of the collection’s history in The Journal of Anatomy. The most complex models (for example of the lymphatic system) involved hundreds of dissections, conducted mostly on the bodies of criminals and ‘unclaimed poor’. Each finished piece is a testament to collaboration between skilled dissections, and skilled wax workers. The collection was also important for the public access that was permitted – any member of the public who was ‘clean’ was allowed to visit, it was the first public science museum.
The casual portrait group I go to more-or-less weekly is quite popular, and unless you get there very early, chances are good that the only seats left will be on the outer edges – but happily, I really like drawing an interesting profile! 2 hours or so on the Surface Pro, using Autodesk Sketch. And, so bold, I even tried a little colour this time around.
