Texture Photo--Before and After

If you have been following our blog, you know that I am a huge fan of Kim Klassen and her textures.  She is simply amazing!  Her beautiful work has been a huge inspiration for me and has opened my eyes to a whole new way of creating art through photography (even if it is just for me).

Throughout the past year, I have learned so much through Kim's classes, inspirational Flickr groups, and by just plain old experimentation and while I still have a lot to learn, I thought I'd share a few before and after photos to give you a sense of what you can do with textures....... (and not to sound like a broken record, but I highly recommend you taking one of her classes or joining Beyond Layers --a round two group is forming).

So with that said....I'll walk you through one of my texture photo shoots........

Today, I set up my little photo shoot on my porch.  I clipped some lavender from my garden (it grows on the other side of the screen)  and found a pretty pitcher (an awesome garage sale find) to place it in.

My porch is the one area in my home that gets nice afternoon light and is where I  most often take my still life shots.  I love the old trunk (I've schlepped that thing from coast to coast as the dings and dents can attest to) and use it as my table a lot.   After placing the table lamp on the floor and getting my Photoflex disc out, I had a nice little set up and was ready to start snapping.

After taking nearly two dozen shots at various angles.....I decided to work with the photo below (I actually think it looks quite nice even straight out of the camera):

f2.8, ISO 200, 1/160

My dog, Lulu (who is always following me around) was very curious about my antics.....

Next,  came the fun part.....playing with textures.  I won't get into all the details here but I cropped the photo, used a couple of layers of  Kim Klassen's  texture Phoebe, adjusted the saturation,  added a little text and voila.......created this:

I really love how it turned out.   And while I may never print this image, it was a great way to spend an hour or so of time on a rainy day..........