OK, I’ll admit it – I was not doing what I was supposed to be doing for my book project – editing the text one final time – but I had to play around with this Dahlia I photographed recently! Besides if the process worked, I wanted to include it in one of the chapters of the book. So it’s justified, truly, really it is, I’m not just avoiding work…
Back in the film days – sounds like an old movie story – I used to love working with Polaroid SX-70 film, and mushing it around while it was developing. Some of you might recall the technique; some of you might have loved it as much as I did! It just gave a different expression to the images that I made. But commercially, I wasn’t finding much use for it, and at that time, I was focused more on commercial than fine-art work. I kept at it to a degree, to feed my artistic sensibilities, but when the film was discontinued, the first time, I let the process go and moved on to other things.
So how did I do this one? I simply used the Liquify tool in Photoshop. That’s it; it took me about a 45 minutes – oh wait, I should say 4 hours! But seriously it did not take as long as I thought it might. Colleagues of mine had used this tool in PS before, but I just assumed it had taken them hours to get results. Perhaps on some images it does.
I’m pretty happy with the results – enough to look at other flowers I’ve photographed now and play around with them – but after the book goes to press!
I love it, at first I was blown away by the the curves and petals dancing in different directions and how each petal melts into next petal pulling me into another direction. After I absorbed the overall composition my eyes kept darting in circles around edge of the frame as my brain kept picking the whiter parts of the large petals. Couldnt keep my eyes still no matter how hard I tried. Genius!
Thanks, Kalani – Dahlia blossoms are a delight to photograph in any way – color or black and white! They dance and curve just as you described and I feel when I look at them. Thanks!
So glad you took time away from the book to create this beautiful image! It is wonderful.
Thanks, John!
You’re welcome, Barbara! Have fun with it…
Love it and thanks for the tip, off to play with my flowers and liquify.