May 22, 2012

Memory Lane. Southern CA forest, Corral Canyon, Spring 2012.

It’s that peaceful time just before sunset in the hill country. Warm breezes and insects flying in the evening air. That gentle flair of the sun peeking thru the trees before it recedes into night.

I can almost taste the peaceful feeling we had that evening, my four year old standing next to me with his little camera and a cool mountain breeze drifting over the valley. It was in a remote forest near one of our favorite camp spots of the winter 2012 trip.

I’m finding the simple scenes often have more impact to people than the grand iconic landscapes. Say Arches or the Grand Canyon. Don’t get me wrong, I love the grand landscapes of America. But sometimes the simple idealistic scenes evoke something more. Each person adding their own experiences and emotions into a scene, triggering memories, sights and sounds.

Release details: Prints available. Contact the studio. Learn more about prices. Available prints…

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March 5, 2011

Entrance to Death Valley. Gavin Seim.

This is one of those photographs that I overlooked for awhile. It’s not earth shattering and it may never be seen as one of my best, but the more I look at it the more it tells a story. The harsh afternoon sun, the heat waves fading into the distance. The approaching car, escaping from the clutches of the tortured hills.

The long line of the road leads my eye in and then it curves away. I know the place beyond is dry and barren. At least I think I know. But at the same time, my sense of adventure wants to go there anyways. It senses there’s beauty (and perhaps water) just over those mountains.

For Photographers. How it was made…

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May 30, 2008

If you follow my photography blog, you probably saw my latest digital art work, that I call Road to the past. As promised here is the details of how I made it.

Animae effect with Road to the past

I recently saw the movie Speed Racer, and liked the smooth saturated Anime like feel. Not that it would work for every image, but it had a good feel. So I started to work an some actions. I frequently get visual ideas from movies, and movie posters, and though I’m sure this does not meet the official standard for Anime, it was inspired by that look.

I‘ve finally found a sweet spot with a few adjustable actions that give a saturated, Anime type look, without looking fake and foolish. Here’s a bit of what I did to get this image.

This is my original image. This was taken on a side road of HWY 12 in Washington. A cool shot, but not yet spectacular…

My first job in making this into digital art, was to clone out the things I didn’t want. The goal here was not to make an exact representation of this scene, but use it as the model for the piece I really wanted. I also added some clouds in place of the blank sky that was in the corner. Below is the cloned version.

So when all the cloning was done the rest was easy now that I had the action I needed. I ran the effect I’ve titled Anime II, and then spent some time doing final adjustments on the layers & masks. Lastly I added subtle beams of light (look far up the road) to add some dimension do the image. Basically this was dome by painting white lines on a new layer, blurring them, adding a little outer glow, and then setting that layer to overlay mode.

I‘m happy with the finished product, and it looks great in print. I feel the effect is not too over the top, and yet still has a good feel to it that offer something more than just a plain photo. It’s close to that line between painted, and photograph, yet without looking automated. I’m defiantly loving these actions

If you want to hurry me along making these actions available, or want to be added to the notification list just drop me a note… Gavin Seim

Animae effect with Road to the past

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May 28, 2008

I really like the feel of this dwindling road. The old truck that’s for sale makes me feel like if I were to drive up the road I would go back in time.

Road to the past

Continuing my digital fine art project, here is my latest work.  I intend to keep posting these to build a collection that will eventually be available for sale on my site. If you want a copy now, you can contact me.

I actually took this last year in 2007.  It’s a side road off of Highway 12 in Washington that leads to a Mount St. Helen’s lookout.  It was not until this last week that I finally got it finished. Alas, time is a fleeting thing.

I used a new effect I made in Photoshop–and plenty of painstaking editing–to finish with a cross between a painting and a photo. It really shows up well in a large print.  If you want to learn more about how it was done, I’ll post more about that soon on my Seim Effects blog.  Have a wonderful day everyone…

Gav

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