No, I did not run away to a tropical beach through heaven knows it was tempting during what I sincerely hope was the coldest week of the year here in Santa Fe. Instead I visited Hobby Lobby for the first time in my life. After all, I have a hobby and said commercial enterprise does not really support photographers. Or so I thought. I’d seen several references to Hobby Lobby in blogs by a macro photographer I follow (Mike Moats if you really want to know) so I thought, what the heck.
I had seashells on the brain when I went in but oh my, the possibilities were endless. I also came home with some peacock feathers and it is a good thing I didn’t take a cart because by the time I had picked up the feathers, a large basket of shells from the Philippines, and a small bottle of sand my hands were full. Though my inner environmentalist did cringe a bit my inner artist was doing cartwheels.
So, I brought my treasures home and spread some sand out on a dinner plate and started arranging shells and shooting away. I wasn’t too happy with anything I got straight out of the camera but I started playing around with Nik my inner artist started jumping around again. For this image I first took it into Viveza and added structure. I didn’t like what that did to the sand so I took the structure image and a shallow depth of field version into photoshop and blended to blur out the sand in the background.
Next, I took it into Color Efex Pro and added a bi-color filter to emphasize the golden tones of the top shells and the purple of the scallop shell. Then I added a vintage film filter and came up with this happy result. I had another version using the bleach bypass filter that I also like a lot but this one captured top honors.
One of the goals of art is to evoke emotion or distant memories. I think this image succeeds. I see it hanging on a motel room wall near the coast or in someone’s beach house.