Visual Arts Journal

Kassan has Ventured into Digital
As you may have guessed David Jon Kassan on the short list of favorite artists here at VAJ Blog. So I welcome any opportunity to share what he has been creating. He is widely known for his pencil, charcoal, chalk and oil works but is less known for his new digital works. (continue reading…)

Why Meditate
Many authors have recommended that artists incorporate some form of meditation as part of their creative process. Meditation has often been associated with an increase in creativity. It undoubtedly helps in terms of relieving stress and other physiological blocks, but it also holds some mystical way of unblocking creativity. Unfortunately some of us find it hard to quiet our minds and bodies. I came across a method that I not only found very easy to practice but felt immediate results. (continue reading…)

The Recommended Tool For Finding Values
If you are looking for a tool to aid in seeing values then the preferred tool is the Gray Scale Value Finder shown above. This tool can be particularly helpful if you are following Jane Hofstetter’s methods or just trying to train your eye. (continue reading…)

An Industry Standard
A quality magazine that is considered a “must have” for many photographers. The content highlights two or three really cool Photoshop tutorials and an article or two. Filling out the rest of the pages are a dozen or so regular columns, a handful of photo equipment reviews, Lightroom content and a nice spread on the current featured photographer. Also present, a lot of glossy looking advertising, which as a photographer, I do selectively glance at. (continue reading…)

Tips That Payoff Big: Composition, Camera Settings, and more.

 Get a Plan: at least jot down some quick notes on paper. Very few people can successfully pull off the shoot-on-the-fly method. What makes sense to you at the moment may spell confusion for your audience or extra editing time for you. Writing it down also helps clarify concepts and point out potential problems.

 Shoot Your Age: unless you or your audience are twenty somethings, don’t shoot or edit, the rapid-fire sequence of images. For an example of this style watch the first 12 seconds of the first video here. Likewise, stay away form Snooze-pacing too. Consider what would be palatable to your audience. (continue reading…)

SilverShotz is pricy and hard to find, but it’s drop dead gorgeous. The magazine mainly profiles the artists, or rather their portfolios, by displaying numerous very large images of their work. Text is very light but who needs it. If this doesn’t provide inspiration, I don’t know what will.  They have a one page directory in the back and no other advertising. They also have a one page book review but no other columns or content, just the big name profiles and portfolios. (continue reading…)

A Postmortem Review: Camera Arts Magazine

A small but highly inspirational magazine covering all genres and specialties of photography, fine art, photo mixed-media, portraiture, photo journalistic, etc. All the articles are keepers; I found no fillers (advertising yes but no meaningless articles). The articles tend to be more visual than text oriented and the writing is concise.

Update: A Review of the Camera Arts Magazine Web Site
Once entirely gone, this magazine has been resold back to a previous owner (continue reading…)

Periodically it’s necessary to have a little help with seeing values. The color resource you are working from, whether it is a photograph, a 3D object, or a scene outdoors; may for several reasons be giving you problems when trying to clearly visualize its values. Colors tend to distract the eye, which is why these tools are so useful because they eliminate or reduce color. (continue reading…)

I found this magazine on the newsstand about a month ago and really liked it. My review is based on both the first (January 2009) and second issues of this quarterly magazine. I initially thought it was the other popular magazine, but was surprised to see that APC has some sort of association with this magazine rather than the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP). (continue reading…)

I went on a studio tour recently and struck up a conversation with the photographer about achieving the perfect exposure for a difficult scene. It could be a outdoor scene involving both sunlit and darkly shadowed areas; interior architectural shots with overexposed windows or any scenes that have two or more dramatically different lighting conditions. High Dynamic Range photography (HDR) captures the scene in a series of (continue reading…)

Authored by Jane R. Hofstetter   ISBN: 1-58180-479-2  List Price: US 28.99

This is one of the best books I’ve ever seen on composition and planning. It is very easy to read and her text and examples make the principles very easy to understand. It covers Pattern, Passage, Focal Areas, Color, Design, The Golden Mean and Emotional Depth. (continue reading…)