Bearded Iris ala Orton

Among the garden flowers I think the Bearded Iris, sometimes called the "Siberian Iris" is the most attractive if not outright sultry and sensual.  I love the deep rich blues and purples contrasting with the yellow "beard".  All told its pretty risky business for a "g-rated" blog.  

This lovely was done in the Orton style.  I'll give you the steps I used to get to the final image.

The image was shot bracketed to allow for the dark backgrounds and sunlit petals.    Turns out the 1 stop over was the better exposure to work with from RAW so there was the starting point.

In photoshop open your RAW file and do what you need to do IE exposure fine tuning, color and light temp balancing and contrast.  When you have an image you like create the new file.   From that file "Duplicate image" and give it a name.  Close the original file to prevent accidentally working it and losing the original data.

From the newly named file go to "Layer" and create a duplicate layer.  That is automatically labeled background which you can leave as is.  

With the new layer go to Image, adjustments and chose the exposure tab.  Increase the exposure by a factor of 1.  

The next step is to go to Image, adjustments, saturation and adjust your saturation upwards.

The next step is to add the blur to the layer.   To do this go to Filter, Blur and chose Gaussian blur.  Blur by a factor of 10-25 pixels to get to a blur that suits your eye.  I generally am in the 15-18 range and this one was 15 pixel blur.

From this point use the blending tool to determine how the final blending will look.  I used Multiply and typically do.  However, others such as saturation and linear burn turn up some pretty interesting results, in short experiment until you get the one you want.

Save the entire file as a PSD file at this point.

Now take this file, go to layer and hit merge visible.  Fine tune your levels manually by going to image, adjustment, levels.

At this final point you "save as" with some sort of notation like v2 after the name as a jpeg file that you can publish or use to work with in other files.

This image had one additional step to give it the old 'chrome look printed on cibachrome by running it through Virtual Photographer.

Enjoy the image, use the steps at will to create your own "Orton style" images.

manet, monet and jack...jump back into the impressionists garden

I could not help myself a play on words referencing pop culture. Of the painters the impressionists have always struck a cord deep within. It was the use of line and color to not present a literal interpretation of a subject, rather left the interpretation to your own background and biases. In this case local auto parts store "Pep Boys" has their founders "Manny, Moe and Jack", I have the impressionists Manet, Monet and Jack Beck.

Georgia O'Keefe did some incredible paintings exploiting the erotic, sensual sometimes outright sexual nature of the shapes and forms in nature. In particular she did many close-ups of flowers in particular that exploited the references to the female anatomy. (More on her in the Wiki).

The Iris in detail the way the petals flow and the brilliant beard and the anther take on some very erotic overtones with a little stretch of the imagination.

This image, the Iris Beard started as a photo wherein the raw file was opened, nominal color correction was done then converted to jpeg in CS2. The jpeg image was then opened in Paintshop Pro, disassembled, run through a couple of filters so the colors would maintain their saturation when printed on wet watercolor paper. Yes, wet watercolor paper, not running wet, but damp and dabbed off. This method of printing allows the fine details to blur into the paper and render a much softer final image. One that gives you an impression of sexuality and eroticism in nature.

A detail of the center to give you an idea of the image prior to hitting the wet paper and causing it to blur.

Anyway, you get the idea of what this is all about. The final print once it is matted will be on display at the Paint n Play 2 Gallery in Old Towne Monrovia.

I have Iris!

Just in time for Easter one of the Iris stalks opened up. These are a favorite of mine that naturalize nicely in a So Cal garden. Very fuss free and only need to be divide every 3-4 years to keep them really producing well. The blossoms on this old variety are huge and the buds even have a metallic sheen to them before they unfold their deep blue petals allowing the fuzzy yellow stamen to be seen peeking out at the center.

More pics of the flowers in my garden will be found on my Flickr Floral Set. Most everything in there is from my garden. You get to see the pics, I get to smell them and relish the sweet scents.