Thinking Escher...

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

What do you think?

Thinking M.C.Escher, 2007:

http://nik.smugmug.com/photos/129079304-L.jpg

No manual drawing per se, only original pictures and several layers and filters (including Vanishing Point)

[Asher Kelman]

Nikolai,

You are talented, almost annoyingly, but not.

This works well. Investigate it more.

This might be liked by an agency.

Asher

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

Thanks, Asher!

It's just a quick exercise, I don't honestly think it has any agency merit...

Cheers!

[Asher Kelman]

On the contrary, this seems original!

Asher

[Antonio Correia]

On the contrary, this seems original!

Asher

Indeed very original.

Good work Nik.
:)

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

Thanks, guys!
Oh well, FWIW I notified my gallery agent, we'll see what she'll say:-)

[Antonio Correia]

Nikolai,

Gallery agent ?
Does this means that you have someone who looks at your pictures, select them, print them, promote them in the form of calendars, books, whatever ... ?

And if I was interested in such a service ?
Would she be interested as well ?

After all I have some good pictures ... :)

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

Antonio,

I got a developing relationship with some gallery in LA. They sold one of my pictures. I hope they can sell more:-) But it's too early to call it a sure thing. We just "know" of each other, that's pretty much it...

[Asher Kelman]

Good luck!

Asher

[Sean DeMerchant]

What do you think?

Thinking M.C.Escher, 2007:



No manual drawing per se, only original pictures and several layers and filters (including Vanishing Point)

HI Nikolai,

You asked for it. <smile>

I think it is a good start, but to stand on its own apart from Escher's works it needs something more from my viewpoint.

I would not call it highly original per se, but I am familiar with Escher's works. The most original variants I have seen were done with Legos:

http://www.andrewlipson.com/escher/relativity.html
http://www.andrewlipson.com/escher/belvedere.html
http://www.andrewlipson.com/escher/ascending.html
http://www.andrewlipson.com/escher/waterfall.html

But they are original for the media used, not for the final result.

Because of the way that Escher's 3-D tweaks work by manipulating the null space of the 3-D to 2-D (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/NullSpace.html) transformation I think they are important works for a photographer to understand from a compositional standpoint. The above linked Lego variations show the trick to make it work which can be instructive.

Other works from Escher are less critical in understanding photographic composition, but their transformational nature is still of value in thinking about design.

Back to the image. I do like extending the concept with photo-realism and I like the usage of a young and a mature hand which adds something extra.

Critically, the composition feels unbalanced to my eyes. I dislike how the stylus in the mature hand aligns with the wireframe arm. I also feel that more refinement of the wireframes to get a smoother more organic shape (less linear) along with aligning the younger arm with its wireframe might refine the vision further. I would also suggest exploring using a gradient on a layer mask to perhaps fade the wireframe arms into the background. Perhaps even fading them into a graph paper style background with the drawing on graph pager to extend the concept further.

Anyway, hopefully this give you some ideas on perhaps further refining the vision.

enjoy your day,

Sean

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

HI Nikolai,
You asked for it. <smile>
...

Thank you for your time and comments, I do appreciate them!

Here goes version #2.

My New Tablet:

http://nik.smugmug.com/photos/129540991-L.jpg

[Asher Kelman]

Put Wacom on it and you might have a sale!

Asher

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

Put Wacom on it and you might have a sale!
Asher

I was going after the Wacom tablet I have:-)
Looks familiar?
Then my Arc Of Intent is complete :-)

[Sean DeMerchant]

Thank you for your time and comments, I do appreciate them!

Here goes version #2.


You are welcome. <smile> There are many who do not care for criticism and gets me upset to see it. I know "that sucks" is not criticism as it is an insult and not constructive

I still find the connection of the arm to the younger hand to the arm to have an unnatural angle in it. You could explore cleaning that up with the Liquefy tool and look at smoothing out the wireframes to a more natural looking angle.

I also wonder about the spiral motif. Have you considered overlaying a wire frame over the real arms and having it look like they are coloring in the forearms? This would draw the styluses into the spiral rather than sticking out so much. Not to say this will improve it, but they are things I considered.

I would also suggest exploring using a real photograph of your tablet.

enjoy your day,

Sean

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

Sean,

once again, many thanks for your time and feedback.

1) Angle of merge (upper hand/frame). This, in fact, was the angle of the hand. I know it looks suspicious, but I decided to go with the nature:-)

2) Spiral. Good idea, but getting this wireframe was a pain in the neck even as is. I'm not that good with the vectors/hand drawing to engage into such a complicated design. Besides, I still wanted to keep it more like an actual photograph rather than digital art, so I have chosen rather minimalistic approach.

3) Using the real tablet. It was one of my first thoughts when I started the projects, but then I decided that it could become an ad for Wacom (which was not my point at all) and opted for a totally made-up one.

Cheers!