Photo Art Masters Search Contest; Corel’s Paint Shop Pro Photo Art Suite Winners Page 2
In the mid-20th century, as a modern postwar child, I spent half my life with my 19th century grandmother, who believed in the healing virtues of sun, sand, and saltwater. For her, Coney Island was the American Riviera. We often went to the beach via subway. My Aunt Lila, years later, recounted her childhood journeys to Coney Island, not by subway, but in her mother's horse and wagon...my 5'1" grandmother, standing on the buckboard, reins and whip in hand, the wagon up on two wheels, careening down Brooklyn streets with all 5 kids in the back, on their way to the beach.
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In memory of my grandmother, who came to this country alone, on a dare, when
she was 14, I painted the beach she loved. Years ago, I met a fellow from Britain
who told me that his father, an architect, never went anywhere without his small
camera, shooting everything he saw and getting better and better. This became
my process. I never left home without my keys, my journal, and a very simple
inexpensive point-and-shoot camera...taking pictures of families, backstreets,
flags, animals, lovers, doorways, clouds, parades, gardens, and a lady blowing
bubbles sheltered from the summer sun by an umbrella.
I'm by nature a hunter/gatherer...bringing back visual gold and inspiration
to my painting studio. I use Paint Shop Pro as an art assistant, very much the
way the Renaissance master artists, Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo, utilized
the skills of young and talented apprentices to help them in the developmental
stages of their masterpieces. When I need to plan out a painting before committing
expensive oil paints to my palette--or I want to visualize my painting
darker, lighter, cooler, hotter, without spending more time sketching--I
use Corel software.
3rd Place Winner: Larry Bolch Artist's Statement
Much of my life has been spent upon photojournalism, but I have always had a
parallel life exploring less objective forms of image making, first in the fume-room
and now in the digital darkroom. When doing photography--even for hard
news--I looked for ways of extending vision beyond the 50mm lens. Both
streams come together in this piece, "Québec Steps."
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The picture was shot on a travel assignment to the Province of Québec.
It was shot from just below the Château Frontenac, at the top of the stairs
leading from the upper city to the lower. To get the whole sweep in from the
painter below me to the wonderful old buildings in the distance, I shot with
a Widelux 140Þ panoramic camera. The aquatint emulation process is a bit
complex to describe, but the goal is to create an effect similar to a pen or
pencil drawing, overlaid with transparent watercolor but with the power and
composition of the photograph. These "pseudo" aquatints make superb
prints.
Paint Shop Pro has been on my machine since Version 4 or 5. There are a number
of tutorials on my website (www.larry-bolch.com),
and I have written extensively about it in forums. I feel that it is in no way
a competitor to Adobe's Photoshop, but rather an essential complement.
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