Photos with Texture

This weekend I had the pleasure of teaching the Mamatography Photo Basics II Workshop Retreat at Butterfly World here in South Florida. It was a HOT but lovely day.
I asked my Mamatographers to share their images in the new Mamatography Facebook Group, Mamatography Photo Sharing & Critique, to see what we came up with on this collaborative shoot.


Here's an example of a shot I took at the end of the workshop. The day's light was getting dimmer and the flower garden had corner's of moodiness. I liked how this shot depicted a cool tone. Not so exciting at first glance..but I could see the potential.

The image reminded me of a Georgia O'keeffe painting, a style I spent sometime on reflecting back in college when I was shooting film.

So with the painterly effect in mind, I decided to impose a watercolor texture to my piece.

I love to create and scan textures but my time these days is VERY limited since I'm busy mothering a 1 year old! I did a quick search on paper textures and found this awesome site, www.lostandtaken.com .

I gratefully donated $4 to the site for the wide array of textures this artist has created and shares for free!

I knew I wanted a watercolor undertone w/ a subtle pop of color so this is the texture I chose:

Credit: Lost & Taken

In Photoshop, I created multiple layers of the original image changing the exposure and opacity of each layer to create a kind of High Definition Range (aka HDR) effect. Then I did the same with the water color image placing those on top of my photo. (For more info on Photoshop and using layers, check out my Photoshop Webinars HERE)

Here is my final image combining multiple copies of my photo and the watercolor image.

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Happy Shooting!