Photography by John Corney

Halloween Special Offer

2009-10-31T07:36:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween, Everyone! Do you have fun lined up for yourselves or your kids today? No doubt you will have your cameras at the ready if you do. Here's the deal: send me your best pics of yourselves, your kids, or your pets, and I will give them the treatment. You've seen my digital watercolors and the videos I make using my photos, so for the first 10 people who send me their best Halloween pictures, I will give one or more of your pictures one of my treatments and then include them in a video. I'll send you the photos I work on so you can print them if you wish, or just keep as part of your personal collection.

Here are the rules:

You are the copyright owner of any photos you send me - they are your photos, not someone else's
You agree to my publishing both the before and after versions of the photos at my photography blog and website, Facebook, and/or YouTube in the video version

So go out and have fun and send me your pictures. Just send me the files straight from your camera; don't make any adjustments to them yourselves - leave that to me. Go to the Contact Me page for my email address.

Remember, this offer applies only to the first 10 respondents.

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Skateboarding Video Venice Beach Skate Plaza

2009-10-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

Here's the video presentation of the action shots I took of the skateboarders at the new skate plaza at Venice Beach. I think you'll really love this, and a great sound track to go with it. Isn't the little kid amazing! He was just so confident, and how the hell he learned to skate like that at his age is beyond me. Is he destined to be a world champion skateboarder when he grows up, I wonder?

The best way to view it is in full-screen HQ mode at YouTube, but if you're on "narrow band", then there's a lower resolution small-screen version at my website. Here are the links. Have fun!

HQ at YouTube: Skateboarder Video, Venice Beach Skate Plaza

Narrowband: Skateboarder video at Photography by John Corney

Here's a link to the original photos of the skateboarders at Venice Beach

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Venice Beach Skate Plaza Action Photos

2009-10-26T21:44:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the action photos of the skateboarders at the newly opened skate plaza at Venice Beach. I went the second weekend it was open and it was absolutely packed with skateboarders. Probably too many for the complete comfort, fun, and safety of the skateboarders. Nonetheless, I managed to get some pretty decent action shots of the skateboarders.

I'm working on putting together a video presentation of the photos and will post it as soon as I get it done.

I tried to hand out my card to most of the skateboarders I took photos of, but couldn't get the attention of everyone. If you happen upon this page and you are featured in any of these photos, then please contact me for a free print of your favorite shot.

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Sale: 20% Off Framing for the Holidays

2009-10-21T19:29:00.000-07:00

As you probably know, many of the artworks and photos you see here on my photoblog are available for purchase from my portfolios at Imagekind. You can purchase prints on a wide variety of papers or even on canvas. Greeting cards are also available.

When it comes to choice of paper to print on, my personal favorite for that true artistic finish is the Hahnemuhle Photo Rag paper. Yes, it's all but the most expensive paper, but believe me, if you chose this paper you will understand why I recommend it once you see it. This paper is truly exceptional in bringing out the colors of the print, and is a very heavy and long-lasting archival paper. It is nothing like photographic paper at all.

With Christmas and the holidays fast approaching, perhaps you might like to consider giving one of my works this year as a truly unique, "one-off" gift. And to the ease the burden, from now until December 31st, you can get a 20% discount on any framing your opt for by using promo code Frame20 upon checkout. So visit my portfolios now and see if there isn't something there that would make a great gift for the holiday season. And don't forget, Imagekind backs all prints with a 30-day money back guarantee.

So jump on over to my portfolios and don't forget to use promo code Frame20 at check out for 20% off any framing.

If you don't like what I have on offer, then click the banner below to shop other artists exhibiting at Imagekind. There truly are some amazing artists out there! Thank you!

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Venice Beach Lifeguard Station

2009-10-20T22:59:00.000-07:00

Here are some works of a quintessential Southern California scene - the lifeguard station at Venice Beach with a range of artistic finishes for all decors and tastes. A piece of Americana right down to "Old Glory".

Venice Beach Lifeguard Station Portfolio

Get prints on paper or canvas of Venice Beach Lifeguard Station

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Voting Results

2009-10-14T20:21:00.000-07:00

In this post from the end of last month I asked you to help me curate the works for an exhibition, and I'd like to thank everyone who submitted their opionions. Several people have asked which works got the most votes, so here are the top 10:

1st Place
White Toned Waterlily

2nd Equal
Sunset at Crystal Cove #1

2nd Equal
Dragon Fly on Lotus Bud

3rd
Real Estate for Sale in Alamos

4th Equal
Courtyard of the Casa de Maria Felix

4th Equal
Fuchsia - Sepia

5th Equal
Small Red Dog La Aduana

5th Equal
Alamos Gate #2

5th Equal
Brick Wall and Mountain Range

5th Equal
Sunset at Crystal Cove #2

Venice Beach Video Update

2009-10-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

I've added more images to the Venice Beach gallery and Venice Beach video since my post from this time last week. I hope you enjoy the additional photos I added to the collection and the longer video.

Note, the video is viewable at YouTube in HQ (high quality) full-screen mode. If you find that your internet connection is not fast enough to stream the video without it stopping and starting, once it starts, click the pause button and allow the video to download completely to your computer before restarting the video. YouTube will show you a pink download progress bar so that you know the status of the download. If you are totally frustrated by all of that, then a smaller low-resolution version can be viewed here: Venice Beach Video

Speaking of Venice Beach, last weekend a new skateboarding park was opened at Venice Beach, and yesterday I spent the afternoon up there with cameras in tow getting some great action shots of the many skateboarders taking advantage of the new park. So look out for more pictures from Venice Beach coming up.

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King Palm Digital Abstract

2009-10-11T14:02:00.000-07:00

Any of you who have king palms in your gardens will know that when the spent branches fall, the inside of the lower part of the branch that wraps around the trunk is a beautiful rich gold/bronze color, and is a work of art in itself. I have known of artists who use them as canvases to paint on or as part of mixed-media compositions.

Here are three works from a photo of the inside of one such branch that was shed from one of the king palms in my garden, viewable as part of the digital art portfolio.

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Venice Beach

2009-10-04T21:15:00.000-07:00

One of the places that friends and family visiting SoCal for the first time always want to go is Venice Beach. I usually groan a little under my breath about another visit to cheap T-shirt land, but once I get there with camera in tow, I'm really glad for the visit because of all the fun people to photograph.

Check out some of the fun people and sites I have captured in the Venice Beach gallery.

Here are some shots from Venice Beach and the companion video can be found here at YouTube: Video of Venice Beach digital art.

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Give Expression to the Art Curator In You

2009-09-29T15:24:00.000-07:00

Hopefully in the next couple of months I will have an exhibition of my photographic art. A couple of good friends came over recently and spent some time with me narrowing down the field.

We focused mainly on the digital watercolor works I did of the photos from my trip to Alamos, but also broadened the field to include favorites from the past. I have also included every work that has sold from my Imagekind galleries, as obviously when people vote with their money, that's a vote that counts! Ask any politician! Thank you, by the way, to anyone following my blog who has ever purchased any of my work. I love you!

So now is your turn to pitch in if you would, and I really hope you will. I set up this exhibition gallery of the "finalists" my friends and I came up with, but I have to narrow it down to 10 to 15 works. So that's where your votes come in

When you view the gallery, you will note that each image has a red x in the top right corner. Select up to 15 images that you would consider should be in the exhibition by clicking on the Xs. This will turn the red X to a green check mark/tick. At the bottom of the gallery is a message form. If you wish to remain anonymous or are in a hurry you can still send the message just by clicking send. I will just get an anonymous email containing a list of the images you selected. I will not be able to tell who you are or what your email address is. But since it would feel better to say thanks for your participation, please consider including your name and email for me. I will not use your email address for anything else but to thank you.

Please note that you can view the images as a slide show by clicking on an image. You should see the slide show controls at the bottom of the larger image that will be displayed. You can also use the spacebar to start and pause the slide show, and while in pause mode, you can go forward and back by using the arrow keys.

So get voting! Once again here's a link to the exhibition gallery.

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Free Shipping

2009-09-25T13:52:00.000-07:00

Get free shipping on all orders from Imagekind until midnight U.S. Pacific time Sunday, October 4th. Use promo code PopularArt09 on checkout to take advantage of the offer.

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Digital Watercolor Paintings

2009-09-24T20:26:00.000-07:00

Since I developed the digital watercolor processing that I used for the Alamos series, the popularity of those images and feedback from friends encouraged me to apply the same process to some more of my photos. I have put them together in this gallery: Digital Watercolor Photo Art.

They are also available at Imagekind for purchase as fine art prints, canvas and framed wall art, and greeting cards. Here's the link: Digital Watercolor Art Prints

So what do you think of my digital watercolor photo art? I invite you to post your comments below.

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jpeg Picture Processing

2009-09-21T18:37:00.000-07:00

Back in July I wrote this post about jpg artifacts and promised that I would give some tips on handling jpg (jpeg) files to avoid artifacting. Just as a quick refresher, jpg artifacts result from the over-compression of jpg files to the point that pixel information is so degraded that you start to see large groups of square pixel shapes where once many pixels existed.

JPEG files are an image file format that is "lossy". This means it is a compressed file type with some of the original file information "lost". Jpg file types were invented to display images online in the early days of the "dial-up Internet" when we all used to wait (im)patiently for files to appear in our browser windows.

The compression of a jpg file happens at the time you save the file. Initially you won't notice any apparent difference in the image, but save the file often enough, you eventually will end up with jpg artifacts, just like my cow example to the left. Yes, that was what I did in my early days as a naive Photoshop user.

So here are my easy steps to avoid jpeg artifacts.

If you are shooting your pictures as jpeg files, shoot at the highest quality possible for your camera in the first place. Most cameras have settings for file quality under their menu settings. With memory cards as big and cheap as they are today, there's no reason to shoot at anything but the highest quality jpeg file if you are shooting in jpeg. This will mean you are starting out in the first place with the most image information possible.

When you are ready to process your file , make your very first step that you take a conversion to a "lossless" file type such as tiff (.tif), or .psd if you use Photoshop. Depending on what image editing program you use, there may be a different file type other than psd, which is Photoshop's proprietary file type. All image editing programs probably offer tiff as an option, which is a standard/generic lossless image file. Lossless means what it says: there is no compression of the file when you save it, so no matter how many times you save the file, none of the image information is going to be lost. In fact, you may find it actually gets bigger as you process it.

Now do all your processing such as cropping, red-eye removal, whatever you do typically, with the lossless file that you have opted for.

When your picture is ready for prime time and sending to the printer or emailing or uploading and you want or need it to be a .jpg file once again, do one, and one only "Save as jpg". Never save that jpg file ever again.

Treat your lossless psd or tif file as an archive file, and if you subsequently want to tweak your picture some more, come back to that file. You can save it with a different name so that you have a new version. Once again, only save it as a jpg file at the very end of your processing.

Follow these easy steps in processing jpeg pictures and you should never be visited by the horrors of jpeg artifacts. Happy photo editing!

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Big Savings on Imagekind Custom Framing - Limited Time Offer

2009-09-10T07:09:00.000-07:00

Imagekind are running a promotion giving 20% off custom framing until midnight U.S. Pacific time September 21st . So make the most of a significant saving on framing while you can. Use promo code FALL2009 at checkout to take advantage of the discount.

Browse my digital art portfolios at Imagekind

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Harley Davidson Picture - Black & White

2009-09-08T21:44:00.000-07:00

I started getting scared today that the local Harley Davidson club would be sending out a posse to get me after posting that picture of the Harley riders last night WITH ALL THAT COLOR! Don't you know, I started thinking today, that BLACK AND CHROME are the favorite colors of all my friends who are in the H.O.G.! So before they arrived to give me "what-for", I made this black and white version of the Harley Davidson picture.

Harley Davidson Picture

2009-09-07T13:19:00.000-07:00

This Harley Davidson picture was taken on the Sonora Pass (Hwy 108) which crosses the Sierra Nevada range to the north of Yosemite National Park. Of course I heard the characteristic deep and loud throb of the "hog" long before it arrived, so I was able to get myself all set to capture my first picture of a Harley Davidson.

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Hummingbird

2009-09-03T20:51:00.000-07:00

Those you who know me and have visited my place know that one of the fun things to do when you visit is to watch the hummingbirds duking it out over the feeders in the backyard. Over the years I have taken many photos of these fearsome warriors that sometimes actually catch each other on the wing and then wrestle on the deck. This particular photo happens to be my all-time favorite...so far. I can't imagine ever stopping taking photos of these beautiful birds.

You might have noticed this photo among the submissions I made for the National Wildlife Federation 2009 Photo Contest. I recently uploaded it to my birds gallery at Imagekind.

If you are a fan of hummingbirds, and who isn't, here's my recipe for "home brew" hummingbird feeder nectar: make a 25% solution of white sugar and water. That's it!

I make 8 cup batches at a time, so I first of all measure out 2 cups of sugar and then add 6 cups of hot water to make up a total of 8 cups. Stir it for long enough to dissolve the sugar. It doesn't need to be colored; I know in the stores it's sold with red food coloring, but they do that just to make you feel like you are getting something for your money. Do NOT use powdered (icing) sugar! I keep the nectar in the fridge and top up the feeders when they are emptied. I always sterilize the feeder at each refill by rinsing it out with some bleach solution and then rinsing the feeder well before refilling it. This stops bacteria growing inside the feeder.

An interesting thing I have discovered over the many years of having hummingbird feeders in the yard is that for some unexplained reason the birds prefer some feeders over others. In fact, I have had some feeders that the birds refuse to feed from despite having left them in the yard for months with fresh nectar in them. Wish I knew the answer to this mystery.

Since I have provided nectar year-round for something like 11 years now, my place is definitely "on the map" for hummingbirds, with spring being peak season in my yard. This is the only time of year when the birds tolerate having company at the feeder and this last spring I had as many as 10 or more birds feeding from the same feeder at the same time. Once nesting season passes, though, one bird dominates and then it becomes a matter of his standing guard over the feeders all day long, divebombing any other birds that dare go near "his" feeders. That's just what the hummingbird in this photo is doing. Other birds at this point have to become opportunists, sneaking in under the radar as and when possible and at great peril of being severely beaten up. Oh what entertainment! It's just like being at the Colliseum!

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Alamos, Sonora, Mexico

2009-08-30T21:31:00.000-07:00

Well after a month of effort, here is the final gallery of "watercolor" photos from my trip to the state of Sonora, Mexico in December 2002. Working on these photos has brought back some very fond memories of the trip. It is an incredibly delightful town to visit, and as you can see from all these photos I have shared with you, there are many interesting sights to see.

As mentioned in a previous post, I currently have all the digital artworks in these galleries at 40% off my usual prices, and will leave them on discount until Sunday, September 13th. Keep in mind that if you order before midnight tomorrow (U.S. Pacific time), Imagekind is currently running a free shipping offer. (See this post for details). Also don't forget that anyone who purchases one or more prints of any of the works in the Alamos collection will receive a free DVD of all the videos associated with the series. You will need to email me with the Imagekind order number and your mailing address.

Here are links to each of the galleries in the Alamos collection:

Alamos
Las Posadas
The Villa Hermosa
Piedras Verdes Ranch
Entranceways of Alamos
La Aduana

The videos for the series are located here:
Alamos
Las Posadas
The Villa Hermosa
Piedras Verdes Ranch
Entranceways of Alamos
La Aduana

For those who prefer, high definition (HD) video versions are available at my YouTube channel.

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Free Shipping from Imagekind till Aug 31st

2009-08-28T06:50:00.000-07:00

I just got an email from Imagekind to notify me that they are running a free shipping promotion. The offer runs just for 4 days until midnight U.S. Pacific time. To take advantage of the offer, enter promo code Backtoschool09 at checkout. If you are thinking of getting your purchase framed, this is a big saving.

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Christmas Cards - Las Posadas

2009-08-23T20:55:00.000-07:00

Las Posadas is the Spanish for "the Inns" and refers to the reenactment of the search for a place to stay by Mary and Joseph as they traveled to Bethlehem for the census. As we all know, their search was in vain, and they took refuge in a stable, where the angels heralded the birth of Jesus.

While in Alamos over the Christmas period of 2002, I was able to take part in the Las Posadas celebration on Christmas Eve. A local man and woman played the parts of Mary and Joseph, and a real donkey played the role of, well, the donkey. The crowd followed with lit candles behind the "holy family" as they went from house to house knocking on the door asking for a room for the night, only to be turned away. Ultimately the parade ended at a location where a mock stable was set up, and an infant was brought out to be laid in the manger to a happy chorus of "Noche de Paz" (Silent Night) and the beginning of Christmas Eve revelry.

Well, Christmas is not quite on the horizon yet, but I was at Costco yesterday and they had this year's Christmas decorations on sale! And some people are quite organized about Christmas like my friend Lesli who has finished all her Christmas shopping already! I always remember as a kid that the first Christmas card that would show up in our letter box would be the one from Aunty Peg, who proably got her cards in the mail sometime in early November! So it's not too early to offer these photos from that night of Las Posadas in Alamos for Christmas cards, perhaps. If you would like to use any of these photos for one-off Christmas cards, they are available at my store at Imagekind.

I put together this brief video of the Las Posadas celebration with music from Sarah McLachlan's Christmas album "Wintersong"
.

A high definition version of Las Posadas is available here at YouTube.

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Spanish Colonial Architecture: Villa Hermosa, Alamos

2009-08-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

The Villa Hermosa is a fine example of Mexican Spanish colonial era architecture. The stately home is built around an inner courtyard, which is surrounded on all sides by a colonnade with Spanish arches. This is the residence that my friends and I stayed at on our visit to Alamos in Sonora the Christmas of 2002. The week of Christmas we had the place entirely to ourselves, and only when we were leaving right before New Year were Mexican tourists showing up to celebrate the New Year's holiday. We had a blissfully restful time there, as you can imagine.

I have given this set the same bright watercolor treatment that I have given to all the photos from our trip to the area. Featured are architectural elements of the residence.

Click here to see the Villa Hermosa video (High Resolution version available at YouTube)

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Piedras Verdes Ranch

2009-08-12T22:04:00.000-07:00

The Piedras Verdes Ranch is in the state of Sonora, Mexico, and it was one of the places I got to visit on my trip to the Alamos area in 2002. One of the people I was traveling with had grown up in the area, and the ranch was owned and worked by his grandparents when he was growing up in Mexico. At the time of our visit it was being run by one of his uncles.

As luck would have it, on the day of our visit, the vaqueros, or cowboys, were working at branding the calves, so that made for some interesting photo ops. Other points of interest in the set are some shots of the desert landscape, the old adobe home once occupied by my friend's grandparents, his uncle with two of his granddaughters, and a forlorn donkey.

Photo gallery of the Piedras Verdes Ranch

Video version of the Piedras Verdes Ranch

Buy prints and greeting cards of the Piedras Verdes Ranch photos

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The Entranceways of Alamos

2009-08-06T19:03:00.000-07:00

In my last post featuring photos from La Aduana, I mentioned that the Aduana photos were just the first set of a larger collection of photos from my trip to the region around the Spanish colonial town of Alamos in the state of Sonora, Mexico. Today I'm releasing the second set of photos from the Alamos collection: The Entranceways of Alamos.

Alamos was once the capital of northern Mexico, testament to its role in the colonial period as the center of a rich silver-mining area. Many of the homes in Alamos remain from that period, and are fine examples of the Spanish colonial era, and are now popular with "Gringos" and ex-pat Canadians. The Hershey Family even has a very large stately home in Alamos, and no, it is not made of chocolate logs!

The front doors, gates, and windows of the colonial homes are often works of art and aim to impress the visitor and set the house apart from its neighbors. It seems that for the Spanish colonialists, "keeping up with the Garcias" was achieved with a Cadillac of an entranceway! The Entranceways of Alamos set features some of these doorways and other associated architectural features.

As with this entire collection of digital art, I have processed these photos in a way that results in a colorful watercolor effect, and in some cases, one that also has the look and feel of an impressionist painting.

Click here to watch the Entranceways of Alamos Video

Discount Pricing and Free Gift!
While I continue to work away on this series, I am offering introductory pricing for prints within the Alamos collection that is 40% less than my usual pricing . Also, everyone that purchases any prints from any of the Alamos collection during this period will receive a free CD of the accompanying videos in HD format once the collection is complete. To get your CD, after completing a purchase at Imagekind, you will need to email me so I can get your address to mail the CD to because I do not know the personal information of purchasers of my work at Imagekind. You can email be from my contact page.

Here are links to the first two videos from the Alamos collection: La Aduana and The Entranceways of Alamos.

For purchases of either framed or unframed prints sa well as greeting cards, go to Entranceways of Alamos and the Images of La Aduana galleries at Imagekind.

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La Aduana, Sonora, Mexico

2009-07-29T06:21:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos from a trip I made to the Alamos area in the state of Sonora, Mexico, a few years ago. This first set features the old silver-mining town of La Aduana which was founded in 1540 to provide a location for the collection of taxes and royalties on the silver mined from the Quintera mine before there was any chance of loss to highway robbers or pirates on the high seas. La Aduana in Spanish means the "customs office".

Today La Aduana is almost a ghost town, with a small local population and many crumbling adobe ruins, all providing rich material for a photographer!

Reminder: The 40% off sale on my flower prints will end after this weekend.

These photos were actually taken way back in December 2002. Not knowing what I was doing at the time, I over-compressed the jpg files and they are pretty small as well. But I managed to save them by devising a way in Photoshop that smooths the jagged edges of the jpeg artifacts with a painterly effect that is somewhat like a colorful watercolor. I'm so glad I spent some time figuring out a way to salvage these images as there are so many great places and moments to share from this trip. There will be more to follow.

La Aduana Photo Gallery

Here's the video of the La Aduana set:

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Using Blending Layers to Remove Background in Photoshop

2009-07-22T21:17:00.001-07:00

The other night I was playing with this old photo below of an aloe plant at the gardens at Huntington Library. I had previously created some "photo art" from it which can be seen in my plants photo gallery, and at the time had used some of Photoshop's selection tools to essentially trace around the edges of the aloe plant so I could remove the background. Believe me it was wrist-breaking, hand-numbing work, since the background is busy and not all the "contrasty" compared to the plant. In fact since it was such a hard selection to do, I just ended up cropping out a lot of the background.

So since I know more about the power of using layers and blending modes in Photoshop these days, I wanted to see how much of the background I could "knock out" by simply laying different blending modes on top of each other.

Note, you can try this with some of your own photos if you have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.

I opened the photo in Photoshop. The first layer in Photoshop is always called "Background". I immediately made a copy of the background layer. There are several ways of doing that. I like to use the keyboard shortcut which is Ctrl+J.

The new layer will be on top of the original layer, and it will be called "Layer 1". Note that I have highlighted the blending mode which is by default "Normal" and with 100% opacity. The photo looks exactly the same as the original at this point.

You can click on the dropdown next to Normal and cycle through the blending modes. Some will make a difference, some won't. Some make the picture darker, some lighter, some funky. You can control how much of the bottom layer shows through by lowering the opacity of the top layer.

I found that the mode called "color burn", which is one of the modes that darkens an image, removed almost all of the background and changed the color of the plant to a very attractive green-blue with the purples and blues of the edge lines emphasised.

This is how it looked after doing that:

Since the whole point of the exercise was to save time and my wrist, the question remained what to do about the remainder of the background that is still visible. The simple option I chose was to blur the edges of the photo creating a "depth of field" effect where the plant is in focus, and the background out of focus. To make the background disappear even more, when I took the image back to Photoshop Lightroom, I created a dark "vignette" around the edges using Lightroom's "post crop" vignette slider. Now almost all of the background was invisible and what remains adds to the overall artistic value of the photo.

The outcome, completed from start to finish in no more than 5 minutes and without a sore wrist can can be viewed in the plant photo gallery.

Below you can watch a video of some of my photos of plants.