It’s Spring. I’m looking for new ways of capturing impressions of all that colour
ABOVE: This image is a stitched panorama, made up of images shot with a slow shutter to capture the plants moving in the wind. I used a very cool software called Trimaginator to generate polygon patterns from the image and then blended them with the original in Photoshop using layer masks.
Some of the most invasive weeds infesting the Wakatipu Basin are Scotch Broom and Gorse. Most of the year they are horrible plants carpeting vast swathes of the landscape, but in spring when they turn bright gold – well – you’ve got to admit, it’s an amazing display. I have been looking for ways of interpreting the landscape in a more impressionistic way, somewhere between painting and photography. I shot these images with a slow shutter on windy to capture the broom in motion. Now I’m working on this technique of combining colour and pattern with the realism of the photo.
ABOVE: Trimaginator can generate random polygon patterns at diferent densities with differing effects. You can also vary the opacity of the pattern, allowing the image to show through. I used Photoshop to gain more control over how the pattern overlay blends with the image.
Landscape photography is all about capturing a vision, something that grabs my attention, that makes me feel. The artistry is in knowing what elements to bring into a picture and how to use this incredible machine, the camera and its lenses to bring the vision to life inside a rectangle on a screen or a piece of paper.
For me, this hillside swathe of yellow is all about the intense colour and movement, less about the detail of the plants. It’s hard to let go of photographic realism and this collection is about a process of letting go and creating a simplified and perhaps more powerful impression.
Trimaginator is inspired by the triangulation invented by the mathematician Boris Delaunay in 1934. The image is reduced to its essentials and turned into a triangle mesh: think cubism, think surreal geometric landscapes, think turning your face into a logo, or your cat’s face, or well, anything that has or doesn’t have a face.
Trimaginator goes way beyond simple triangulation to provide you with a unique blend of creative geometric and style controls.
The software is available for Android, IOS and Mac OSX. Artists and graphic designers can export the vectors from Trimaginator to use with Adobe Illustrator™, Adobe Photoshop™, or any compatible software.
