I found this rocky outcropping at the Rosendale part of the rail trail.
However, it's just an empty hole. I thought I would fill it in with another photo from the rail trail. I wish I had the foresight to adjust how I was taking these photos, because it would've been nice to have the path align with direction of the hole. I think the center of the image lines up, but the path doesn't. No amount of warping or flipping I could do would fix that. But, I'm an amateur so I could be wrong.
I have felt that my photography has been pretty stagnant lately. Databending and dithering are cool but I feel as if I'm just using a tool to automate my 'art.' Yes there is a level of coding I have to do to make my art but it doesn't feel human. This is doubly so with just color grading my images. Anyway, surrealism feels like I'm adding a human element into my photos. However, I hate that I feel like this because this is incredibly pretentious. Who's to say what is and what isn't art? Any image I take has intention. It is something that my brain found intriguing enough to express to others.
All that aside I do like learning more about Affinity Photo and getting better at it.
I found a new databending tool. Also this post is going to have a few images to make sure to check out the full post.
So I found a new databending tool. Having to go through each edit on Tenacity to make sure it works takes forever. Not to mention if you accidentally select apart of the header the image is corrupted.
This tool lets me try multiple attempts without having to worry about the headers and if the effect is going to fully corrupt the image. I have to change some things around between this and Tenacity. Tenacity only lets me change a selection of rows in the image but sockbend lets you adjust random shapes. However, I've noticed that when using gif bend masking (I have yet to try it without using the gif bend mask) the image will shift to black and white. The second bluesky post shouldn't be in black and white. It should have the same color scheme as the last image in the post.
I do like using sockbend I can try multiple effects and the image won't break. Tenacity will make some wild effects like with the previous seagull post but it's so random and finicky.
Now about the image.
I took a trip down to the Bar Harbor aquarium. The staff there are fantastic. They're super into their field and love to chat about marine biology. After you see the museum and the creatures, there is a small hike about the salt marshes in Maine. One of the view points leads to a river where I saw numerous sea birds and seagulls just chilling.
How many seagulls do you see?
So I was reading about abstract expressionism in the during the Cold War and I started asking myself. Why has photography remained the same for such a long time? We've seen a large variety of painting in the last 200 years alone. But it seems like photography has been fairly stagnant. I don't think that's true. There are really impressive shots that exist throughout history. But where is the abstract expressionism, cubism, surrealism, etc, of photography? I had a lot of fun using my cyberpunk cameras and to a keen eye you could see the blend of a digital sensor and an analog lens. Those sensors really brought out the boketh of the the lenses and I love that, but I want to have more than just landscape and realism.
On my bluesky I posted an image I took of a donut shop in Portland, Maine. I adjusted the image to bring out the neon sign in front of the shop. But minor color tweaking and highlighting is just slightly funky realism. Databending is a really cool way to mess with the data that is stored within an image. I know this style will never reach mainstream and that's okay. I do want to find a style of photography that is beyond just capturing what you see. I wanna capture things you don't normally see.
