DIGITAL ART Photo Manipulation An Open Door for Imagination
Art has many forms. Photography is an open door for imagination. You can show a person's feelings by a portrait or to illustrate the beauty of nature through a landscape. Also, there is one area of photography, called Photo Manipulation or Digital Art that can illustrate everything you've ever imagined. I chose a Romanian artist to illustrate this part of photography, because I like the vision and originality of his work. Through a mixture of mystery, darkness and beauty, you can discover the purity of moments immortalized through his works. It is very important for a photographer to know the differences between a real photo and Digital Art. In a dictionary „Photo manipulation� is the application of image editing techniques to photographs in order to create an illusion or deception (in contrast to mere enhancement or correction), through analog or digital means. Today, photo manipulation is widely accepted as an art-form. One of the best artists is from Romania, his name is Popescu Titus, and he is 29 years old. Cristina Vajaean Camera Obscura
Tell me something about yourself and your passion. My passion is Digital Art, especially Photo manipulation and for that I work a lot in Photoshop software. I want to say that digital work is just a hobby for me, I don't want to leave from this. It's just my passion for now, maybe in the future will be something more. Why Digital ART, how did you start to work in this in this area? My first passion was actually photography but I wanted to do my own wallpapers, I wanted my pictures to look something more special. At that point I started to learn Photoshop on my own. My first works were abstract, I've learned the Photoshop tools and filters. Once I learned that I went for the photo manipulation, I started to work with models and backgrounds, stock pictures to create fantasy worlds and emotional scenes.
Do you have progressed in what you did? If so, how did you achieve this? I think I have progressed a lot. From learning the basics, tools and filters to manipulation was my first step. My first photo manipulations works were pretty much consisting of cutting the model and paste it on to a beautiful background. This just wasn't enough for me, I've learned about lights, shadows, colors and blending. These are things that any photo manipulator should keep in mind to make a good digital work, not just a photo manipulation. I've observed that sometimes the lights and shadows, the colors or textures, from the pictures I worked with, just were not right and the right way to make them fit, for a good blending, was to digitally paint them. This was the next step, to learn how to digitally paint. For now, what I do is to paint the model's skin, hair, clothes, shadows and lights to make them look more interesting and special. What i do now is to combine photo manipulation with digital painting. I create all of my works using a simple mouse but I'm thinking about using a graphic tablet, it will surely help me on the next step of my works. The next step is to be able to paint anything starting from a sketch. In time I hope I'll be good enough to call myself a digital painter.
Do you think it is important for a photographer to be proficient in this area of photo manipulations? For a photojournalist it is not that important to have knowledge in this area, a photojournalist must reflect the reality as it is. If a photographer is working in the fashion area for example, I think he must know a few things at least about photo manipulation. Photo manipulation and retouching are used all the time in fashion magazines and not only. A photo manipulator surely must have some knowledge about photography, about lightning and shadows, angles, colors and composition. What do you think are the differences between a photographer and an photo manipulation-artist? There are many differences between a photographer and an photo manipulationartist. I think that a photographer's work should always reflect the reality as it is. A photo manipulator's work is more about fantasy works , making reality look more beautiful than it is, more special, about expressing the imagination.
What do you call inspiration? My inspiration comes from many places. Sometimes the ideas just pop up into my mind, sometimes is from something i see in movies or music videos. And sometimes other artist's works are inspiring me. When other great artists inspire you, there's a thin line from inspiration to copying other artist's work, which is not great, by the way. Every digital artist should be original and create, develop his own style. Also I'm inspired by music and nature, seasons.
Why do you want to convey through your work? In my works I approach different topics, from surreal works to fantasy, from glamour, modern style to emotional. I must say that emotional works are my favorite. I want people to actually feel something when they look at my works, not just to see a beautiful girl and an interesting background.
Can you tell us some secrets that you use in your works? Or rather, what are the steps to create a good work? There isn't really a recipe to create good art, it's all about imagination and software skills, technique. Once i have the idea i start searching for the right pictures to work with. I create the background, I add the model, I work on the colors and the atmosphere. The final steps are the digital painting and adding the details. Every digital artist should pay much attention to light and shadows, that's what makes the difference from a real look and fake look. What can you say about your vision? I saw many women shrouded in mystery, darkness, and actually you can see the beauty of models. As I was saying I like my works to actually express something. I'm not into dark works very much, I like more to suggest darkness by using the mystery. Also I like to reflect the beauty of a woman no matter if it's a dark and mysterious work or emotional work. The beauty is all around us, we just have to see it.
I said from the beginning that photography is an open door for imagination, for soul, too. In your artworks what kind of feelings you expressed? At first I was into fantasy and magical works, it wasn't that much about expressing feelings, it was more about technique, skills and visual effects. Later, I realized that I wanted my works to be more than technique and skills, I wanted to express feelings, to reach out to the viewers of soul. My works express different emotional states, different feelings like anger, sadness, joy, daydreaming, and sensuality.