IN SEARCH OF STYLE

Wendy Irwin Arps

For many years I was a full time art and design technology teacher. It was when I went part time that I thought I would join a camera club as photography had been a great interest for a number of years and the school where I worked had paid for a 10 week Photoshop course. I learnt loads and put it to good use, creating a new prospectus for the school and other PR images. Club photography I found varied quite a lot and the speakers who visited the club gave me a lot to think about. It was the ones who added textures and layers that really enthused me, the likes of Irene Froy, Dianne Owen and Steven Le Provost. I wanted my own style, never happy with a straight photograph, I started creating painted texture layers using water colour paint, sponges and some acrylic paint. I filled sketch books of textured paper and then either scanned or photographed the images. Using Photoshop and blending modes I set about adding these to photographs: it changed my life!

I started with some simple still life images and looked to painted images for inspiration. I spent many hours experimenting, trying out different textures and paint effects until I felt happy with what I had achieved. There were a lot of people who did not like what I was doing. However, I felt passionate about the finished results and I started gaining acceptances in regional competitions. I then felt brave enough to go to another advisory day regarding my LRPS. The advisors were quite positive saying I just needed to change one image which didn't sit well with the other images and then I would be set to go. I went home and applied for the LRPS and changed the image and the rest is history. Since then I have also gained my ARPS and a CPAGB as well as BPE*1. I like to have something to work towards - at present that is an AFIAP. I just need to get to grips with the spreadsheet and I will be fine!

More recently my daughter has had a baby boy. As he has grown, I have started taking photos of him and creating composite images of dream like scenes using background landscapes, skies and my own watercolour textures. Some of these have taken days to perfect, but I am very pleased with the results. I still think I have a lot to learn and, over lockdown, have listened to many zoom talks which I have been able to put to good use in my digital images; as my husband keeps telling me, this is not real photography! It's a good job I've got broad shoulders!