My goal here as to experiment with ways to create color stripes from photographs. I could just eyeball
it, or choose arbitrarily, but I wanted to try something more methodical. The color placement in nature photographs seems random to the eye, so I was curious if I could find a pattern in there.
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| From a series of sunset photos on my photography blog. |
My first step was to enhance the colors in GIMP photo editor.
This is probably closer to what my eyes actually saw. JPG images are actually
camera edited images, where the camera makes guesses about adjusting things
like light and color. I find that my camera usually gives me somewhat washed
out looking images on the laptop I'm using. So almost every picture I take, I correct more toward what
looks lifelike to me.
Next I cropped a section of the photo to work with.
Then in Gimp, I added a transparent layer on top of the image.
From there I used the "select" tool to make lengthwise boxes on the transparent layer, roughly the width of the color stripe on the photo.
Then it is was a matter of using the color picker to
select a hue within the selection, and then using the fill tool to fill it in on the
transparent layer.
Here's what I ended up with.
I'd never guess it was inspired by a sunset. Do I like it? I'm not sure. The width of the stripes was arbitrary, as was which color I
selected with the color picker. I think it is about as random as I've ever
done, and I wasn't even aiming for random. For that matter, the colors seem
anything but natural, don't they? But there they are, after sorting through
a number of digital pixels.
Here's what it looks like when repeating the pattern four times (2 across
and 2 down)
And here's the pattern x 16 (4 across and 4 down).
A pattern emerges with the repeats of the stripe sequence.
Cropping a different section of the photo would give me different colors and a different set of stripes, as would using a different photo.
My previous methods of working with stripes was either evenly spaced, evenly balanced, or as a Fibonacci sequence. This give me another design option.
4 comments:
Leigh, I understand your reluctance. They almost look a bit "forced" in the final product.
Regular repeats make things look the opposite of natural? I wonder if you could print one of them, cut them up, and try placing them in orders that appear less predictable?
TB, it made me think about professional fabric designers. When I look at, say, upholstery fabric, I think that someone had to design it and I wonder how they did it. Where did they get their inspiration and how did they decide to develop it.
As an experiment, this exercise was both interesting and surprising. But without a specific end product in mind, it's hard for me to know how to feel about it.
Meg, that's a good observation and a good suggestion.
When I look at a sunset, it fascinates me because every sunset is different. There is no pattern or predictability in the sunset itself. Yet I was able to take an image of a sunset and easily make a pattern of repeated stripes. I'm not sure what to do with that yet, other than giving the phrase "inspired by nature" a whole new dimension of meaning.
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