Photo editing ideas

Since reading Alain Briots 'Just Say Yes' essay on his standard reply to "Is this image manipulated?", I've been wondering about doing GIMPing (aka photoshopping) myself. Having met one of the forerunners in image composition, Scott Mutter, I'm not adverse to some fiddling, and like the possibilities it presents. One avenune that just popped up when looking at Jerry Uelsmann's front page is to make photos that show what I would like to see. A house with roots is plausible, I would love to live in one, but I don't think one exists. Why not use photography to explore the realms of the possible - things that ought to be, but would require more work in the real world that I can put into them.

New photos on walls

I changed out the photos on the walls at home, to some from the new batch (finally from the new camera). The black mattes are definitely better, though it's possible that a colored one would work better in some cases. White mattes are uninteresting, partly for the whiteness, partly because it hides the thin white edge around the picture itself. The extra edge on the prints helped with the smaller mattes, but the narrow edge is probably a few millimeters more narrow than needed, while the long edge is still too long. Of course 18.5x26.5 isn't exactly 2:3.

Specific notes:

0137-8108-waterfallrocks: Should have taken it a bit to the left, so the rocks were fully bordered by the water and the the waterfall itself could have been more towards the left corner. It is possible that the rock behind to the right should be made to have contrast in between the front and waterfall rocks, to give an even better feel of the depth.

0043-9109-hazy-landscape: Kinda dark for having a black matte. Possibly the front parts should be lighter, they are rather overpowered by the sunny top. Already starting to buckle despite being upstairs all the time. The foam core backing is definitely needed, and probably should go on together with the matter.

0166-9711-stretchedsand: This one just works.

0032-4738-leaves: I could possibly cut a bit of the top, bottom and left side, but otherwise it works.

0102-9044-tool: Very tempted to move the tool a bit in Gimp, but otherwise it's nice.

Need to sign them.