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Josef AstorLove in LimboWhen L.A. Style magazine gave Astor the assignment in 1990 of photographing a fashion article about neckties, they didn't know he would come up with something as primal as "Love in Limbo." But when you give an assignment to Josef Astor, you should know that he's going to swing for the fences. To give a sense that the subjects in the photo were floating in Somewhere Else Land, as Astor puts it, he hired a painter to paint a backdrop. That's how it was originally published. But 19 years later, Astor revisited the image and felt that it wasn't removed and distant enough for his tastes. Using Photoshop, which he didn't have at his disposal in 1990, Astor dropped in a sky he had shot from an airplane window, and then blended in the background till it was 95 percent airplane sky (most of the top portion) and 5 percent painted backdrop (a sliver at the bottom). The result is this lovely digital/analog hybrid. -
Bonny Pierce LhotkaGreen Street, 2004Bonny Lhotka finds inspiration everywhere. While walking past an auto-repair shop, Lhotka's eyes happened to catch a reflection in a one-inch square of Mylar that had been adhered inside the window. The colors and the distortions cried out to her. She captured the image, and then walked down the adjacent alley and snapped others, as well: a wall that intrigued her and some lovely ivy growing along it.
In Photoshop, Lhotka changed all the colors on the Mylar photo, then dropped in bits of wall and ivy. Working on a flatbed printer, she printed her photo on acrylic. -
Brooke ShadenRunning from Wind, 2010Shaden entered this photograph into a competition called Project Imagina8tion, sponsored by film director Ron Howard and Canon. The purpose was to compile a series of photographs that would inspire Howard’s daughter, the actress Bryce Dallas Howard, to direct her first short film. This photograph was one of eight winning images. Shaden often thinks of her photographs in cinematic terms. Her images are never static, but always contain a point of conflict. Furthermore, the photos are constructed so that the viewer can easily imagine something that might have happened before and after the frozen moment. They are all little films in themselves. -
Maggie TaylorWater Folly, 2007 -
Jean-Marie VivesOrange, 2003This image started as a commercial assignment from the Orange Network, a French telecom corporation. The image is so fanciful and original that it stands on its own.
The kangaroo was shot with the help of a trainer, and the background, in Monument Valley. -
Josef AstorParasomnia: Somnambulist Eating a Raw Pork Chop, 2002The New York Times Magazine needed a photograph to illustrate an article about parasomnia, a rare sleeping disorder that causes people to do strange things that they would never do while awake. They turned to the photographer in their stable who seemed most comfortable with wild, dreamlike imagery: Josef Astor. The woman in the article would sleepwalk to her refrigerator and eat unlikely foods, like raw meat or a sandwich made of cigarette butts. To create a dreamlike image, Astor had a set built that made the woman look huge using a technique called forced perspective. The sky was dropped in via Photoshop. -
Khuong NguyenHero: Standing Dream, 2008 -
Brooke ShadenShips on Dry Land, 2011In Shaden’s world, people are never just people, and ships are never just ships. Faces are always hidden. Colors are always deep and rich. The world is always dark but beautiful. -
Maggie TaylorWoman who loves fish, 2003 -
Jean-Marie VivesThe Bug, 2003For this image, Vives had a vision in his mind and wanted to catch a particular look on the gorilla’s face. Vives’ son is an animal trainer, and advised him that it would be highly improbable to catch that exact expression on a gorilla’s face, since they’re so independent and do not follow directorial instructions. Thus, he “drew” the image in the computer with the aid of Photoshop, 3D modeling and tablet painting.
This image carries a personal meaning for Vives. It reflects his pessimism about the direction that humanity has taken, and whether the evolution of the species has actually had an upward trajectory, after all. -
Pierre BeteilleAstronaut, 2010Beteille improvised on the spacesuit: He layered four sweaters, then a hoodie, and finally, pajamas and pink dishwashing gloves. He draped a vacuum-cleaner hose over his shoulder, cradled a glass mixing bowl, and donned his webcam headset microphone. The most exotic prop was the diving depth gauge he strapped around his wrist.
Using digital techniques, Beteille altered the texture of the pajamas and added highlights and reflections for a plastic look. He also changed the color of the gloves because, of course, astronauts prefer off-white dishwashing gloves. Tossing in a couple of light effects, such as flares and rays of light, made it look like he was Buzz Aldrin's brother. -
Khuong NguyenLevitation: Something in the Air, 2008 -
Brooke ShadenSleepwalker, 2009In talking about this photograph, Shaden references Ophelia, the tormented lover to Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the play of the same name. Ophelia suffers heartbreak, then veers into madness, and finally, drowns herself. Still, Ophelia is only a touchstone, for Shaden’s photographic tales are always open to interpretation and conjecture. Shaden considers her work “dark art,” but even in that pursuit, isn’t willing to sacrifice aesthetics. Beauty justifies everything. Color, contrast, resolution, masking, costume and a wide variety of other technical aspects are always impeccably thought out. -
Jerry UelsmannUntitled, 2003 -
Jean-Marie VivesCube, 2006This photograph was commissioned by an Italian agency for its client, Yamaha Scooters. They wanted to digitally create a Rubix-type cube covered with urban landscapes. Vives hired a helicopter, and shot extensively around Paris and its suburbs.
The shoot posed several challenges for Vives. It was a puzzle: The landscapes had to be different, but the streets had to connect at the edges. Light was also a concern, as the lighting is naturally different on each side of the cube. To make it easier for himself in Photoshop, Vives made an extra effort to collect shots with several different qualities of light.
Perhaps the greatest triumph of this shot is that it’s hard to imagine as a sales tool, but instead, commands attention simply as a riveting image. -
Pierre BeteilleOn/Off Button, 2010Beteille started by shooting himself against a white wall in his living room. In Photoshop, he dropped in the background shot of the concrete wall. In order to add the whiff of reality, he blurred the wall slightly to create the illusion of depth of field.
Beteille borrowed the switch from a local factory, shot it, dropped it into Photoshop and drew a seam around it with the Photoshop brush tool to make it look like it was genuinely part of the shirt. -
Khuong NguyenPolar, 2011 -
Brooke ShadenThe Untamed Sea, 2009Some of Shaden’s best work arises from distress, torment and impending tragedy. Nothing is certain. Limbs are tossed askew. Gravity is a force to be reckoned with. To achieve the colors she wanted, Shaden first turned the image to black and white, and then, bit by bit, painstakingly added back color.
Like several other of our exhibited artists, Shaden references Alice in Wonderland when talking about her work—in this case, “down the rabbit hole.” She is drawn to Lewis Carroll’s work because he so confidently created his own world and made his own rules. -
Jerry UelsmannSelf-reflection, 2009 -
Josef AstorSheep/Moon, 2001Astor originally created this image without digital help in 1998. It was a print ad promoting wool knit sweaters featuring a surreal Little Bo Peep.
Then in 2001, after he had become fluent in Photoshop, he took another look at it and wasn't satisfied. He'd originally envisioned it as more dreamlike and unreal. So in Photoshop, he added more sheep, an extra cloud layer, and the tree until it looked more like a distant fantasy than the Bergdorf Goodman ad that it had been. The highlight of the original shoot was the sheep, Astor says. It was shot in New York City, and he'd hired a wrangler to truck in a bunch of sheep and herd them into the building. "I could hear them coming up the freight elevator," says Astor. "It was really something to see the elevator doors open up and hear this baaaaaaa. It was a career highlight when everything was ready and I pick up this megaphone like some MGM movie director and say, 'Cue the sheep!'"
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Pierre BeteilleGulliver's Travels, 2010Beteille loves reading, and so naturally, it has become part of his subject matter. He also gravitates toward any photo that has a mise-en-scène—literally, a storytelling aspect. Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, then, was a natural choice. Published in 1726, it tells the story of Lemuel Gulliver, who is washed ashore after his ship is wrecked in a storm, in a land of people who are no more than six inches tall.
"If I were a better painter," Beteille says, "perhaps I would use brushes and a canvas." -
Khuong NguyenAlice in Wonderland, 2010Khuong Nguyen was hired by the French footwear designer Christian Louboutin to create a series of photographs featuring their products. Louboutin sells a glamorous, exclusively priced high-heel shoe that incorporates patent leather, jeweled straps, bows and feathers. Nguyen was the perfect photographer for the job, pulling out his surrealism-colored paintbrush. -
Stanley SmithFlock, Manhattan BeachScrapbooks around the world are filled with snapshots of flocks of birds, but a rare few have this complexity or power.
It started with a spontaneous moment: A man on the pier breaking off bits of bread, tossing them into the air. A strong wind blowing against the hovering birds. A certain sky. But even at the point when Smith had finished shooting hundreds of photos of these birds, the process had just begun.
Every bird in this photograph is an individual layer that has been imported into Photoshop, silhouetted out, and placed against the sky. Using powerful digital tools, each has been blended, much as a painter blends, to become a seamless part of the scene. Even the sky isn’t just one sky, but many. Upon closer examination, this is not a happy-go-lucky snapshot after all, but instead, a highly polished work of art. -
Jerry UelsmannDream theatre, 2004 -
Pierre BeteilleMe, me, me, me, me … and me! 2008Digital methods are not just a way to create impossible mythic scenes or art of the highest seriousness. Pierre Beteille wields a rapier wit to the same end.
Beteille used eight different images to create this one master image. However, he took many more pictures that were not used. To capture the expressions on the faces, for example, he photographed his own face more than 50 times, experimenting with different expressions—an amusing scene to imagine. He used two powerful computer programs, Photoshop and Lightroom, to make all the adjustments—in color, luminosity, tone, contrast, masking and the like—that made the illusion perfect. -
Stanley SmithWindowsOver the span of his photographic career, Stanley Smith has been fascinated by arrangements. Sometimes he gathers and arranges items by their commonalities, such as windows. Other times, he gathers disparate things and sees how they end up relating to each other.
This image began with a fascination. In Manhattan Beach, where Smith lives, he noticed the vibrant colors that seem like a signature of those beach neighborhoods. As an idea was forming, he took a couple of test expeditions to see what might be out there. Then one afternoon, he dove into the project head first, walking up and down the alleyways and shooting hundreds and hundreds of windows.
The assembly of the photographs took months. Using Photoshop, Smith placed each window into the collage individually. Formal and color relationships were of paramount importance. -
Jerry UelsmannCognitive Dissonance, 2010 -
Pierre BeteilleMexican Wrestler, 2010Beteille snapped this self-portrait against a white wall in his home. He was dissatisfied with his stomach, so he used Photoshop, against his own self-interest, to make it fatter. He created the wall of tile from a single tile, dropped in many times. And he changed the page of the magazine in post-production to save a trip to the newsstand. -
Jean-François RauzierFrench Cancan, 2010In his search for the most iconic destinations in the world, Rauzier could not pass up the Moulin Rouge, the legendary Paris cabaret where the risqué dance, the cancan, was invented.
Rauzier visited zoos to photograph the turkeys, but couldn’t find enough of them, so he copied them and performed a kind of Photoshop plastic surgery, changing the eyes, feathers and other features to make them look different from each other. -
Maggie TaylorA Curious Feeling, Alice in Wonderland series, 2006“What a curious feeling!” said Alice … And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high … She felt a little nervous about this; “for it might end, you know,” said Alice to herself, “in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?” And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing. From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. -
Jerry UelsmannUntitled, 1982 -
Pierre BeteilleSurfer, 2010In a digital world, armchair dreams become reality.
Beteille photographed himself in his living room in front of a white wall. Then he used Photoshop to drop himself into two pictures he had taken in his travels, one of a sky and another of an ocean. -
Jean-François RauzierRacines, 2003Rauzier is fascinated by racines, which is the French word for roots. That is why he placed the girl beneath his family tree, holding a photograph of his maternal great-grandfather, the realist painter Jules-Alexis Meunier.
If you look closely, you’ll find a number of “Easter eggs”—in this case, hidden genealogical details. The work took many weeks to create, especially the separation of the many irregular and diaphanous branches from the sky. -
Maggie TaylorDays like this, 2011 -
Jerry UelsmannVoyager, 2008 -
Joel GrimesAlexander Christensen in the Second Street Tunnel, 2011Grimes is not what you'd call fashion conscious, so when model/actor Alexander Christensen showed up at his shoot with a stylist and a game plan, Grimes was open to their ideas. The stylist and model ended up making a major creative contribution to the shoot.
But after the photos had been imported into Photoshop, Grimes had no idea what to use for a background. One day, on his way to having dinner downtown, Grimes drove through the Second Street Tunnel, a circa 1924 tunnel in downtown Los Angeles that has unique light properties and has been used in numerous movies, including Blade Runner and Terminator. He thought about it during dinner, and afterwards, went back, whipped out his camera and began shooting, stepping out of the roadway continually in order to avoid passing cars. He had his background. -
Jean-François RauzierSunha, 2008This photo is one of a series of 12 photographs that Rauzier has created called Les Belles Endormies, or Sleeping Beauties. It was inspired by the novella, House of the Sleeping Beauties, written by Nobel Prize-winning Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata (1899 - 1972). The haunting novel is about a brothel where old men pay to watch beautiful young girls sleep. In order to create this immense level of detail, Rauzier shot about ten photos of the carpet, over 20 of the young lady, over 100 of the floor, over 200 of the wall, and over 200 of the picture within the picture. He then assembled them with digital tools to create a massively detailed work of art. -
Maggie TaylorGarden, 2005 -
Jerry UelsmannThe Edge of Silence, 2007 -
Joel GrimesJenifer Ann, Swimmer, 2009A few years ago, Joel Grimes had the revelation that he's not a photographer, but an artist; photography is simply the medium he uses to create.
This image is a case in point. It wasn't just something he saw, but something he created from a variety of sources and a variety of digital tools. Jenifer Ann Burnett is a model he shot in his studio in Tucson. The pool scene is from a Denver shoot. Neither image stands alone, but has been manipulated, composited, HDR'd, washed out and polished until it has transformed into something artistic and sublime. -
Jean-François RauzierVersailles, 2009 -
Maggie TaylorGirl with a bee dress, 2004 -
Jerry UelsmannHomage to Man Ray, 1997 -
Joel GrimesKerron Clement, Olympic Gold Medalist, 2010Kerron Clement is one of the fastest men in the world—a gold medalist in the 4x400-meter hurdles at the 2008 Beijing Olympics—and Joel Grimes wanted to catch the pure, unadulterated beauty of his speed.
In person, Grimes says, Kerron looks like a superhero: 6-foot-4 and as if chiseled from granite.
"So I set up my camera, and—boom!—he exploded out of those blocks," Grimes says. "It's hard to imagine the beauty of it in person, of seeing an athlete exploding at the peak of his power, when his hands and body are perfect."
Grimes then shot the background at the Sepulveda Dam in Los Angeles and merged the two images in Photoshop. -
Martine RochThe Delicate Lady, 2009“Le rose pâle, c’est vraiment ma couleur!”
“Pale pink is really my color!”
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Maggie TaylorBirds of a Feather, Alice in Wonderland series, 2008Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.
From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll -
Jerry UelsmannThe Committee, 2002 -
Chris LevinePhotographing the Queen -
Martine RochThe Good Kids, 2009“Un beau costume et le museau propre … c’est dimanche!”
“Dressed and cleaned up for Sunday!” -
Maggie TaylorOh Happy Day -
Jerry UelsmannUntitled, 2011 -
Chris LevineEquanimity, 2004None of our photographers, except Chris Levine, has been commissioned to shoot a photo session with the Queen of England. He considered it a high honor.
The island of Jersey wanted to commemorate 800 years of loyalty to the English crown, and so they asked the Queen to sit for a photo session. The resulting photographs will be used on the Jersey £100 note and on a stamp. Jersey's relationship with the crown is unique, since Jersey is not part of the UK but has been defended by its military for centuries. The island's loyalty is strategically valuable, since it sits just off the coast of Normandy, much closer to France than to England. Equanimity, according to the dictionary, is the state of being calm and composed, especially under stress. -
Martine RochThe Honest Man, 2011“Honnêtement, je me sens bien!”
“I've never felt better, honestly!” -
Maggie TaylorSubject to change, 2004 -
Jerry UelsmannUntitled, 1987 -
Josef AstorBoys on the Beach (after P. Cadmus), 1999 -
Chris LevineStillness at the Speed of Light, 2010Grace Jones was illuminated under laser light when Levine took this lenticular 3D photograph. -
Martine RochThe Pressing Husband, 2010“Dis chérie, si on rentrait maintenant?”
“It’s time to go home now, darling, don’t you think?”
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Maggie TaylorThe Divide, 2011 -
Jean-Marie VivesGlobe, 2010If you ask Jean-Marie Vives what the original photograph was for this image, he will tell you with a straight face that there was no original image. The iceberg was pieced together using multiple “found images” that Vives bought royalty free. This fanciful image of the iceberg was constructed entirely in the computer, using the powerful art programs Photoshop, Logiciel 3D and Cinema 4D.
The image was originally created as a print ad for a French law firm. The challenge was to make it look like the Earth, with continents and bodies of water, without making it look forced. -
Josef AstorCésar Pelli Wearing the Carnegie TowerVanity Fair magazine gave Astor the plum assignment of photographing world-class architects wearing their buildings. Since Astor hadn't yet learned digital techniques, he contracted a model builder to construct a scale model of César Pelli's Carnegie Tower, a 60-story skyscraper in New York City, which could be worn. To place Pelli into the desert scene, Astor commissioned a trompe l'oeil painting backdrop. (1996) -
Chris LevineSuperstar, 2010Chris Levine was hired by singer Grace Jones to create a laser light show for her concerts. At the time, she hadn't performed with a band for a full decade, and wanted to come back with a bang. Levine created a moment in the concert in which light laser was pointed at Jones' bowler hat, which was covered with Swarovski crystals, and then diffracted, filling the auditorium with shards of colored light. The audience went wild over the effect. For this photograph, Levine re-created that moment. The lenticular 3D print is illuminated by an LED edge-lit panel. -
Brooke ShadenBallet Vacate, 2009Brooke Shaden wanted to take the often clichéd subject matter of ballet photography and teach it some new steps. In creating this photograph, Shaden was interested in the “in-between moments” in dance. Shaden’s photographs are often self-portraits, as here, where she used Photoshop to clone herself seven times. She often takes more inspiration from painting, film and literature than from traditional photography. -
Maggie TaylorThe Herald, Alice in Wonderland series, 2006 -
Jean-Marie VivesHelp Me, 2010Normally, one might expect that evolution and progress would have an upward arc as time goes by. Over the past few years, however, Vives has come to quite the opposite conclusion, that his children will have a harder, less happy life. This idea is expressed within the context of a photograph taken for the environmental group Nicolas Hulot Fondation, with which Vives frequently works.
The orangutan was shot separately and digitally dropped into an image taken at the Palais Brongniart, the old Paris Stock Exchange. -
Josef AstorGod vs. ScienceIn 1999, when Astor was not quite ready to use digital photographic techniques, he relied on analog techniques to float the planets, electrons, and hands: He hung them from wires in the studio. To merge it with a photograph he had taken of Big Sur, he used front-screen projection, a technique in which the ocean shot was projected onto a highly reflective background that was draped behind the hanging planets. The projection didn't show on the planets because they were not crafted from reflective material. -
Bonny Pierce LhotkaFoothills Frost, 2011While driving from Boulder to Golden in Colorado, Lhotka hit a freezing fog. She pulled over to the side of the road, pulled out her camera, and started shooting. The trees were encased in ice, and the air was filled with frozen mist. When Lhotka first loaded this photograph into Photoshop, the tree was almost completely white. Then she began experimenting. "I accidentally did something that allowed these hidden textures and colors to emerge out of the fog," Lhotka says. "When I saw that, I really went for it. I was able to pull out that hidden color and intensify it, so that I finally ended up with this electrified tree." -
Brooke ShadenThe World Above, 2011To capture Shaden’s unique frozen moments takes a lot of planning. Her work begins with an idea, develops into a sketch, and evolves into a detailed written description before she ever pulls out her camera. Having done all that preparation, shooting becomes easier. She rarely takes more than five exposures. In this case, Shaden shot the birds separately, deliberately out of focus, so that they would fit when she dropped them into the final shot. -
Maggie TaylorThe Visitor, 2011 -
Jean-Marie VivesFondation Nicolas Hulot – Bear, 2004Vives shot this photograph for Fondation Nicholas Hulot, an environmental group in France that was founded by a television personality of the same name. In 1987, Hulot began starring in the documentary show Ushuaïa, which calls attention to environmental damage caused by humans and what must be done to heal the planet.
The baby is named Paloma and lives with her parents, the president of the foundation and his wife, in Paris. Paloma was photographed at home. The bear’s name is Julia. She was photographed through the bars of a cage at the home of Vives’ son, an animal trainer. Although neither subject was in any danger, the juxtaposition of the two subjects through digital manipulation raises an alarm. -
Josef AstorAntony, 1998
