Photos

I was drawn to these images for lots of different reasons. 

Some of them are purely sentimental; two photos were taken by a friend (one is the eye, and I'm a huge fan of macro photography), and another of these is mine. I want to learn what I can do with my photos beyond simple retouching.

A close friend lives in Tokyo, and I envy his view of the skyline at night (top picture). I'd really like to learn how to mimic the long exposure, which you can see when you look at the streams of light the cars leave. 

I love the dreamlike quality that Degas' paintings always seem to have, and I want to learn to play with color and noise and focus to achieve that kind of visual texture. As far as the Kandinsky, he's another artist I've always loved, and I want to learn more about creating shapes and using color to create depth and space.

The photo of Michael Jackson as an angel is by David LaChapelle, whom I've admired for a long time just because his fantastic creations never fail to be totally over-the-top. It's sort of like Vegas on a screen. I guess it could be categorized better as a photo montage?

The other photos aren't just randomly selected; the photographers all mean something to me personally, but I liked those works specifically for the way they play with light/dark, contrast/exposure, and reflection.