Filter Effects

Our final lesson for this week, we have one week to go, was filters. You can skew and changes colors in your photos by using filters on them. What makes filters most effective is stacking one on top of another. I have up to six filters on some of these photos. What I learned after trying quite a few is that the ones you think will be the most interesting may not do much, while others that don’t seem to have much possibility turn out to be very intriguing. The upshot: you can’t predict, especially because there are so many combinations available.

My goal was to create images I could use in my art. I first tried a pot of begonias, thinking I could abstract them and make them look less like flowers. While I find the filtered image lovely, I don’t think it’s changed that much. No matter what I tried, and I may not have tried the right filters, they still look like flowers.

Next up is a building in San Diego. I admired the pattern on it when I took the photo but have not wanted to copy it. I like the filter results and am retaining it as a good possibility for a wall hanging.

Next I thought I would try an abstract quilt I’ve made. It’s black and while. I used filters on it in the original colorway then tried other color combinations and saved the one I liked best.

So after trying one of my own pieces of art, I tried filters on a piece of glass art that I took a photo of at SOFA in Chicago a few years ago. I love the colors in it, the visual texture of the “clothing”, and how the figures overlap. Obviously, I can’t copy it, but I could use it as inspiration.

While scrolling through my photos, I found one I didn’t even know I had taken. I thought, hmm, what would this one do? Well, the color changes made it much more interesting.

The last photo I kept was that of a building in Blois, France.