Practice Makes Perfect
India 2009
Yes, I’m still trying to use my photos to make vintage looking travel posters. As I told you, I have several books with illustrations of the real thing. I try to study them, but my mind can’t seem to figure out what is the essence of a vintage poster. My solution is to pick up one of the books now and then and simply enjoy them. Easy to do. I’m hoping that at the same time, my subconscious is grasping some basic ideas.
It worked in this case. I had a love/hate relationship with this photo. The girl was lovely and she held her headcovering away from her face for me, but the green color of the fabric cast an ugly green tint over her skin. That tint sucked the life out of the photo in my mind. I’d tried many times to get this photo to my liking. I never did, but I never threw it away either. Then the other day, I noticed that it would make a perfect vintage poster if I deleted the trees in the background, changed the colors and posterized the whole thing. Voila!
I have some friends whom I consider artists. They tell me that when they start a project, they are filled with doubts but they start despite those doubts. That’s a lesson for us lesser mortals. Start anyway! Or as we said when faced with a fence that was higher than any we’d jumped before: “Do it scared!”