An Artistic View of Fort Pillow in Tennessee

Do you ever have the urge to try something different? I decided to do something slightly unusual with one of the photos from our springtime visit to Fort Pillow in Tennessee, just to create something a little bit different.

I had the idea of making a photo look something like a painting, so I spent a little time figuring out how to get the look that I wanted to get. This turned out to be pretty close to what I was picturing in my mind when I first came up with the idea. Click the photo to get a slightly larger view, just in case what you are looking at is not all that clear.

I don’t know if this technique will have any real-world value or not, but I have used it on a few other photos to be presented here at a later date, and I like how they turn out. Not quite like a painting, not quite like a colored sketch, but not quite like a photograph, either. So let’s just call it art, why don’t we?

That is one of the interesting things about art. It can be just about anything. Of course, some people use that as a license to make some really weird stuff, but not everyone does. One of the interesting things about art is that it sometimes gives you a glimpse into what is in a person’s mind. Maybe the art that they produce does not reflect their main qualities, but instead it might reflect something that is in there trying to come out.

That makes me wonder what the art that I produce says about me, whether it is the usual photographic works that you normally see here or something like this that looks a little different. I could try to do some self-analysis here, but based on the one psychology class that I had in college, that self-analysis would probably turn out to be completely wrong. Or maybe just wishful thinking. So I will leave that to the professionals, although I do not plan on paying a professional some professional price to try to figure me out. I am happy with myself most of the time, and that is good enough for me. No need to try to look for some deeply hidden “motivation” for whatever it is that I do.

Anyway, as you might have guessed, this little work of art started out as a normal photograph, or at least as “normal” as my processed photos happen to look. If you are curious, here is how the photo looked before I started working on it:

I was considering simply posting the photo as it was, with its tall trees surrounding the earthworks fort in the middle of the photo. But then later on I started thinking of other ways to do things, and I realized that this photo might just be a good test subject for what I was thinking of.

While in some ways the artistic version does not look all that different from the original version, the lines are darker in the artistic version, but it is also more difficult to see the actual fort in the newer version. That to me is a minor trade-off, because I was going more for atmosphere than for an actual portrait of the fort itself. And I was happy with how the photo turned out, in case you were wondering. Any dislike for it was not a reason for trying something different with it. I do like the original photo, which is one of the reasons I am presenting it here as well.

Trying something different to see if you like it is fun sometimes. And besides, you never know what you might like until you try it.

Those who trust in their riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf. - Proverbs 11:28

About the photo:

For starters, this photo was processed in much the same way as the other recent photos I have processed lately. Nothing all that unusual there, although I do like how the processing brought out the blue of the sky and the green of the grass and leaves.

As for the artistic process, I will hold off on saying much about that for now, because I am still trying to figure out ways to refine the process. But it was all done with some standard filters in Photoshop, just in case you were wondering. Really nothing fancy at all. Watch for other examples of this soon!

Photo: A single Raw exposure, processed in Photoshop. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10
Lens: Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens
Date: April 29, 2017
Location: Fort Pillow State Park, Tennessee