Welcome to Photo Innovations. This blog is for the non-purists who have no problem manipulating images. Since this is an introduction I will let you in on my passions, my philosophy about photography, and my justification for altering images.

First and foremost, I feel photography should be fun. Of course, I’m not into photography to make a living. The fact that I’m a hobbyist may be all too evident, however my passion for the art of photo manipulation and photography in general stems from my love of art and the freedom artists have for interpretation. I consider myself an artist first, and a photographer second.

Prior to digital capture and Photoshop, I was at the mercy of labs since I didn’t have my own darkroom. I hungered for the ability to have my work look like such artist as Tom Till, Willie Holdman, and James Kay, all Utah landscape photographers. Yes, I admit I love Utah. The rocks and canyons are spectacular.

This leads to my love of photo manipulation. My forays to Utah, especially to Moab, have been limited. I live in Colorado. Most of my trips to Utah yielded interesting landscapes with bright blue skies. Nothing against blue skies, but I love clouds, and I often photograph clouds in Colorado. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I could combine Colorado clouds with my favorite shots in Arches National Park and other favorite landscapes. I was no longer at the mercy of Mother Nature.

That of course was just the beginning of my love affair with Photoshop. The more I played, the more creative I became. I wanted to learn, and often Googled tutorials on Photoshop to see other artists creations. Most tutorials boggle my mind, and so, over the years I have developed my own techniques, which I’ll share.

I compete in the Masters level at the Loveland Photographic Society, www.lps.cc, and occasionally in PSA. I do pretty well with my images. I admit that without Photoshop, there is no way I’d be competing at this level, and I do this all with CS 2, so don’t feel pressured into living on the bleeding edge of technology. Perhaps some day Adobe will take notice of my blog and take pity. Oh, and by the way, I’m a Mac lover, but even if you use Windows, the techniques I use still apply.