Making Magic with just one Photograph!

Have you heard it said, "Give an artist a camera and a computer and see what happens"! Well, four years ago: I retired; moved to North Carolina; and, started spending time photographing and learning about all the birds that I previously never knew existed.

I mean, I knew about Robins, and Blue Birds, and Crows, and Sparrows and all the "typical" birds that most of us learn about as children; but; it blew my mind when I started seeing all kinds of birds in our new backyard that I had never, ever, seen in my entire life. In fact, I have observed and photographed over 50 different species of birds that have visited our little, residential backyard over the past three and a half years.

Learning about the birds and about photography went hand-in-hand. I believe that I have milked my old camera for all it's worth. I can honestly say that I have taken well over 200,000 photographs in 2020 alone. I have no intention of "upgrading" cameras in order to compete with the "big guys". There are plenty of good photographers around. I have no desire to add my name to the list.

Being an artist and not a photographer, I am now starting to create photo art using the photographs that I have taken over the years.

Many people have asked me if I use photoshop. The answer is no. I was given an old version; but, never downloaded it because of the learning curve. I could not seem to cut out a big enough chunk of time to experiment enough in order to become proficient with a new tool and, hey, time is too short.

I use the photo editing tools in Microsoft Power Point and Paint 3D - because they happen to both be on my desktop and I have gotten really familiar with the different ways I can combine photos and then digitally paint them. In fact, I might be the only person who uses Power Point in this way. I think it is fabulous!

Tonight, I was looking at that photograph pictured above, of a little chickadee, and thought, "I think I can dress him up for Christmas". One thing led to another and I ended up creating several new images from that one simple photo. It is kind of like playing bird "paper dolls"!