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Happy Homes for Artwork

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:51:14 +0100

In 2004-2005 school year I was asked to take the senior football player's portrait for Tahoma High School. I had been working with many of the parents from the Maple Valley and Covington area at the time and photographing sporting events. Thanks to Sherry Racy and Janice Bundy, Take Your Best Shot was becoming pretty well know in the area after I had created a sketch of their Pony Baseball all star players. Janice organized the senior portrait and sent my "athletic crew" out to pull off the job! Andy Lin and Amber hiked to the bottom of Snoqualmie falls and that year's portrait was created. A couple of weeks later Janice came up with another idea. She asked if I would do a sketch of each of the senior players for their parents as gifts from the school and booster club. This has become a tradition at Tahoma. I have also created sketches for the wrestling team and basketball team. This is when I first created a sketch for Sandy and Mike and their son, then a senior player for Tahoma. I had never met them personally.... until this year when I became more acquainted with their family. Sandy contacted me and told me that they had moved to southern CA where their second son played football. She explained that he had always wanted a sketch like his brother and so did Mike and Sandy. This was the start of a year long project that Sandy tackled, so to speak. Shed sent me a photo of her son and asked if I still had the original of the first sketch. I do have the original so she ordered two 11x14 sketches. Here is the comment upon receiving the sketches: " We have the sketches and they’re GREAT!! You did an amazing job on both boys. Those turned out so well that we will be ordering a sketch for our 2 girls also. All I need to do is find the right picture – my new Thanksgiving project. Thanks again for everything Sandy" So the project continued with a daughter who is a rugby player and a daughter who is a soccer player. Both sketches turned out great. At that time I was wondering what Sandy and Mike were doing with all these sketches??? Giving them as gifts? So I thought I had completed the project when in rolled two more photo copies. One of Sandy as a swimmer and the other of Mike taken from a newspaper while playing football. These were a challenge but I knew they must be an important part to a much larger puzzle. Sandy and Mike are very pleased with their sketches and recently allowed me into their home for a "rare" look at my work on display with the photo below. Or I guess I should say "OUR" work, Sandy was definitely an important partner in this project. I can tell the family treasures their wall of sketches! Sandy just sent two more images which I sketched for two senior football players as grad gifts. I think that Sandy, Mike and family are some very special people! I feel blessed to have shared this with them. James Geddes

Breaking News!

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:26:03 +0100

Okay, I promised that I would let this cat out of the bag as soon as I could. I just received the signed copy of the sketch composite I created for Blake Griffin! I didn't take the photos, those were provided by Blake's trainer, D. Rich and the sketch was commissioned by Darby for Blake.

This project was awesome! I had watched Blake play during the NCAA March Madness tourney and felt he was one the toughest players I had seen in a very long time. I was thrilled to be able to create this for Blake and hope it finds a place in his trophy room!

Darby's comments: "...a picture of a great athlete by a great artist." "I look forward to doing more business with you, and I already have several people asking about your work. Hopefully I can send some your way soon."

BLAKE GRIFFIN: Standing 6'10" and weighing over 250 pounds, Blake Griffin is the projected No. 1 overall pick in the 2009 NBA draft.

With the raw ability to dunk the ball on virtually anybody in his path and the size to overpower nearly everyone on the boards, Griffin looks to exceed analysts' and fans' expectations all around the NBA. Griffin is an absolute powerhouse, with arms and legs of steel. During his sophomore season, he averaged a ridiculous 22.7 points, 14.4 rebounds (best in league), 2.3 assists, and 1.2 blocks per game, shooting 59 percent from the field and putting up 30 double-doubles on the year.

The Web site NBADraft.net had the following to say about Griffin: "He has an almost mindless killer instinct and intensity level, giving 110 percent every time he steps foot on the court. Has incredibly intimidating size for an NBA small forward, but is probably going to be more comfortable playing in the post for the time being. An excellent ball handler capable of facing the basket and getting by defenders"

If Griffin can expand his game on the perimeter, he will force opposing teams to either place a smaller player against the beast or put a bigger and slower man on him. Either way, Griffin wins that battle. The man is extremely aggressive and is not afraid to go up on anybody that guards him. He has the speed and agility to blast by defenders and is outstanding at finishing near the rim. Griffin has great stamina and is a lot more athletic than he seems. He is used to being double-teamed and, at times, triple-teamed as well. With tons of experience in college, he is clearly ready to move on to the next level.

Regardless of who drafts him, Griffin will become a big time star in no time. He has the body, the talent, the experience, and the right mindset to dominate in the NBA He is a unique basketball player who will use his size and phenomenal mobility to take advantage of absolutely anybody who attempts to guard him or walk in his path.

Pictures, Pastels and Pencils

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:35:24 +0100

I have had a busy week! We finished the photo work with the local high school teams, created the products, printed the packages and returned the orders... During this time I had a number of sketch projects arrive
via the internet and USPS. My wife, Nancy, and I went to our grand daughters birthday bash then she flew out to CA for her dad's 90th birthday... And I am still in excruciating pain with plantar faciitis and back pain... I don't want to know if that can get worse!

I am continuing my experimenting with my painting.

I completed two more pastels this week and learned a lot more about under painting from reading Richard McKinley's blog and and watching Robert Rohm's DVD on landscape painting with pastels.

Being a photographer tends to make me gravitate toward detail, lots of detail... when you spend your time processing photos it is sometimes a challenge to look at a scene and only see large shapes not objects, values not colors and suggest objects not focus in on them... Creating a more painterly piece

is what I hope to be able to achieve. At that point, if I ever arrive there, I think I can blend the two inner warring factors and create some beautiful work.... that is this down the road....

On the Sport Sketch site I have two new entries into the "Work in Progress"

area and some REALLY BIG NEWS developing that I can't tell you about just yet... But I can tell you that I did a super composite sketch for an NCAA superstar... I have to wait to see if I can post it for public viewing before I let the cat out of the bag.... Who is he/she?
If you know basketball, you know this player!

Welcome Earthlings and Visitors

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 05:18:20 +0100

I have created this blog to answer questions, offer suggestions gleaned from my image processing and to generally share some thoughts of the day.

I would like to offer a "Weekly" image that you might enjoy for a computer screen background or if you are inclined to paint, perhaps a starting point for a new artwork. We do have pretty incredible sunrises, alpen glow on Mt. Baker and birding photos during each week.

This blog is linked to my three websites: www.TakeYourBestShot.com www.GeddesPhotography.com and www.SportSketch.com. TYBS is dedicated to my
sports photography business, Geddes Photo to the fine art, "wet canvas work" and our family and SportSketch to the sketches I create for many many clients all over the US.

If you have a question about any of these websites or the products offered within those sites, feel free to post that here and I may address that question in a future post or shoot you an email if the question is time sensitive.

Image of the week, click for screen size image:

Quick Guide for Image Adjusting

Simple Soft Edge Gradient Filter in PhotoShop:

Click thumbnail for screen size image to download and use in this exercise.

In this image, I would like the water to be slightly more brighter and a slightly lighter mountain range as well.

Here's how:

1. Duplicate your image and close the original. On the layers palette shown to the right, drag the background layer to the "double" icon on the
the bottom of the palette. Next to the trash can. This creates a "background copy layer" above the background, as shown. Turn off the top
layer by clicking the "eye" in the column to the left of the background copy layer. You are now looking at only the original layer.

2. With the bottom layer visible as described above, select from the top menu items the "Image" pull down menu. Click "adjust" scroll down to curves.
Place the cursor on the middle dot - click and hold - then pull diagonally toward the top right corner, as shown. Select a second spot on the arc created
by your action and repeat but very gently. The first adjustment is for exposure (lighten) and the second one is for contrast. Adjust to suite your taste.

3.Now click the eye back making the top layer visible again. You should notice the image getting darker by switching this layer on and off.
With the top layer selected, click the "layer mask" button on the bottom of the layers palette, as shown.

4. With the layer mask created and the top layered still highlighted, select the gradient tool from the tools palette. This sometimes resides under the paint bucket.
While on the tools palette, also click the small black and white icon next to the large colored squares. This will change the squares to white on top and black
beneath. Click the exchange button next to the squares (top right). This will change the color order to black on the top and white on the bottom.

5. Take the gradient tool out to the image. Be sure your gradient is the "feather" as shown. If you need more of the effect directed at the shaded or shadowed
portion of the image, select "shadow" from the MODE settings, (third circled from left). Click the bottom of the image and pull the gradient tool upward. Try to keep a straight line by holding down the cursor and moving it side to side. This may take a couple attempts to get what you are pleased with. Keep trying until you get what you are after... You can even play around with it!

6. Notice the layer mask on the layers palette. the black area shows where the black paint feathered across the photo's top layer. This allows that portion to
reveal the bottom layer. The layer that we adjusted. So the top sunrise sky stays as photographed and the bottom reveals the lighted bottom layer.

7. By turning off the bottom layer's visibility you can see the mask effect.

8. The subtle difference (which could be much more dramatic if we had adjusted the exposure more in the first steps). The trick here is realizing that the
image has been adjusted and that adjustment is feathered in the same way a gradient soft sided filter works. In other words, I could have used a Signh Ray
1 stop SS filter when I photographed this image and accomplished the same thing. That said, I am a strong believer in creating images that are correct when
shot. DO NOT leave the creation of great images up to PhotoShop. This is a rescue mission, not the normal work flow! But it's a good one!