The guy behind the lens

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Happy 4th of July!

As a nature photographer who also has enjoys photographing flags, I thought I'd  post some of my American Flag themed composites to celebrate the 4th of July. I often like to take flag photos and convert them into textures which can then serve as backgrounds which can help "rescue" other images that have faults - I can then extract a critical part of the "flawed" image and salvage it with a flag background.


The US Flag flying at the entrance to Fort Sumpter National Monument - This year marks the 150th anniversary (sesquicentennial) of the shelling of the fort that began the US Civil War.
The Statue of Liberty against a textured flag that I took which flies in the plaza around her pedestal. The sky was a mottled grey cloudy mess that day, so the flag served as a much better background.



President George Washington's statue which stands in front of Federal Hall in New York City. Federal Hall is where Washington took his first Oath of Office as President in 1789. The background of the original image was littered with tourists so I extracted the statue and placed him before a flag I textured as if it were a mural on a brick wall.

Standing Guard
This composite came about because the background behind the two captive eagles was very distracting and blown out. I used two layers, a forest silhouette and a textured flag and placed the eagles on their perch in the foreground to create a theme of American Wilderness.

Thanks for sharing your time here today, I hope you have an enjoyable Fourth!

6 comments:

Discovery School at First Baptist Heath said...

Happy 4th and beautiful layer work. Well done!

Unknown said...

I really like your composite shots!!! Wonderful! Have a fabulous Fourth!!

Al said...

I'm not usually a fan of heavily-edited photos, but I love what you've done with these. And they're perfect for the holiday weekend!

Julie G. said...

These are wonderful, John! I especially love the 2 eagles. Beautiful work, as always! Wishing you a bright and happy 4th of July!

theconstantwalker said...

Have a great 4th

Kerri Farley said...

Excellent post and pics!! Hope you've had a Wonderful 4th!!