[Art + Photography] Bougainvillea Sky

The Bougainvillea is an interesting, resilient and beautiful perennial plant that can be found in many gardens around the world if you have a warm enough climate. It is usually full of flowers all year long, although what actually are the flowers of the plant can be deceiving for they are surrounded by modified leafs with bright colors. Only the parts in the middle of these modified leafs and usually with white, cream or yellowish colors are the real flowers.

The story of this plant's discovery by occidental science is also interesting. French Botanist Philibert Commerçon was accompanying French explorer and Navy admiral Louis Antoine de Bougainville (who participated in the American Revolution on the American side against the British) during his scientific expedition voyage circumnavigating the Earth. Commerçon had a female lover as his assistant who was an expert botanist but she could not be allowed on a ship because of being a woman. Left out of options she disguised herself as a man so she could be left alone while travelling along with her lover, which made her the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, and she was probably also the first European to observe and document a Bougainvillea.

I am lucky to have these plants on the entrance to my house and I took some photographs of one against a cloudy but sunny sky, and then I used one of those as the original picture of this series, which you can see as the second image below.

In this current post in the sequence of my Photography into Art series I performed some transformations on that original picture and obtained several nice versions of it, like the one immediately below that really looks like I painted a graffiti out of it. I hope you enjoy them all, as I did while creating them.

A Bougainvillea against the sky graffiti

That one really looks like if it was a photograph from some mural somewhere, but I can guarantee you it only exists in the digital realm, at least for the time being. I may make it into some printed hardware some time soon, maybe on some mug or something of the sort, who knows.

And here (below) is the one that started as the main source for this series of transformations of a Bougainvillea, it's a plant that has been living in the entrance to my house for some years now and is flowering all year long.

The original Bougainvillea Sky photograph from where I derived all of the transformations in this post

That photograph was taken with an Olympus SH-25MR camera, and shot at f/4 and 1/320th sec. ISO 80 setting. It was being swayed by the wind at the time, but thanks to the high lighting conditions and fast shutter speed I could freeze it in time.

Our next transformation brings us a watercolor like poster in warm pastel flesh tones combined with several tones of blue, from sky blue to deep royal blue. A coolly soothing and pleasing combination.

A Pastel Watercolor Poster

The following composition has an acrylic painting quality to it with its mostly primary bright contrasting colors and large uni colored areas.

An Acrylic Painting Bougainvillea Poster

Following we embark into a surrealistic interpretation of our Bougainvillea composition with a myriad of details within details in an explosion of screaming colors. There are even a few creatures seemingly living in this picture, bird-like, seal-like, and a few others, can you find some of them?

A Surrealistic Bougainvillea Painting

This next interpretation looks like a combination of an ink drawing with gouache painting that provides a very pleasing interpretation of the Bougainvillea against blue sky theme.

An Ink-Gouache Bougainvillea Poster

The one below belongs in the Modern Impressionism realm with its version of a Bougainvillea bathed under the warm sunset light of an autumn sky.

A Modern Impressionist Bougainvillea Painting

On this other version we have a not so far out surrealistic version with some impressionist coloring rendering of our Bougainvillea, making it a Semi Impressionist-Surrealist combo poster.

A Semi Impressionist-Surrealist combo

This next one is an attempt at some minimalist broad stroked primary colored interpretation of our Bougainvillea, crudely appealing, isn't it?

A Minimalist Primary Colored Bougainvillea Painting

Finally the last interpretation of this series is a spring color palette motif with a cartoon style rendering poster of our Bougainvillea against blue sky composition.

A Spring Motif Cartoon Bougainvillea Poster

So, what do you think, do you like them, which one is your favorite?

Photographic Impressionism

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
-Marcel Proust

Essentially there are two different kinds of photography, you can think about them as two totally distinct art forms. First there is the most traditional or conventional form of photography that aims at portraying a very literal representation of its subject matter or scene with relatively little or no manipulation of the camera parameters away from what is basically necessary so that the captured image is as similar to the original image source as possible with some artistic leeway to make the result more aesthetically pleasing, this would be what normal photojournalism, portrait, or landscape photography is like.

Playing with focus and light to create Impressionist Photographs

Image source

But then there is a totally different kind of photography where all, or most, of the rules of that other traditional style photography are purposefully broken in order for the photographer to have a greater artistic license and in doing so achieve to portray something closer to a suggestion, a feeling or impression of a subject or scene instead of a perfect portrait of it.

Camera Movement Impressionist Photography

Playing with camera movements to create Impressionist Photographs

Image source

In this side of photography it may approach art more closely, as the resulting images usually lack in detail, or fail in focus, while emphasizing or modifying color, camera movement and zoom ins or outs while the shutter is still open. This creates image effects that, although being far from portraying the original subject, have a more artsy look and feel to them.

Playing with timed exposures to create Impressionist Photographs

Image source

This is not unlike what glancing at something quickly and looking away immediately does when viewing something, not leaving you the chance of focusing correctly and fixing an exact frame of what you saw. You are nevertheless left with an idea of color, shapes, movement and blur, that still manage to create an instant similitude of this sight, an essence, ergo an impression, this is Photographic Impressionism.

If you would like more information on how some of these Impressionist Photographs were achieved you can check out these articles where each technique is explained in detail:

All of them are incredible examples of great artistic talent and techniques, but they are not the only ones, there are many more methods and techniques that can be used to achieve Impressionist style photography. Not only that, there are surely many more methods that are still waiting to be invented, care to give it a try? You may be pleasantly surprised at what you can achieve if you do.

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination encircles the world."
-Albert Einstein, As quoted in "What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck" in The Saturday Evening Post (October 26th, 1929)

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