Photo impressionism and creating art from the everyday

Using photo impressionism tools such as Dynamic Auto Painter you can create realistic art from the images in your photographic archive.

It’s all too easy to stagnate in your photography.

For some of us, finding new ways to express ourselves differently to our peers can be challanging. One way out of this malaise is to look for something a little different, to find ways to say the same thing but in a slightly different language. Photo impressionism is one such tool.

My personal approach, certainly of recent times, is to use my candid work as the basis for more impressionistic artworks. This is not to say that I don’t employ the same strategy to the various landscapes that I take, I do, it’s just that candid scenes seem to work well in this genre.

Dynamic Auto Painter – An Investment in creativity

This all came about recently when I invested in Dynamic Auto Painter (DAP) which “helps” me create the types of scenes I admire in various painters such as Emile Grupp, Pino Daeni, LeRoy Neiman and John Singer Sargent although of course I am fascinated by other painters such as Vincent van Goth, Édouard Béliard and Frank W. Benson.

Art is for everyone

Now I have to say here that I am not a painter, I am a photographer. While it’s true that I did show some early promise as an artist, I don’t feel that i have the skills to “do it myself”. I need help and that is what DAP provides me with.

This is not to say that I simply choose an image, set the defaults and let it chunter away. Far from it, and photo impressionism requires some skill. For this reason I interact with almost every work I create and of course, as the old saying goes, rubbish in, rubbish out.

What makes a good candidate for photo impressionism?

Finding good candidates for impressionist art is an artform in itself, just as it would have been for the various artists mentioned above.

It’s true to say that not every image has the potential to be a good candidate for photo impressionism. The best images in my opinion have a simplicity of subject matter, a well defined subject and an uncluttered background. They should also have a good range of tonality, high contrast subjects less so.

Monochrome subjects can be processed but should be avoided unless you are going to paint on colour, for example using something like the Leyroy preset. This can create interesting effects as is demonstrated by the image shown below.

Dynamic Auto Painter – Full of Innovation

The latest version is Dynamic Auto Painter is DAP7 and it’s well worth a look. DAP7 is fully functional but the exported files are watermarked so you can’t use them without doing some cropping. Besides, the developers Mediachance have spent many years developing DAP so paying £60 or so (with discounts) is a no brainer if you are looking to expand your skill sets.

My favourite artist for candid portraiture is John Singer Sargent as I particularly like the softness in his paintings. The header image above is based on the work of Sargent with some modifications during and after processing. I think it works particulalry well for well defined subjects in particular. Another artist I admire is Pino Daeni who’s technique is equally well suited to portraiture.

In busy scenes so I have preferred to use Grupp, Belliard or Benson. As I say though, I am learning as I go and my perspective may change as I go further in this type of work.

Here are a few more examples. You can see more of this type of work on my commercial art website at Pixtures