Visual Arts: The Medium is (Definitely!) the Message

Visual images are an integral part of everyday life here on our planet. We live, work, and play surrounded by images. Obviously, certain pictures that we love can make us feel a certain way, and we often try to have these images close by so that we can charge our batteries from time to time. The charging experience that we feel isn't necessarily only visual. Pictures and photos can cause us to become enveloped with emotions and feelings, or maybe just give us a thoughtful moment or pensive thought.

Our impression of visual art is connected to images we recognize and also to images that we aren't familiar with. Pictures that have the power to draw us in can be drawn from the hand of a child or shot from the lense of an experienced photographer. Not every picture can make us stop and notice, but inevitably many do. 



What causes these images to be so potent? What is the technique that is used to entice a human eye?
 
The images that we "see" or "notice" are often concepts or designs that were created to make an impression on the casual observer. Everyone from photographers and video cameramen to graphic artists and design specialists are employed to create images that will cause an impact. How do they do it? Well, accidents do happen, but in general you need to understand the medium that you are working with in order to create successful images. Each medium has obvious elements as well as plenty of unnoticed aspects that also combine to give the final image its look and appeal. Everyone has certain styles that they are most drawn to, but often, success is determined by a combination of many different factors and aspects of the particular medium.
 
To get us started off, let's take a look at a great Photoshop tutorial collection from You The Designer called Adobe Photoshop Tutorial Round-Up 3. Here you can discover how to design an amazing mystic man, a Loox Pocket PC, a funky iPod Shuffle or try your hand at building some fantastic space scene lighting effects! They are all excellent, but this one from Nik Ainley demonstrates how to take simple stock photos and mash them up into a fantastic photo manipulation masterpiece! Look at this awesomeness!

The Making of Mystic



Another great Photoshop reference is this cool set of tutorials for breathtaking visual effects. This series is called 100 Photoshop Tutorials for Creating Beautiful Art and there are full technical explanations included here as well as short bios of the different designers that created each tutorial. This is a great reference for all graphic design freaks, so save it somewhere where you can find it quickly. There are realistic images, cosmic images,  comic images, and sexy images. Pick the one that you like and give it a whirl. These designers definitely know how to get the most out of their tools...



There are some incredible photo techniques out there, but one style that has definitely caught my eye lately is called HDR - or High Dynamic Range (Image Photography). According to Wikipedia, it is:

"A set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of exposures (the range of values between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows."

If you want a little background on the style and some helpful suggestions on how to get the best results, take a look at this valuable article called How to Create HDR Photos. If you would like to see what types of compelling images are obtainable in this intriguing medium, take a look at this superb layout called Outstanding HDR Night Pictures and find out what all the buzz is about.

Shibuya Night (HDR)


photo by Guwashi999                             

By a Cloudy Night - HDR


photo by Arnold Pouteau

For all of the typography folks out there, take a look at the new i love typography article called Sunday Type: paragraph type. There are lots of great examples of creay=tive uses of typography styles that will let you start to understand what an important visual medium this is. A picture may be worth 1000 words, be sometimes a well designed font can really help get you where you need to go. Don't miss it, there are some great examples here...

Out comes the inner-child





Here at the Visual Art Stop, we are working to bring you some of the newest and freshest web content available on visual art styles. We have lots of design favorites, and each week we will try to bring you the best of the best. If anyone out there would like to recommend any interesting sites or articles, feel free to post them in the comments.