Postcard from Canada–Three Canoes Painting

 

It was a sunny morning on the shores of Kootenay Lake near the charming little town of Kaslo, British Columbia where I photographed this image. Back then, I lived in the Pacific Northwest. I used to take a vacation now and then up in this area. I found a cabin for rent a few miles south of Kaslo on the lake and would spend time there just relaxing or wandering about with my camera. It was a wonderful place to unwind.

On this morning, I came across these three canoes just sitting on the beach. The colors and the shapes of the canoes screamed out to be photographed…so I did. Realize this was still the era of film cameras.

It worked well as a photograph, except for the giant weeds that invaded the picture. I could never get rid of them without damaging the picture. Then, recently, along came Photoshop CS5 with a new feature called “Content-Aware Fill.” This allows you remove any image detail or object…then it magically fills in the space left behind. It is really something special.

So, I thought of this older image and pulled it out of storage…then removed the intrusive weeds. Wow! Now I had an image worth painting! Next time, I will pull the weeds out of the ground before I take the photo!

I worked on this image for several days to get it where I wanted. I am more than happy with the way it turned out. Your comments are more than welcome.

Special Note: If you are seeing this image on the “Postcards” Web site, you may have noticed four new buttons…Buy Print, Buy Card, Share, and E-Card. If you receive this blog via e-mail, as many of you do, you cannot see these buttons. But, for you, there is a special link above the photo where you can go to the site and use these buttons.

This is something I have wanted to do for a long time…and now I have done it. I am especially excited about the e-card button. This allows you to use the image to send a greeting card….FOR FREE, using one of my images. Click on it and see what I mean. For now, you can only do this from the blog. I am adding this capability to my Web site images also, but it will take a little longer to finish.

I am so happy to have you share my work as a greeting card. By the way, you can also use the “Share” button to share this image with other people…again, no charge. I hope you will find this new service of use.

PS – you can use these buttons on older images also. And don’t forget, you can click on the image to see a much larger version.