Under The Overpass - Syracuse, New York

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all photos copyright 2008 Larry Hoyt
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In beautiful downtown Syracuse, there is an amazingly huge piece of modern sculpture, made of concrete and steel.
Either that, or there's a monstrosity of a modern highway, comprised of crumbling concrete and rusting steel, that divides this dying city, preventing it from healthy growth.

Kinda depends on the way you look at it.
For me, the downtown interchange of Interstate Route 81 and local Route 690 is an amazingly odd engineering feat that can look quite beautiful, and interesting, and somewhat haunting at night.
Whether it helps or hurts the city of Syracuse, I do not know.
It probably is a draw.

Here is a series of photos, Under the Overpass, taken late Thursday night, August 21, 2008, as I walked home, after having taken the bus from the NY State Fair to downtown.
The mostly amber photos were taken without flash.
The ones with grayish (or even blue) concrete were shot with flash.

More Fun with Photo Hybridization

variations on The Dancer Can Fly --
all photos and photo-hybrids copyright 2008 Larry Hoyt
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I shot a whole bunch of photos yesterday, August 21, 2008, at the New York State Fair.
One of the more interesting subjects to catch my eye yesterday was a very athletic young dancer onstage at the theater in the Arts & Home Center.
This gal could jump!
She could practically fly!
I was very impressed with her abilities and I shot several photos of her dancing.

Here's one of them that I call "The Dancer Can Fly".
The top image is pretty close to the original framing and image levels;
then there's a much cropped version.
And then... two of my Photo Abstracted PhotoShop hybrids.

I don't know if "photo abstractions" is really the right phrase to describe what I'm doing.
Photo Expressions?
Photo Impressions?
Photo Hybrids?

Whatever -- I take the original photo and then manipulate it with a variety of PhotoShop effects -- this time including one of my favs, "difference clouds," and something called "chrome," plus a few others.

I find the whole process interesting.
In the last image, the medium close-up photo abstraction, there are things going on with the mix of colors in the pixels that kinda fascinates my tired old eyes. I highly recommend clicking on all the images to enlarge them, to get the full effect.

I do not claim to be doing anything all that new or all that different.
I am sure lots of other photographers have gone down this path before me.
But I am bringing my own sensibilities to this process, and I kinda like the results.
Every time I begin working on a new image, it's kinda fun for me to see what I'm going to come up with next.
I hope you dig the photos and photo-hybrids above.
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Photo Abstractions

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top image - Latino Dancer - copyright 2008 LarryHoyt

second image - Photo Abstraction 1- original photo of Larry Hoyt by Andrew Vilkas, used by permission; photo abstraction by Larry Hoyt - copyright 2008 Larry Hoyt and Andrew Vilkas

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When I was a wee lad, I remember my mom bringing me to several museums in New York City, where we lived at the time.

I still have a memory of seeing the Family of Man photography exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, and also,for some reason, I remember being blown away by one of Dali's beautiful but hauntingly surreal paintings that depicted Christ floating in the air above a very modern looking cross.

I have done a lot more photography than painting in my life, but... I have done a fair amount of painting. And, with PhotoShop and digitial photography, I lately find myself wanting to experiment more and more, combining my photography with some elements of abstract expressionism.

Above are two recent works. The top is of a flamenco dancer at the Latino Festival held here in Syracuse, New York. When I first started to use PhotoShop on this image, all I wanted to do was touch some things up here and there to make a better realistic image.

But one thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was experimenting with this effect and that effect, with this color and with that color. Towards the end of this experimentation, I felt the spirit of artist Gustav Klimt enter the room.

The second work began with a photo that Andrew Vilkas shot of me on my bike. Andrew mentioned that he didn't like the background in the original photo, and I had to agree with him. So I decided to change it, and then change that, and then change it once again. Before I knew it, I had created this hybrid image - Photo Abstraction 1 is what I call it.

I'm sure I'm neither the first nor the last person to be experimenting with this painterly use of PhotoShop.
All I can say is - I hope folks can dig it.

Photography Every Day

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all photos copyright 2008 Larry Hoyt
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I continue to do a lot of photography these days.
This past weekend, August 15 - 17, 2008, offered me several opportunities to shoot some of my favorites subjects: Nature, people, and people making music. And also, people dancing. As a photographer, and as a musician, I think there's something cool about seeing people moving in motion to the music.

The top two photos I shot at sunrise at Kellish Farm in Manlius, New York. The camera I was using was my little Canon video camcorder, using the still picture mode. Sometimes I'm kinda impressed with the quality that thing can deliver.

I shot the African dancer at the Latino Festival in Clinton Square in downtown Syracuse on Sunday. This elegant lady looked both graceful and athletic.

On my way home from the Soundcheck concert at Syracuse's Inner Harbor, I had to stop and turn my bike around to shoot a photo of the three lighted office doorways, covered by their red canopies. It's amazing what one can see when one takes the time to look.

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I Dreamed I Saw Abe Lincoln, High On SU Hill

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photo and photo treatment copyright 2008 Larry Hoyt
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Artists have been painting, tinting and manipulating photographic images since the dawn of photography.

But the use of PhotoShop in more recent years has opened the flood gates of photo manipulation. I think just about every photographer who uses PhotoShop or some similar software, at one time or another, goes on a manipulating binge, experimenting with every blur, distortion and artistic effect available on the software's pallette.

I have not been addng much special effect manipulation to my photos lately. For the most part, the images I've been showing are pretty close to the original as seen by the camera.

But these photos I shot of the statue of Abe Lincoln, seated in the courtyard in front of the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, needed something extra.
I had shot the statue at dusk, using flash most of the time, which illuminated the statue in a kind of eerie fashion. I later added some cloud effects to the background sky, which was perfectly clear, but bland, in the original.

"Swoosh" - It All Depends How You Look At It

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all photos copyright 2008 Larry Hoyt
- click on photo to enlarge -
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What can be said about modern sculpture can also be said about a lot of things: it all depends on how you look at it.

Here are a few photos I shot of "Swoosh" (2004) - a welded steel sculpture piece by Carole Eisner, a Syracuse University alumna. This eye-catching twist of metal is on loan to the University's Connective Corridor exhibit of sculpture at Forman Park, on the east side of downtown Syracuse.

I first saw this interesting piece on August 12th as the sun was going down. The near-setting sun created some interesting shadows but also created some interesting challenges, as I tried to capture the dynamics of the sculpture without getting too much clutter in the background.

I have a feeling I'll be going back to shoot this piece again. I've also been told that other sculpture pieces will be added to Forman Park in the near future. This, in my opinion, could prove interesting.

Flowers - Beauty All Around Us

all photos copyright 2008 Larry Hoyt
-- click on photo to enlarge image
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I have always thought of flowers as being pretty, intricate, beautiful, and fascinating.
As I photograph more of them, and as I look at them more closely, I once again think all of the above, but just more so.

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Sunflowers and AJ's Organic Garden

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On the corner of Dakota Street and Fellows Avenue, on the east side of Syracuse, AJ Humphrey has planted his garden.

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Where once was a fairly normal-looking front and back yard, covered with a green, grassy lawn, there now grow wide varieties of vegetation, coming forth in assorted colors, shapes and sizes.
From pumpkins to tomatoes, from daisies to sunflowers, from corn to squash, what used to be a mowed lawn has been transformed into a smorgasbord of organically grown fresh fruits, flowers and vegetables.

The photos above are just one small sampling of the photos and commentary to follow.

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All photos copyright 2008 LarryHoyt

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