My Creative Images – Behind the scenes
This month it is a great pleasure to interview one of our wonderful photo artists Calum McDonald who is based in Northern
Ireland.Calum’s artwork is best described in his own words:“ I am a photographer/digital artist who was born and spent my younger years in
Scotland before moving to Northern Ireland where I now reside. I love creating
new photographic images and then trying to develop some of these further as
enhanced works of digital art. My digital artistic work incorporates many of my
other interests which include landscapes, travel, people and history. I am also
a fairly active member of the worldwide AWAKE and KAIZEN Digital Artistry
Groups. “The style and range of his photography and artwork is amazing. In this month’s
issue he is going to share some of his creative processes with us:Do you consider yourself to a photographer or a photo artist?What a loaded question to start off with!! To tell the truth I have always had a
great love for photography. I enjoy traveling and my camera is always on the
top of my ‘travel packing list’. It is only in the past couple of years that I have
discovered the field of photo artistry as a new and exciting way to further develop my photographic work artistically.When did you first become interested in photography and photo art?For me, photography and digital photo artistry are both very enjoyable hobbies. I have always had a camera and have been
taking photographs for as long back as I can remember. In relation to my photography I would class myself as a self taught
amateur. My professional training/vocation is in the field of healthcare, so photography was always a good way to relax and
get out and about during my time off from work.In relation to my photography, through time, I eventually discovered that
I could capture some fairly good photographs, but images straight from
my camera never seemed to be as good as the images that I would see
presented in magazines or on the internet, therefore I decided to invest in
undertaking a few online courses to find out how professional photographers
actually managed to produce such high quality photographic images. It was
through these courses that I discovered that Lightroom and Photoshop were
two of the main software tools that professional photographers could use to
further enhance their work digitally.I therefore initially concentrated on developing my skills in the use of
Lightroom with my photographic images. A couple of years ago I then just
happened to stumble upon an online advertisement for Sebastian Michaels
‘Photoshop Artistry Course’.After quickly working my way through the course I was certainly ‘hooked big
time’ in relation to digital photo artistry! I had never really used Photoshop
before this and it was only by undertaking Sebastian’s course that I started to
understand the power of using Photoshop with digital images.When I had completed this particular course I then worked my way into both
the Awake and Kaizen Digital Photo Artistry Groups. I also developed my
learning a bit further by undertaking a Beauty Retouching Course led by Pratik
Naik through the ‘Portrait Masters’ website. It is also an excellent course and
was a very worthwhile investment in my mind. I learnt more about using the
Photoshop software programme for beauty retouching and have discovered
some excellent retouching methods using Photoshop by undertaking this
particular online course.What subjects most inspire you?If you ever get a chance to view my online art portfolio you will probably see
straight away that portraits, landscapes and architecture feature strongly
in most of my art works, although I do diversify into other subjects now and
again.The Calum McDonald Interview by VivienJane
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