Rangefinder Magazine
October 2005

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Theresa Airey by lynne Eodice
Turning Photography into Fine Art

Have you ever shot a scene that you wanted to transform into a French Impressionistic painting or a fresco image? Photo artist Theresa Airey can show you how. In her most recent book, Digital Photo Art, Airey reveals how to use the computer and other materials to transform your photos into a wide range of fine-art pieces. She’s shown her work extensively in separate exhibitions in the United States, Spain, Bermuda, the Dominican Republic and Mexico.

Positive Energy

Married at age 19, Airey wanted to take some art courses in her 20s when her children were still young, but couldn’t afford

CREATING AN IMAGE In presenting this assignment in Digital Photo Art, Theresa Airey writes: “This was once an assignment that I gave out to my students. Of course, before I could ask them to do it, I had to take the challenge. I found out that I enjoyed doing this and have done it many times, especially when I come up against a creative block and can’t seem to shake it. I enjoy doing this as it stimulates my imagination and exercises that creative side of my brain.” GUIDELINES: • Choose a photograph that you like. • Create four variations of that image. • Be as outrageous as you wish. This is the original photograph taken in Florence, Italy, on a very wet day.

RAINY DAY—VERSION NO. 1 Step One: I cropped the image in Photoshop and printed it on Hahnemühle Japan Inkjet paper with an Epson 2000 printer. It turned out a bit too dark, so it became a “test” print. Step Two: I decided to turn the print over and apply watercolor crayons (Neocolor II made by Caran D’Ache) to the back of the print. This paper is thin, so I could easily see the image through the back. These watercolors look just like crayons, and you use them by dipping them into water. You can also use them dry then take a wetted brush or Q-tip to your work to get a flow of color. As I began to color with the crayons, the paper soaked up and spread the color and mixed with the ink that was already in the fiber. I was delighted with the result, which looked just like a watercolor and fit the image perfectly.

During this time, she also read The Negative by Ansel Adams (his first edition, written in the 1970s). She was so impressed that she called him at home in Carmel, CA. Hoping to take one of Adams’ workshops, she took a Yosemite workshop taught by his top assistant and protégé John Sexton and Henry Gilpin. “In one week’s time, they changed my life,” she says. She left the workshop knowing what direction she wanted to take her own career. “There was never a doubt or negative thought that I wouldn’t become a fineart photographer. I’m a great believer in positive thought and energy.” She had the opportunity to meet the master himself. Ansel Adams looked at her work and declared, “You have a great eye, but you need to learn how to print.” Airey took some printing classes at Maryland Institute College of Art, and Adams then allowed her into what turned out to be his last Yosemite workshop in 1980. She was eager to learn and assisted at some of his workshops afterward that were taught by other instructors. “I could learn in a week from the masters what I learned in a year from taking other classes,” she says.

Today, Airey has an MFA in photography and fine art. In addition to Adams, Sexton and Gilpin, she counts among her “silver heroes” photographers like Jerry Uelsmann, Ruth Bernhard, Al Weber, Craig Law, Dick Arentz, Todd Walker and Edna Bullock. She also admires painters such as Georgia O’Keeffe, René Magritte, Virginia Cobb, “and, of course, Monet and Vincent van Gogh.”

Airey says her favorite subjects to photograph and depict artistically are landscapes (especially trees) and nudes. “To me, trees are like people,” she elaborates. “They have different body languages, different shapes. I also love working with figure studies.” In photographing a nude subject, she says, she doesn’t look for a particular body type. “I’m more interested in what is inside the body—the spirit. I want to capture an inner beauty that transcends what’s on the outside. The challenge for me is to photograph the ‘inside out.’” She cites other favorite locations as: Italy for its art, diversity and beautiful countryside; the island of Molokai in Hawaii, where she teaches once a year; and Bermuda, “which is perfect for infrared photography.” (In addition to Maryland, Airey lives part-time in Bermuda with her husband).

Published Widely

She says that her newly published Digital Photo Art was great fun to work on. “Of all the photographic books I’ve written, I enjoyed working on [this one] the most. It was exciting and stimulating to blend the traditional with the cutting edge and come up with unique artistic processes. Crafting this book has given me the freedom to create an image without having to categorize it. In the past, an image was a photograph, a painting, an inkjet print, an Iris print, etc. Now that we’re in the digital arena, we are entering an era of mixed media. Because the digital image can be printed on just about any substrate, the artist has the freedom to go beyond the print—to collage, to paint, to transfer—to express what she/he feels rather than just what she/he sees. This is another whole new generation of art,” she exclaims. Airey has a new book in the works, Introduction to Digital Art, which she describes as “a basic ‘how to get started’ in the digital arena.” This instructional book will include digital scrapbooking techniques, making cards, layering with two images and more.

RAINY DAY—VERSION NO. 2 The next version was made using watercolor crayons and collage. Step One: I heavily colored in the people with black, adding a few bits of blue and red. I colored the ground with blue and purple. Step Two: I outlined the building windows in black. I did the coloring rather heavily since I was going to collage the image with paper. Step Three: I used matte medium as a glue and coated the top half of the print. Step Four: I took a natural-colored paper that had bark inclusions and covered the top half where the building is. Step Five: I used a white paper with fibers running through it for the bottom half of the glued area, leaving the figures uncovered by the papers. Step Six: Once the matte medium dried, I painted into the collaged papers using a wash of color (diluted colors, not intense). This image has a different feel to it than the first—more of a wintry, blustery cold day.

RAINY DAY—VERSION NO. 3 Step One: I cropped the image tightly, selecting a main figure and two others in the background.

Airey was the principle photographer

The Airey Tool Box Airey is currently shooting with the Canon D60 and Rebel XT, with Canon Image-Stabilizing lenses. She achieves her artistic techniques with programs including Photoshop, nik Auto Color Efex Pro and Sharpener Pro, Auto FX Edges, Mystical Lighting and Studio Artist by Synthetik, “which is a printing/ drawing program that I love,”

Step Two: I did some collage, cutting out black paper for the figures, and then adding an orange paper for the building. Step Three: I outlined the building and windows with a waterproof, lightfast ink pen. Step Four: I still wanted to give it a more feeling and less details. I used the matte medium as glue and laid the white paper with fibers that I had used in the previous version over almost the entire print, tearing out some areas to allow detail to come through. To me this version looks like a blustery almost a snow-like day and has more of a lonely feel to it. RAINY DAY—VERSION NO. 4 Step One: I created two versions of the Rainy Day image in Synthetik Software’s Studio Artist and combined them in Photoshop with Layers and the Darken blending mode. Step Two: I created a sketched rendition using the Texture Invert command in Studio Artist. Step Three: Then I created this second rendition by selecting Water from the Category dropdown menu and Canvas Diffuser 1 from the Patch drop-down menu. Step Four (bottom): The final combined image.

Any traditional darkroom work? “I haven’t been in a traditional darkroom for over two years,” she replies. “I’ve been writing on digital printmaking and have had to stay focused. I love digital art and probably won’t go back to the darkroom for a while… digital photography is fast and allows me to do everything I wish to do, like printing onto artistic papers, hand-coloring, manipulating and enhancing the image, and translating the digital file as I wish. It is far easier to create “the mood” with software and the computer, rather than in the traditional darkroom.”

Above All, An Imagemaker Theresa Airey is energetic, inspirational, and always welcomes new challenges. As she says, “Photography is my vocation and my avocation. Everything that I do is ‘camera-generated,’ but I love mixing the mediums (painting and printmaking) with photography. For me, my art is in the printmaking, for others, it’s in the camera. I consider myself an imagemaker more than anything else.” Theresa Airey’s Digital Photo Art is a Lark photography book. For more information, visit their web site, www. larkbooks.com/.