Unsettling Symmetry
As usual, the "x" has something to hide
DIGITAL ARTTEXTURED PHOTOGRAPHY
Fran
5/25/20242 min read
After a few quiet days on the blog, as I am in the process of collecting textures for my next pack, which will feature old and stained paper, I took some time to work on another piece.
I had these two photos of an old fire extinguisher and didn't know which one to use:
I finally decided on the photo where the object is tilted because I was able to mentally visualize where I wanted to go with it. The extinguisher itself, I would say, doesn't need any manipulation with textures because it already has that wonderful rust taking over everything, making the paint peel off completely, like the skin of a healing wound.
What I did was to duplicate the layers and flip them, first horizontally and then vertically, until I had four layers forming an X. Once this was done, the piece already looked very good (I've always liked those mandala-like shapes that result from the superposition of multiple layers of the same rotated and mirrored image).
For the background, I used a texture of rusted zinc sheeting, also rotated and mirrored four times, to maintain continuity with the foreground. Finally, a red wall texture to give uniformity to the scene, a blue texture with very low opacity to slightly soften the warmth, and an aluminum texture to add a patina.
But the keen observer will know that I didn't stop there, as they will have noticed that once again I couldn't resist making a ghostly cameo in this work.
Have a great weekend, I hope to make the most of it to continue working on my texture pack and also to think about my next photo manipulation.