Let the music play on

I am often inspired by others. I never knowingly flat-out imitate another artist but if I see a technique masterfully done by someone that I wish I could also do, I will try my hand at it. The image above (a street musician in Savannah, GA) is a result of just that -- my attempt to do what has already been done.

Truthfully, the above artwork is an homage to Marie Otero. I have never met her, but discovered her artwork through my friend Nancy. I am a huge fan of Marie's creativity and consider her to be a digital artist of excellence.

The technique used here is known as selective colourization, in essence a black-and-white photo with a touch of the original photo's colour remaining. When I read Marie's blog post about her "New York photo walk", I loved her selective colour pieces -- especially the musician -- and that inspired me to try this out too. I certainly have a long way to go before I'm comfortable with it -- I've learned that it's a technique that won't work well with every photo -- but I have greatly enjoyed playing around with the idea.

So, Marie, thank you for the inspiration! I am using one of my experiments as my contribution to Tuesday Challenge, where the current topic is "music". Appropriate!