Latest / Reframe / 13: Sandra Dann, Photography, digital creation & AI

Transcript

13: Sandra Dann, Photography, digital creation & AI · Reframe

• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: Hello everyone.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_03: We're sitting here with Sandra Dan today.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: She's a digital artist and a photographer as well.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_03: We look forward to diving in about your story and how you came to create these beautiful works of art you create now.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so Sandra Dan's here and Dean McGuire, myself, Carl.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Hi everybody, how are you?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Good to be chatting.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's nice to talk about work and talk with other photographers, creatives.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: But uh my journey has certainly changed from the landscape, the serious landscape to where I am now.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_04: So before we dive into that, actually, into your art and your photography, um can we learn a little bit about Sandra, about yourself?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, I tell all the secrets or what I can tell myself.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Just the juicy ones.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't know that.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I've got a little bit more experience in that, Dean.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I've learned not to be caught in in there.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we tried.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: We tried.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I started as a child with colouring pencils and I like.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hold on a minute.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Did I ever mention that I coached men in sport a few years ago?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm used to the banter.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's so good.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: I like having that that laid back.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I started, you know, uh I I coached for state and Australian level for male and female for that ball.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that was that was a past another lifetime.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So um you asked about dolving in.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think we're all experiences of what we've gone through life.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes people get to that point early.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's not until later in their life that they find where they fit and what speaks to their soul.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's sort of where I'm I'm at.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um where I'm at at the moment.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was I was guiding um and taking Americans, Brits, and Australians around Australia, New Zealand.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: COVID hit no work.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to reinvent myself.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so I've I've always been landscape photography, more creative.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so in the end, I started to do online teaching and Photoshop, which has been part of other parts of my life.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, that ties in on finding where I am now is what speaks to my soul and where I was meant to be.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: But could I have been in this same spot 10 years, 15 years ago?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I think, you know, sometimes one door closes, another door opens.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: I think you've opened a beautiful door.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: Really cool, creative uh they kind of look like fairy tales to me, with a little bit of uh, I think your later stuff has a lot of um circus involved.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's I get to find and I I'm a person that I don't like to have labels.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I think why do we have to have labels?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um but people go, well, what do you are?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: What are you?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I go, well, I'm I'm a digital artist, creative.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, colour's important.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I like the whimsical.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I like storytelling in my images.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so some of it will be about an emotion or an event.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Or recently I just did a whole series on Sherlock Holmes, and that was came about because I was binge while watching, you know, Sherlock Holmes movies and the Sherlock Holmes TV, you know, and I thought, oh, this is pretty cool.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so you know, dare I say it, though I'm up front, uh, I use artificial intelligence to create some of my backgrounds.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's no way that I'm going to photograph an all London foggy street.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I go there and that's what I create.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, when I'm creating, it's I get lost in my own world.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I think for you guys, particularly if you're a photographer and landscape, it's the same scenario that when you go to a location, you get lost in that location, and you're just in your own world.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same for me now doing it digitally.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I love creating, you know, all of those, you know, whimsical things.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_04: I could definitely relate with the uh adding the fog into your images because I do that a lot as well.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_04: That's bean's favorite.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Dean, how do you add fog into yours?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't just use a simple gradient layer.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_04: So I make a selection around what I don't want to include and then just a gradient, a center gradient, and that creates my fog on horizon.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, do you know how I got taught uh a few years back, someone said, Do you know you can do in camera fog?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I went, Oh, you sound just sitting in your camera, but I don't know about that.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_04: Breathing on your lens.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: Are you we've done that too.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: I'll show I showed I showed him.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_04: No secrets.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_04: No secrets.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I used to do the same thing.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_04: Breathe on the foot lens.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta use your resources.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, that's that's how it is.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that's incredible.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_04: So I'd actually like to know how you got into um the current style that you're doing now from I I believe it was landscape beforehand.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: What I would call a serial miss landscaper.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I traveled, yeah, um, did some shops with some well-known landscape photographers back in the day.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started into competitions, and you know, you get your feedback, tones my idea, or this, this, and that.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, well, that's my game in Photoshop.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I started to get into that.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I and I use this technical term, I wake in a sky or I wake in a building, you know, that's my technical term.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, very much an Australian term, I think.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started to have fun with that and do what I call altered landscapes.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, well, the reality is, you know, you go to some location, the sky's pretty average.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I was photographing sky my own skies and putting notes in.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then as I started to get a little bit more in the processing, um, you know, I started to do what I call composites, but they were really awkward landscapes, my own landscapes.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I put a building or anything that I photographed to put that together.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I started to get into what I call buying digital art, elements.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it would be a quirky house or and just from there, that's where I've started.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so now I use elements, a combination of elements, um, will be my own photos, digital textures.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when I present at Camera Clubs, I talk about what is a texture and what is a digital texture, and there is a difference.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so I use the textures.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then, you know, I'll use the AI and combine a mixed medium.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, cool.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just evolved.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Did a workshop, a couple of workshops.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm a fan of Maggie Taylor Art, um, an American uh creative, love her kind of genre.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I think sometimes you fall into something and then it just evolves from from there.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how where I am at at the moment now.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just creating lots of different things.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: So you're saying that you you drew your in some inspiration from Sherlock Holmes.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_03: Is there other places how how do you come up with the ideas for double?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_03: And then how do you go about choosing which parts of um the mediums you're gonna put together?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I often get asked that, Carl, and I think some people have it in them, some people struggle, and some people it just happens naturally.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you define what's a creative process?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's the same as a landscape photographer, but you know, what is it that why are you photographing that scene?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what are you seeing?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want to include?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: What do you don't want to include?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, sometimes say if I did the Sherlock Holmes, it started with, oh, I think this would be fun.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I really am about.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's got to be fun, it's got to speak to your soul.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: If it becomes too hard, too much stress on you to get the perfect photo, um, then that's not part of the sure movement.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I started to look in and I found uh in two AI, a couple of guys, what are called like the Victorian era, um, top hat, long coat, big child stickens.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: I would have an avid reader as a child.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I found a couple of these guys.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then I went, oh, I've got to get the background.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I chose the element, the guy first, then I had to choose the background to mix in with that.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where then I'll draw on experience, memory, anything that sort of comes into the imagination.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so to me, I was thinking more, okay, what's London like in the early 1800s?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I have this sort of dark, forbord, you know, foreboding architecture, fog, mystique, um, all of those things.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's how it evolves.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: It just happens in my mind.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then so I might draw on, well, hold on a minute, when I saw that movie with um, you know, what's uh the two guys, actors, I can't think of it, uh, Downey Jr., I looked at some of these scenes.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it just pops in subconsciously.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes I'll start with a background.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'll choose a background for colour, then I match the element that I work with colour.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: But it's all intrinsic, if that makes sense.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: It just happens for me.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um and for others, that's sort of like, good grief.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Where did you get that idea?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was totally gonna say what drugs you're on, but I better not say that on a podcast.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, okay.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's called imagination.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think that's where I'm at at the moment, the imagination.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_04: How how long does it take to create one of these?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um, your masterpieces.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um for me, it probably could take an hour, sometimes half an hour.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I thought it would have been a lot longer.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_04: That's why it takes that long to do one mask.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that yeah.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yep, it most certainly does.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Secret source, and this is what I I I teach when I do my online sessions, is that to me, if I'm not feeling creative, I'll cut elements down.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or I'm very OCD, I'm organized, so I have my elements like buildings, trees, people, everything.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if an idea comes in, I can just go to what I call the stage and I go, oh, there's that guy I want to use.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm also very big on Photoshop actions.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a panel that's got like three panels that just you know makes it quicker.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's about working smarter, not harder.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like anyone, like a retoucher.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: If they're doing retouch work, they've got actions.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: They don't do it manually on the keyboard or up on the menu.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I just have it by actions.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it can take an hour, sometimes I might have an hour and a half.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: But if I get that um to be creative, I need to finish that image.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't dwell on it for months or weeks on end.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's like something that speaks to me and says, be creative, and I gotta get it out of the system.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: But that's how I do it.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I have my library, my stash, my actions, and I just go and play.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_04: I truly wish my stuff took an hour and a half maximum.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_04: I'm looking at three days.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, we remind I've been, you know, I've been, well, not as long as some, but you know, I've been in Photoshop for the last what 10 years or so.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and you build up, you know, people that start with Photoshop, um, it can be daunting and you just gotta spend the time.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: But even if you just have to spend the time.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_04: Even if you know Photoshop, it's daunting.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_04: Like I've been doing photography for 16 years and it's still some sort of going, how the hell do you do that?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_04: Or there's gotta be a quick way.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_04: Like I've taught myself everything I know in Photoshop because I just couldn't afford to buy somebody else's uh workshops or anything like that.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_04: But um, and speaking of workshops, can you talk about yours, the ones that you run?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I uh I teach one-on-one with Photoshop, send some segue in there, D.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're promoting each other.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's um I do one-on-ones and I'll do some what I call the freebies.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I'll do it online.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've got one coming up in a couple of weeks about how to use brushes, Photoshop brushes, to create atmosphere.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I like to do, you know, maybe one freebie a month.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just to give something.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I've got another one coming up, and it's all about what I call the secret source of my colour grading.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'll talk about how I get my pastel tones and what I look for.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I've done others on composite imagery.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: I've also did one on conceptual storytelling.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: That was quite interesting.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because it's interesting that people will say to you or say to me when I present, you don't what you do is not photography.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I go, well, I don't call myself a photographer now, I'm more of a creative digital artist.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: But that still takes a skill, it still takes conceptual thinking that if I want to create an image together, it's that conceptual storytelling.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: So for example, uh last year um when Ukraine, the, you know, it started with the invasion of uh Ukraine.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the story that that really stuck to me was that people had to leave within five minutes and they were told to pack within five minutes.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so then I thought, well, what would an adult pack within five minutes as opposed to what would a child pack within five minutes?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I created an image all based around what a child would put in a suitcase.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's that conceptual storytelling.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I do workshops like that, you know, some little what I call soft skills.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, back in the day in a corporate life, Dean and Carl, I I was an adult educator.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, that's where I'm at at the moment.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: All my skills have just all come together.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_03: Found your niche where all the things came together harmoniously.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_03: That sounds perfect.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_04: I kind of want to speak a little bit about um, it's a touchy subject, and you we've spoken about it before in an episode or a couple actually, is AI.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_04: How much backlash have you gotten from using AI?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_04: Because I personally I've I've used a little bit of it be and and and I think it's a great tool, but I know there's a lot of people that are so against it, but at the end of the day, I think it's creative.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_04: Like how much backlash have you gotten for your work in regards to AI?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, it's a hot topic in the photography world.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'll answer it in a in a roundabout way.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you if you think back in art, when different art styles came in, people, oh that's not what you do.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, background strikes not normal.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: People picked art percent.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Then when the digital cameras, you know, people were up in arms about, oh, look at that, hold on a minute, digital cameras.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, oh no, no, no.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, Kodak was well known for going, digital photography will not take off.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And now look where Kodak is as a company that they were so big back in the day.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_04: Kodak doesn't exist anymore, don't so they're around, but not much, yeah.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're around not as like what they were.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: But coming into the here and now, where the technology is so advanced, it gives um people other choices.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing that when I do explain it at presentations is photography is not the only form to express yourself.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is painting, drawing, pottery, jewelry making, you know, digital art.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um so, you know, I've had a few people come and say, well, you know, that doesn't take any skill.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it does take skill to get decent AI out.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it comes in that AI is not gonna go away.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's here.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, AI has actually been in Photoshop a number of years back before we even knew it was AI.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: They rebranded the content.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they rebranded.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_03: They rebranded AI, yeah.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: So if if you're going, this is where coming into being a uh competition, I play by the rules.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: So when I put into some major competitions, you play by the rules.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: They had to be my own photos.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're going into competition, okay, and the rules are that it has to be photography, that's fine.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that that's it.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um the other thing is that no one's gonna come along and go, we're taking your camera from you, you are no longer doing photography.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: There will always be a place for photography in people's lives.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so whether you choose that or whether you choose to go down digital, that's your choice.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna say to a photographer what you're doing is wrong.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because I appreciate everyone does something that speaks to their soul and what they get enjoyment.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: So for the people that use AI or digital or whatever you like to frame it as, prompt photography is the buzzword now.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm not hurting anybody, I'm doing what speaks to my soul.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: I think so um sorry, yeah, but I think it's more interesting because it sounds like using partial AI, some photographs and then some bought stock pictures or images, um elements, as you call them, um, and then stacking them all together.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's just like another level again.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's not just saying, uh, I've not even I haven't actually produced an image in AI.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: So can you take us through how you produce an image in AI and to achieve what you want?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a couple of questions.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_03: Is that a hard one?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um okay, so one thing I'm uh I'm an Adobe community expert.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've been sort of endorsed by Adobe for that, which is fabulous.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um I promote Firefly, which is part of the Didnight AI.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, if you go into Firefly, it's actually about generating the keywords and the writing.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now that comes in what is it that you want to create?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you type in some keywords.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: So for example, I might call it wiki teapot uh with flowers coming out of the sprout, you know, out of the spout.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I did a teapot I called Harriet and I did the journey of Harriet, how I created Harriet.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you do that, then for me, um, I don't create my composites from a one-off image in say Firefly, like the background and everything.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking for an element, I'll take it over to Photoshop and then I'll do my tweaking.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so for example, Sherlock Holmes, um, I put in the 1800 era, these are the keywords, 1800s era, old London town, foggy streets.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you put those keywords in.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: I say to people that basically watch your hero.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: So for me it was 1800 era, so I wanted that architecture.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't do the keywords haphazardly.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: I go, what's my hero?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: What are the other things?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the fog to me was the last keyword that I had because I thought if I don't get anything with fog, I'll wake in fog.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I might do that on Firefly, I'll bring it over.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now with the latest version of Photoshop, you've got generative film, uh, which is absolutely fantastic.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's the one I thought.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I created, and this may sound quirky, but I created a um a steampunk dog that was sitting in a car.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so I bought him over and later, uh, you know, uh it was fun.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's you know, it's not a well-beaten competition image, it's fun.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I put in Harry Hound dog, and he didn't have a scarf.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: So then I drew the shape of a scarf until Photoshop to generate a blue knitted scarf.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I got.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: So it it also comes in to your ideas, Dean and Carl, but and I say this and I mean it in in all respect that if your visual or icand is uh only photos, then that's your world.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: But if you come into a creative world, I'm looking at things that, you know, uh fantasy, whimsical, I still love landscape, I still love looking at at photography.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very much on the different genres.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: So all of those things come into play if that makes sense.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, I'm using Fi-Fi, um, you know, I'll use the Photos Photoshop, I'll use different things because the reality for me is I don't have a studio, I don't have the access to models, so I'm putting people in my my imagery now, which I would never see.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: That gives me some pre freedom.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's sort of like a roundabout answer to that because there's so many elements that can come into that.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: It opens up a new world if you don't have access to a lot of different things.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_03: Also, if if you add in models and a whole lot of things like that, it opens by another can of worms to do with, you know, model contracts and then how often you can use this picture or you know, paying a model and then arranging a photo shoot and then chopping it out and everything.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: So I think it it brings in a whole new, I guess it it speeds up the process, doesn't it?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it and it does, Carl.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know for some people, um the the journey of say setting up what I call a studio shoot, getting that person, the model made up, the costumes, that's all part of what speaks to them.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of their soul.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, for me, it's just like I couldn't even be bothered going through the model process and you know, getting the costumes and the makeup.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I know there is concerns.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think with AI, I think we're in uncharted territory.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know where it's going to go.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, there's there's other AI programs with uh Adobe, it's very much that they're pulling from stock.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's their ethical um point that, you know, they're using the stock photos um from the stock photographers.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah um, but it's like anything, fear stops people or or um harnesses people.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think there still has to be, you know, some control on things and rules, particularly, say, competitions.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then, you know, we would be B without technology.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if fear stopped us, we wouldn't have Photoshop.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: We wouldn't have the U cameras.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's we're just in a different, different time now.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_04: I completely agree.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: I think it was uh just given like not even 12 months ago, people were going on about AI and that photo that was made with AI that won a competition.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: And now I see AI is doing so many awesome things, like the generally feel yeah, the way you're using it.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, it it can do stock trading.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's AI can do so many things that's actually helping people.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know how it can be a bad thing, yeah.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, well, exactly.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, some of my elements um that I've I've bought is that they were all photographs, 1800s, 1900s.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you guys probably can see uh one of the photos Girl with the Wings.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um that was an old photo that a retoucher retouched and painted.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I use those in my images.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know that if I photographed, I really would not get that vintage look if people are from that era.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that's just how I look at it.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's for me is just being a creative and being an artist.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm using my resources.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I also understand that some people may not agree with that, and I think that's fine.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, as creatives and artists, photographers, just have respect, I think, for what other people do.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: It may not be your style or may not be what you'd like, but a respect for other people and what they do, I think.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_03: I'm on I'm on your boat.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_03: That's why we wanted to get you on as well.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_03: I like what you're doing.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_04: Um I was gonna ask a question, but I think I've just gone blank.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sorry.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_04: That's what I've I was just going through your first, so that's why I've had a mental blank.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_04: I'm going through my phone, just looking at you as we're talking and we're going through your photos or your artworks, I should say.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_04: Have you ever thought have you ever thought about doing a wallpaper?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_04: I I only asked that because I'm I was going through and something popped out, and I looked at it, I'm going, I've just watched a Harry Potter film.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_04: And when Sirius Black is going through his family tree on the wall, it just really depicts that food and that and that um dimension.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_04: And it's like your artwork up to the show.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yep, and he's going through and his sisters or something, his name was burnt out, and I'm sitting there going, I like your work would look fantastic as like a wallpaper all put together and mashed up with your characters.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_03: I think it'd make great, great t-shirts and everything.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_03: Every type of product that sort of work fits for birthday cards and everything.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you guys take it.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um interesting.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm a HP fan D.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've binge watched the movie.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_04: It's so good.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I what else?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: Twilight, you know, you can name it.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: I that's where I sort of uh you know come from.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: So coming from that, I I think the the learning curve for me is how to market yourself.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's it's what I'd call um trying to get out into different areas to market yourself.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I as I said, I teach Photoshop, but I'm also my goal um was to do a book this year, but life has, you know, this year's not been a good year.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that's sort of been pushed aside.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think and this is probably for anyone that's listening that you know wants to start their own business.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you you hear people say, oh, your photos are fantastic, you should sell them.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you should do this.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality is I think everyone can relate.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just that easy.
• 31:22
  unknown: Yeah.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been oh yeah.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_04: I think I think 98% of artists would be able to tell you that.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_03: Creating them's easy.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it's just trying to break through what I call the noise.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I haven't thought of wallpaper.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I've been trying, um, it's interesting, and the beauty of what I'm doing is I've got followers from Norway, America, England, um, Egypt.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I have no idea how they found me somewhere in the net.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I'm I'm trying to market myself out there.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it also comes at, you know, I do Photoshop um products, brushes, all of those things.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm doing a little bit of shameless marketing.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's trying to get yourself out past the noise.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also to be trying to do what I do in the creative niche is a niche.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so you've got to find your, if you want to use the term tribe and your market and all of those things.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got to break that.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you can't break through the noise.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: Your work is good, but you can't break through that noise.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, and people said, you know, do an extra.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry, Carl.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_03: I think a lot of people can relate exactly what you're saying now.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but that's that's the reality of uh, you know, of what a landscape photographer or a photographer or a creative um is how do you get out there?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and I think it's a shame in some way that um some don't collaborate, that you can't do it on your own.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you've got to do a collaboration.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I'm happy to reach out and and work with people.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, hey, I'm welcome to marketing ideas, agents, you name it, you know, put it out there.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'll plug you guys as well.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's an interesting concept there.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I know the image that you took, you said the girl with a bird cage.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, yep.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_03: That reminds me of the like yeah.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_03: I think my my uncle used to when I was like a little boy, he had this like pirate type wallpaper.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_03: And it was like that same color that you have in most of your backgrounds, a sort of muted greeny gray colour.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_03: And it would have like like uh pirate ships and pirates and and little globes and also atlases, if you want to call it that, all over it.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: And uh that you makes a lot of sense.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wallpapers coming back in foe, but uh funny, a funny story.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was with a couple of other photographer friends that we were at a place in Sydney called the grounds.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the grounds, beautiful cafes, but my gosh, for a photographer for elements and all sorts of things, it is fabulous.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, move on.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: We went we went to the bathroom and they had this beautiful old-fashioned wallpaper, like it had peacocks and birds, and and I'm thinking, I'll photograph that, I'll use that somewhere.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: So here I am in the ladies photographing the wallpaper.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, someone walked in and I'm sure I got the strangest look.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I have used that wallpaper on one of my creative images.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: So there you go.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: You never know what you're gonna photograph for creativity.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's beautiful.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: That's beautiful.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: I think we're gonna run out of meeting time.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so we'll wrap it up.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um what's going on next for you?
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, good question, Carl.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let me look into that crystal ball.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, white paper.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's um it's about me looking at different ways that I can get out to market myself.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, looking at opportunities and still continuing with a first shop.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: I have a passion for teaching, and I have a passion for helping people find their creative self.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that's something for me.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll do that.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm at that stage now of like, okay, what's my next platform?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would love to do um a creatives conference.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is back in in the head, COVID stopped it, and then a few life didn't.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd love to have a creatives conference that's purely about creativity and doing it as a collaboration and and doing it for the Australians because the things that I'm looking at, it's very much generated by the American market.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that we have a lot of creatives here in Australia.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's hard to sort of uh connect.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to do that.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you never know, 2024.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_03: So that's our display.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_04: That's something to look forward to.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_04: And um we're definitely gonna we're gonna throw all your details in our show notes.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, that's for sure.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_04: And and please, everybody, get on board with Sandra's work.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_04: It is amazing.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_04: And go and watch Harry Potter because you'll understand what we're talking about.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_04: Get some products going there.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_04: You can put your work on the stuff.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, uh, where they try to get rid of the relos.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_04: That's right, it was serious break.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_04: They tried to get rid of the thank you very much for joining us, Sandra.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_04: We really, really appreciate your time, and it's been fantastic talking to you.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_04: It's been amazing.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_04: And thank you, everyone, for listening, and we'll catch you on our next episode.