Since the early 1970s, working with a wide assortment of darkroom and post-darkroom techniques and tools that included paper negatives, charcoal rubs, pumice stone, boric acid, photo oils, negative bleach, and watercolors, I've been taking photographs beyond their original state and transforming them into various forms of art. In the early 1990s I embraced the rapidly evolving world of digital imaging, and across the span of the nearly two decades that have passed since that time the creative possibilities made available by both software and hardware have continued to expand and develop to an almost unimaginably impressive degree-- the invitation to create, to explore, and to experiment is unhindered by the costs and demands of traditional tools, ever in need of replacement or replenishment, and unlimited by either the need to commit a developing image to one direction or another or the fear of ruining what already exists by taking it one step too far. In digital painting, one can move forward, backward, and even sideways, with a hundred or more variations saved-- and sometimes returned to-- along the way.

Over the course of this 35+ year artistic journey, the one constant is that I've chosen to work only on my own photographs, having neither the interest nor the reason to bother with those of anyone else. This remains largely true today-- at least 99% of the time-- but because of the Yahoo-based email list Digitalnuts, in which individuals of widely assorted skill levels bring their own vision and interpretation to a group of specific (usually stock) images freshly supplied each week, I've found that it can be both relaxing and amusing to play with an image previously unknown to me. (The Digitalnuts PBase page can be found here: https://pbase.com/digitalnuts

So, for something a little different, here is a gallery of images I've done in the Digitalnuts group, showing both the BEFORE-- the original photo, as it was provided to us-- and the AFTER-- the final image as I interpreted it. Although this is not something for which I have much time, and I'll only work on a photo that piques my interest, images will be added as they are completed.

Again, let me emphasize, I did not-- repeat, I DID NOT!-- take the "Before" photos which, for the most part, I consider to be boring, bland, and in most cases very, very bad.

That said, enjoy!