How is this acheived?

roadkill · Dec 10, 2008

I don't know if anyone is familiar with Magdalena Wanli. Some incredible work but very strange effects. Does anyone know how she acheives this?

roadkill · Dec 10, 2008

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=8304011
sorry there's the link

JerryPH · Dec 10, 2008

They're paintings, not photographs.

table1349 · Dec 10, 2008

JerryPH said:
They're paintings, not photographs.

That's the problem with you Nikon shooters Jerry. Canon includes on all of their bodies a "Flintstones" mode. Switch it to that and a little bird in the camera paints what it sees. :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao:

It's way cooler that way and an easy way to shoot a unique photo for your Christmas card.

Dmitri · Dec 10, 2008

JerryPH said:
They're paintings, not photographs.

I don't think so. I think they are heavily process photos.

frXnz kafka · Dec 10, 2008

JerryPH said:
They're paintings, not photographs.

That's the simplest solution. Unfortunately it's wrong.

Magdalena herself describes these as photo manipulations. So the answer to your question is likely: Lots of Photoshop.

Here's a link to her deviantart: http://magdalenawanli.deviantart.com/

Overread · Dec 10, 2008

best person to ask is Magdalena - search about first though where she tends to post on the net. She might have explained the answer somewhere already. If not drop her a message on one of her sites.

JerryPH · Dec 10, 2008

frXnz kafka said:
That's the simplest solution. Unfortunately it's wrong.

Magdalena herself describes these as photo manipulations. So the answer to your question is likely: Lots of Photoshop.

Here's a link to her deviantart: http://magdalenawanli.deviantart.com/

I just have a heck of a time believing that this is a photograph:
http://magdalenawanli.deviantart.com/art/--98684976

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=8304011&size=lg
The one here, though, I could see starting out as a photograph and have a ton of post processing applied to it... however, that begs the question... when does a photograph cease to be a photograph and when is it another form of art?

To me, when it no longer can be distinguished as a photograph anymore. It becomes something more akin to a digital painting.

frXnz kafka · Dec 10, 2008

JerryPH said:
I just have a heck of a time believing that this is a photograph:
http://magdalenawanli.deviantart.com/art/--98684976

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=8304011&size=lg
The one here, though, I could see starting out as a photograph and have a ton of post processing applied to it... however, that begs the question... when does a photograph cease to be a photograph and when is it another form of art?

To me, when it no longer can be distinguished as a photograph anymore. It becomes something more akin to a digital painting.

I didn't say it was photography. In fact the 'photomanipulation' section on deviantart is under Digital Art not Photography;

Not that any of this is relevant to the topic, which is how to do whatever it is you want to call this.

abraxas · Dec 10, 2008

roadkill said:
I don't know if anyone is familiar with Magdalena Wanli. Some incredible work but very strange effects. Does anyone know how she acheives this? ...

God given talent, development of vision, lots of study and hard work.

ksmattfish · Dec 11, 2008

The characteristics I see are:

Added texture and grunge; probably done by layering and masking shots of semi-transparent texture.

Even/flat local contrast: this can be accomplished with the initial lighting, burning/dodging, tone mapping, shooting raw and sticking with the linear characteristic curve, etc.... This is a huge part of photos that look like paintings. Film has a built in snappy contrast tone curve that we've gotten used to. In the past we only saw flat, local contrast like in these photos (and many others these days) in paintings.

Some of the details do look drawn or painted in also (such as the hair in the example linked by Jerry).