Bumbling thru Europe – A stop at the Montreux Jazz Festival

The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail. – Napoleon Hill

This quote has virtually nothing at all to do with the images I worked on here, but I kind of like it.

I’ve been a bit focused on a few other things lately so I apologize for the lack of posts for those that like to tune in here. Its funny how life can get in the way of your art if you let it.

I tried something a bit different with these 2 images. The first one was created with a few verticals that I took out of my window (cool view huh?!) in Montreux, Switzerland. During one of my fun little “bumbling thru Europe” summers, I hit a few music festivals. They just seem to do those so well over there. For its great location and incredible music, The Montreux Jazz Festival is one of my favorites.

So anyway, I had captured these shots in camera raw and recently decided to process with photomatix to see if I could pull more dynamic range out of them. The resulting HDR was kind of noisy, but after a bit of tweaking and a couple of texture overlays, I actually came up with an image I like. Not really my original vision, but then again, that’s half the fun of the art isn’t it?

After creating that one, I dug a bit deeper into the folder for more shots of the area and came across a few experimental images. This collage of shots were taken while listening to something a bit deep on the ole Ipod, just cant recall what that must have been. Funny how music helps you see life in a different way.

One of the musical artists I was following thru Europe this particular summer was Pat Metheny. He is truly one of the greats and has been one of my favorites for some time now.