Creative Layover: Paris

Bienvenue à Paris, the home of our second installment of the Creative Layover series, a location-based spotlight featuring Photoshop artists from three compelling and unique categories – photography, photo manipulation, and graphic design/illustration. Paris may be known for romance, but these Parisian artists are ready to show off one of their city’s other historical strengths: Art. On this Bastille Day, let the walls of Charles De Gaulle airport and your jetlag fade into the background as you explore the work of three new artists. Hold on to your berets and join me on another Creative Layover.

Paris, France

The City of Lights is home to a long, rich history of arts and culture. It’s evident from landmarks like the Tour d’Eiffel and l’Arc de Triomphe, as well as museums like the Louvre, which houses centuries of European art. Paris is a city where artists not only thrive, but are highly regarded as integral fixtures of the French culture. Over the decades, while traditional art has remained prominent, Parisian artists have also evolved with the times, breaking into new artforms, and these three artists are products of this modern twist. Introducing Josselin, Guillaume, and Steeven…

Photographer – Josselin Cornou

Josselin Cornou is a 2017 Sony World Photography Award-winning French photographer who invests an incredible amount of time in his craft. He says, “This passion that we call photography is a highly competitive space. Creating an aesthetic art piece is one thing, but conveying authentic emotions using landscape photography is another.” Like in most aspects of life though, he continues, “Finding balance is key, and I call my work a success when complete strangers express the feelings I intended to capture without any doubt.” He believes that beauty lies in combining the perfect moment and the perfect tonality.

An early morning in Paris. “Two of the main rules of photography are patience and repetition. That morning in Paris, I noticed the birds getting really close to my lens so, guessing that the moment would come again, I patiently waited for a similar occurrence to happen. Due to the fog early that morning, I felt that black and white was just perfect to immortalize this moment.”

Lonely solitude. “This is a shot of the red torii gates in Kyoto, Japan. The sunset lighting provided the best colors for this scene. Only having a 55mm f1.8 lens, I had to employ the Brenizer method (also known as Bokeh Panorama) in order to get a photo with enough depth, and transitioned bokeh. Photoshop was really useful in stitching the different photos together.”

Tabular Iceberg. “In March 2016, I headed to the Antarctic Peninsula, and on our way to the 66th parallel south, our boat was navigating in silence through 30 meter (100 foot) tall tabular icebergs that were once part of the Larsen Ice Shelf. Those mesmerizing structures were sub-zero icy corridors, and formed a highly photogenic, gargantuan maze. Equipped with a 70-200mm, I started to play with the landscape around me, trying to display the geometric magnificence of those structures. After envisioning the shot, I had to wait for the exact right moment, and had only a few seconds to get it right.” (This photo was nominated as one of the Top Ten Nature (Open) Photos by the World Photo Organization.)

Josselin’s Tips, Tricks, and Parting Words of Advice: When it comes to landscape shots, “bracket your shots with 3-5 brackets of the same scene – it requires extra storage, but gives you more flexibility in editing your photos.”

On post-processing, Josselin says, “Color is like music. I like to stay true to the photo, but I will have to bring the right tonality to add integrity to the photo. I recommend merging your bracketed photos, then creating a flat profile (trying to gather as much dynamic range from shadow to highlight), and selecting the default color pattern that is dominant in your photo (analogous, complimentary, split complimentary, monochromatic, triadic quadratic, etc.). Once a first edit is done, duplicate your composition and start again. Each edit might just focus on part of the photo (e.g. foreground/background), given that you can then layer them in Photoshop using a mask. Repeat the process multiple times on multiple copies of the photo. Finally, always be gentle with settings in order to avoid image degradation.”

Photo Manipulator – Guillaume Lamazou

Guillaume Lamazou has been interested in photography since childhood. He says, “I’ve always been surrounded by cameras (thanks to my parents who had the same passion and had a photo lab in our house).” After years developing his photography, he continues, “I discovered editing software, mainly Photoshop, about ten years ago. As a self-learner in photography and editing, I began making montages for my friends as a hobby. I quickly realized that I could use Photoshop to express what I was feeling or wanted to say.”

Dispersion. “This is one of the rare pictures I took outside. For the dispersion effect, I used custom brushes and blurred some of them to create depth.”

 Wasting Time. “Most of my ideas come from the state of mind I am in. This one was obviously done during a boring day.”

Dream On. “For this one, my inspiration was the song Dream On by Aerosmith. I take most of my pictures alone with the timer, and this picture was probably the most difficult to shoot.”

Guillaume’s Tips, Tricks, and Parting Words of Advice: Guillaume says, “for me, the most important thing when editing is the realism of the picture (even if I’m doing surrealism). The lighting and the color matching are what I edit the most. So, my most important tip is to focus on the shadows and the light source, and try to match the elements you add to the original picture. I draw my shadows with a simple brush and my light source (if needed) with a gradient in Photoshop.”

Graphic Designer – Steeven Salvat

Steeven Salvat is an artist who uses a whole number of media to express his work. He is an illustration artist and animator who is inspired by the natural world, but with a twist. He says, “I’ve been drawing since childhood – it’s my passion – but until recently, I had not seriously considered trying to make a living from it. Now, I dedicate a lot more time to my artwork and am constantly taking part in new projects. I’m an artist passionate about having ideas.” His solo work and collaborations typically consist of complex drawings, graphic illustrations, and animated illustration.

Cancer Gigalain. “I wanted to create a series of drawings inspired by old biological studies, like you might come across in a museum, for instance. So I decided to work on a new project inspired this and mixed with the clockworks to give this ancient/steampunk look.”

Héraut. “This drawing was made in collaboration with my talented friend, Théo Jan. You can watch a making-of video of my collaborations with Théo Jan here.”

Mer. This is another piece of work done in collaboration with Théo Jan. Steeven used Photoshop to animate the drawings after creating them frame by frame.

Steeven’s Tips, Tricks, and Parting Words of Advice: “I use Photoshop as my digital tool for editing and presenting my work. I also use it to make some GIF art where I draw frame by frame, it’s time consuming but I love the aspect of the animation when it’s done like this.”

For more from these artists, check out their social channels below:

Josselin Cornou | Blog | Instagram

Guillaume Lamazou | Blog | Instagram

Steeven Salvat | Blog | Instagram | Facebook | Behance

Stay tuned and join us soon for our next Creative Layover, when we’ll be spotlighting three new Photoshop artists in another great city.

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