By
Merrill Shea
Piece description from the artist
Over the previous few weeks I had begun to think that I had just about exhausted the possibilities for capturing interesting Boston scenes, especially finding anything new in the Public Garden or the Common.
I was walking home from a headshot session downtown. It was the first snowfall of the year, and I was enjoying it, given our lack of snow over the past few years.
I was following my usual route, past the Brewer Fountain, which I'd shot many times before in the summer, when this composition snapped me out of my daydreaming. I had to wait awhile for folks wearing bright colors to walk into the frame, but I finally got lucky.
I wonder how many more times I'll come upon an unexpected scene in this place I know so well.
I call this a photo-watercolor hybrid because It was a photograph which I then reworked in the computer, using various techniques, to produce a watercolor-like image, including the paper texture. In many ways, I think it's the best of both worlds.
Merrill Shea began his artistic career as a classical musician and then gradually migrated toward the visual arts. He has worked as a free-lance photographer in the commercial, non-profit and academic worlds throughout Eastern Massachusetts for over twenty-five years. He is entirely self-taught.
Merrill spends at least one month every year traveling primarily throughout New England and the Pacific Northwest. While his oeuvre includes urban imagery, his primary inspiration comes from the natural world. His TurningArt offerings represent a selection from his personal projects, which range from intimate and panoramic seascapes to interpreting the oldest living things on earth: the fantastically gnarled bristlecone pine trees that survive at twelve thousand feet above sea level.
Merrill continues to explore the varieties of color, graphics and texture that are possible within the photographic medium. Like many photographers, he has been influenced by the iconic black and white nature photography of Ansel Adams. In that regard, he has included identical images which he feels are effective both in color and black and white.
Merrill has always been fascinated with the medium of watercolor and has recently been exploring the possibilities of using various computer techniques to produce watercolor-like images from photographs that, in many cases, are indistinguishable from true watercolors.
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