Customers who see my work at a show sometimes ask if they’re photographs and my answer is always no. A photograph is the final end product for a photographer, but it is only my raw material. Almost all of my pieces begin their “lives” as a photo (sometimes as more than one). I take that photo and import it into my computer. Photoshop is then used extensively to bring that photo or series of photos into line with the image I see in my head.

Some of the flowers that look the least “played with” have actually had more work done to them than some of the simpler portraits. That “perfect shot” I thought I was getting always turns out to be spoiled by poor lighting or greenery that suddenly jumps into the viewfinder, obscuring that brilliant play of petals. I may be many things, but I am not the world’s best photographer. What I see in my mind’s eye is almost never what I get after the shutter clicks.

Pounding the source material into a finished product might mean doing simple things like adjusting the color and light in a shot and then giving it what I call the “painting treatment” - which is done manually with Photoshop’s brushes. Preset filters just don’t give me enough control over the finished product.

More complicated pieces can require the wholesale removal and addition of elements, depending on how much I want to “fix” the original piece. Sometimes I want to add extra petals, remove or simplify an overly complex background, or add body elements not normally found on humans. My eraser takes things away, and I then can paint in what I want to see.

I manually paint in the most detail on my fantasy portraits. Tattoos, hair effects and highlights, outre skin tones, and anything else I think up gets painted on layer by layer in photoshop until I can look at it, squint my eyes and say to myself “nope, doesn’t need anything more.”

So do I make photographs? No - I make digital paintings.