Photo Zen Garden

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charr-chandelier

I collect details, often with my cell phone.  Seems to me everyone does these days.  Just the other night I was out with friends having dinner and all four of us were doing something with our phones.  Texting, taking a picture, loading it to Facebook with a status update.  Sharing on instagram with every #hashtag you can imagine.  Maybe it’s the crowd I hang with but we are definitely phone obsessed.  And like I said, I collect details.  I find beautiful textures and details everywhere I go.  and I use them in my work all the time.  These beautiful little picture moments that add some visual interest to an image when I need that little something.

I was at a birthday party at a most fabulous mansion a few months ago.  The kind of mansion Hollywood would rent for a big budget movie.  The kind of mansion that comes equipped with it’s own grand piano.  The kind of mansion that has acreage and fishing and peacocks and you can cook on a spit near the olympic sized pool.   I found this big beautiful chandelier handing so quietly near the winding staircase.  Yes, I shot it with my cellphone.  And today, when I was working on a piece I found this photo again.  I’d turned it black and white.  I combined it with the other image and voila.  It’s a kind of Photo Zen Garden.  The invisible image underneath is what gives this black and white one the colorful effect.  I like it!

 

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About charr

Charr Crail is a Northern California photographer and artist with an avid passion for creating unique digital imagery. Charr, a full-time freelance photographer, spans the divide between photojournalism and extraordinary art via photography and can trace back her evolution as an photographer/artist from three dominant sources. Her father made his living as a newspaper photographer and as soon as he could, was taking young Charr, then four, on assignments to capture a lifetime of experiences and images. He instilled a sense of adventure and curiosity in her as they would often meander down unknown country roads of the South – just to see and capture what was out there. Soon after, Charr would develop her eye for photography and journalism as “the river that runs through everything she does”. Charr’s mother blessed her daughter with the ability to appreciate art in its various mediums. Further, her mother was able to pass along the joy, satisfaction and excitement one can experience in actively creating something beautiful. It’s no surprise, then, that Charr would become a photojournalist and later a photo editor spanning two decades working for Northern California publications including The Sacramento Bee. Often, her assignments would include community events with a “close to home” theme woven into every image and story she captured. Her photojournalistic experience has therefore been nuanced through everything she produces. She’s also drawn to the wonder of color and the beauty that can be found in the composure of a face and the make-up of the human bodyscape. Charr has won countless awards for masterful pieces including; the Professional Photographers of America LOAN Collection for two consecutive years, WPPI Grand Award and her work has been featured in the Di Rosa Museum in California’s beautiful Napa Wine Region and is also part of the permanent collection. Separately, she instructs digital photography workshops that teach students how to blow out the creativity of their photography in simple methods using programs like Adobe Photoshop and how to market using mobile devices-- Visual Content Creation using Mobile Devices.. Charr lives in Sacramento with her husband Chris and kitties Leeloo and Sadie.

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