Photographer of the Month – April 2009

©Tony Kuyper

This month I want to highlight the amazing work of Tony Kuyper.  Tony’s work in the deserts of the American southwest is not just more of the same old, same old. Tony offers a fresh eye and perspective on this oft photographed landscape. I love Tony’s abstract, graphic images and his feel for colour, light and design. His vision of the desert is fresh and exciting.

When you look at Tony’s images, you immediately notice the finely crafted compositions and the sensitive eye to capture, in a stunning way, what most of us would simply overlook. Look closer at Tony’s images and you will notice immaculate and superb processing skills. Tony knows how to use Photoshop to translate his vison of the world into a fine print. I have several of Tony’s prints and they are absolutely stunning!

The great thing about Tony is his open and willing nature to share with others. Many photographers that develop a specialized technique for shooting or processing images guard their ‘secrets’ jealously. Tony does just the opposite; he happily shares his in-depth knowledge about Photoshop and offers numerous tutorials  on his unique processes for digital darkroom work.

I have seen many tutorials on Photoshop by many photographers and most often these tutorials add nothing useful to my own workflow. But Tony’s Photoshop tutorials and actions are different, they are incredibly useful and functional especially for landscape photographers. I particularly like his luminosity masks and the automated actions he created for masking have been one of the most useful additions to my processing workflow! I now use luminosity masks on about 75% of the images I process. I am not sure how I lived without using Tony’s luminosity masks!

If you want to take your image processing to the next level and if you use Photoshop, I highly recommend all of Tony’s tutorials. Thanks Tony, for the great ideas, wonderful images and your sharing nature!

Advertisement