THE 3 part story ARC of my work
Dan Marcolina
While most people have know me for print, web and video design, my original visual obsession is photography. Shooting for more than 35 years, my photos have appeared in many juried photography shows across the country and my digital imagery in many books and magazines. With the advent of mobile + hybrid photography my work has taken 3 distinct looks. This site shows the range from traditional to mobile to AI assisted hybrid.
TAP TO SEE MY DESIGN WORK
While each style can be very different I feel the essence is always based in a strong sense visual rhythm and design overlayed with subject matter and juxtapositions that evoke a humorous or somber tension.
Traditional work is all un-manipulated and is dependent on simply what is in the frame.
Shooting mobile forces me to think more graphically. It is like shooting with a Polaroid or toy film camera. But the simplicity of shooting and spontaneity of processing allow the work to become more interpretive.
My hybrid AI assisted image creation starts with one of my finished photos, with content and composition that fit the category of style I mentioned above. Then that image will usually have some mobile or photoshop enhancement to abstract it a bit with double exposure or textures and blurs. Then that image/concept is feed into different AI tools to re-image it. Those different iterations are curated and perhaps even altered again then re entered into the AI system. The resulting file is then rescaled with AI and color tuned with potentially more corrections or additions in photoshop.
As the process evolves I try to shape and enhance the original concept. And many times new themes emerge that I never expect. The process is thrilling and personal with an end result that contains DNA from the original.
Please enjoy and let me know what style you like more! Dan Marcolina
Having always used digital/photographic imagery as a cornerstone of his design process along with his shooting personal work in many traditional formats, Dan’s images have appeared in venues and publications worldwide.
Dan has always experimented with equipment and processing and has shot in many film formats from 5x7 to toy plastic cameras. His traditional fine art images have been shown in many juried shows. But his very favorite moment came unexpectedly at a juried opening in NY from well-known art and fashion photographer Richard Avedon who said, “I admire Dan Marcolina's work because he makes photos that don’t try to be beautiful.”
Dan wrote the very first book on mobile photo manipulation for Peachpit Press “iPhone Obsessed” in 2010 in addition to publishing 4 app store ebooks on the subject. He is the organizer of the landmark iPhoneography event, Mobile Masters Sessions, held January, 2013,2014, in San Francisco. He has given lectures on iPhoneography at the first 1197 in San Francisco, The LA Mobile Arts Festival, Olympus InVision Photo Festival, PDN Photo Plus NY, The University of the Arts (Philadelphia, lecture and gallery show), Apple stores in New York and San Francisco, Adobe Max in LA, Adobe Corporate and Photoshop World in Las Vegas. His interviews can be found inGraphis, Zoom Magazine, Cult of Mac, The App Whisperer, We Are Juxt, Pixels, and AMPt. He is also a contributing author to the #1 iPhoneography website, The App Whisperer. With all his pioneering efforts in this Mobile Movement Dan has become widely know as one of the key Mobile Movers.