Thank you for all of the kind words, everybody.
Scott, never trust that sphinx. Ever. He's been sitting out in the sun for thousands of years - his brain's fried.
Ty, your cousin does some really cool work. Normally, I'm not huge into the surrealist stuff, but his are a nice exception. It's nice to know that the art bug runs in your family. It does a bit in mine as well, though not through my parents. They were both teachers in the Bronx for 35 years (math and science) and don't really have any artistic bones in their bodies. However, somehow both my brother and I got into drawing and music. He's now a professional musician (classical bassoon and a cast of others), as he really stopped drawing a while back - though he can still tear it up if he was given some paper. Also, my cousin Scott caught something too, as he's currently the writer for Batman at DC, and has become very popular in the past few years. It's nice when we all get together because we just kind of get each other on that level. The triumphs and setbacks seem to make so much more sense that way.
Here are a few more shots I got back from the photographers today:
Ty Cobb, 1909 (I think?), 11" x 14"
Casey Stengel, April 19, 1938, 16" x 20"
Jimmie Foxx, 1929, 16" x 20"
Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle, 1956, 22" x 26"
The Cobb was an interesting exercise, as at first, I treated it like a normal portrait with flat lighting, but it became a bit uninteresting to me. I thought it would be so much cooler if I could have some of the warm light from the field reflecting and glowing back into Ty's face. So, now the golden patina is much more visually exciting, I feel. I just wish I had an idea of when the image culls from - I think it's '09, but I'm not exactly sure. I could never find any information about it, save what little I can surmise from the image itself.
The Yogi and Mickey image was also an interesting challenge, as it was one of those shots that has bright light and flash photography. So those areas that would normally be darker now have fill light in them. That kind of thing can really flatten out a face, so all of the dimension had to be created with varying temperatures and subtle value shifts. I hope I was successful, as it really did a number on me.
Anywho, I hope y'all enjoy them. As usual, I'd love to hear your thoughts, comments and critiques.
Thanks for looking and reading,
Graig