I browse the work of lots of photographers and have long been fascinated by how many of them use "textures"to enhance their photos. Basically, these are just images that can be layered with other images to create the illusion of texture. I got Pixelmator for Christmas (thanks, Mom!) and now have the capacity to play with layers myself! AND I recently won a set of free texture images by Life-n-Reflection (who sells her fabulous stuff here)! What luck! Here are a couple of things I've done with them so far.
I took this first one for Miss Match when the theme was "loss." It's a house that was destroyed (mostly) in Katrina. I love how "FEMA" is front and center, and I thought the texture added to the messiness. It also makes it look like an old picture, which seems fitting since this house has obviously looked like this for years and seems to have been forgotten or left behind.
I took this second one on Thanksgiving Day in Gloucester, Virginia and didn't especially like it before, but it seems to have a sense of dreaminess now that makes it a bit more interesting. I definitely haven't mastered this texture thing yet, but it's a fun new possibility.
What do you think? Should I put either of these in my shop?