Turning Portraits into Digital Sketches, Oils, Watercolors - - From the Library of Congress...

dkcoats · #1 08-25-2008, 06:16 PM

I ran across this interesting fellow, of whom I'd never heard, while searching the Library of Congress American Memory site for a project at work.

There's a huge collection of his work here, most or all of which was done for the FSA or the War Department which means there's no copyright which makes them fair game for our nefarious purposes.

Here's one image that really caught my eye. There are large (very - as in 100-meg-plus) TIF files as well as sorta-medium-res jpgs like this one. Some, like this one, were 4x5 transparencies (which may account for the stiffness I noticed in a lot of them) and some were slides.

He's no Dorothea Lange but it's a pretty impressive body of work, I'd say.

dkcoats · #2 08-25-2008, 09:57 PM

Here's my PS/Painter attempt at this image.

Kraellin · #3 08-25-2008, 11:43 PM

very nice!

i got an error trying to open this one: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/...temp/~pp_RIhe:

lkroll · #4 08-25-2008, 11:48 PM

Cool find David and thanks for the play too.

dkcoats · #5 08-26-2008, 12:04 AM

Oops. Try this.

palms1 · #6 08-26-2008, 05:33 AM

That is really interesting enjoyed looking through some of the files

Palms

gholmes1936 · #7 08-26-2008, 11:16 AM

Palms what a great Dragan effect. A perfect image for it also. The rest of the scene looks like the only industry in my hometown. Everyone one worked for the railroad. Even the hospital was owned by the RR. Of course medical care was free even back in the early 1900's for us.

Alcar · #8 08-26-2008, 11:43 AM

Palms, that is superb work!
Alan

Alcar · #9 08-26-2008, 02:03 PM

Remarkably nice photo. Had to make a version of my own.
Alan

palms1 · #10 08-26-2008, 03:16 PM

Thank you Gunner and Alcar
super portrait Alcar

I keep having a look through some of these photo's and considering the age of them and the equipment that was around then they are amazing

Palms

Joeven · #11 08-26-2008, 03:47 PM

Theres some great photo's on that site.

Joe

Steve Conway · #12 08-26-2008, 04:58 PM

"Blue Collar"

Steve C.

dkcoats · #13 08-26-2008, 11:17 PM

I'm lovin' what all of you are doing with this image.

Here's another one - CS2/Painter again.
I love the quiet dignity of the guy.

gholmes1936 · #14 08-27-2008, 07:54 PM

I wanted to try Adobe LightRoom on this one. So I just followed this tutorial of Scott Kelby's.

dkcoats · #15 09-09-2008, 03:58 PM

Yet another Painter rendition of yet another of these great images.