Photographer or Graphic Designer ... What's the difference.

So in an effort to put up the books clear my brain and take a small break... I picked up an old stock photo and started playing around with it in CS5.


Working with some layers masks, textures, duplicating images, and a variety of tools I just wanted to see what I could come up with.


I in no way claim to be the best at psd, however I'm learning more each day and becoming a little more dangerous with each thing learned... Makes me question just how real are the "other" pictures out there ?


I love photography and I love graphic design... I wonder altering images in PSD am I adding to it, enhancing it in some way. When does it stop being photography and start becoming graphic art. With the advancement of tech these days the lines seem to be blurred now more then ever. Will we reach a day when they are one in the same ?


Ya know those "best of..... " images that seem to infiltrate our emails every December, knowing what I know (again, nothing spectacular) in PSD, I really question just how "best of" they really are. Someone with some great skills could easily pit that Surfer next to Shark...

Recall: A time less lost

I think I recall a time when I had a lot more to say. 

Love isn’t easy, but that’s what makes it’s stronger. That’s what makes it unique. It’s the reason why not everyone finds it. When the dynamics of two people are so strong that a passion is created that never has touched the other person, it’s what I would imgaine my first gasp of air as a child was like. So filling, so new, undefinable.. but clearly ALIVE. Each breath pulls air into the body filling it with a phase of new life in the world. An understanding of what two people have and what the other person means and they continue to work through life’s up and downs. What do you do when the love of your life enters your world?Better question; what do you do when you can no longer breath? Are we to accept life and death as the beginging and end? 

I think I recall a time when I had a lot more to say. 

A time when I vomited four syllable words with a fury of intent. What was my intent, exactly? I can’t seem to remember, though I’m certain it was passionately arbitrary. There comes a time when one takes a step back, and realizes the fruitlessness of it all. That a boy, or girl I suppose, is nothing more than just a boy or a girl. A collection of cells and chemicals lumped together in an aesthetically pleasing fashion. Strip off your skin, muscle, and bone and you won’t find a soul. There is no glowing orb of consciousness imbedded in your brain, just tissue and neurotransmitters. 

I think I recall a time when I had a lot more to say 

I guess I can ask why we are hiding; but a better question and more appropriate question is rather where are we hiding? Where do I keep that part of myself that appreciates Barry Manilow? Where is the piece of me that knows with absolute certainty that oriental lilies are beautiful? 

I think I recall a time when I had a lot more to say 

She left her hair au natural, occasionally a part at a 67 degree angle. I struggle to remember that they are nothing more than just hairs; stacks of dead cells that I will brush off of your forehead to clear an area so that I may plant a gentle kiss. Just hairs, and your skin pressed to mine is just skin. Where do I keep that part of myself that never wants to be without you? 

In order to create, one must be destroyed. So I let it all go. I have to. 

You can stare at the stars and numb your mind with the vast and inexplicable nuances they hold or you can call a star, a star and go about your day. What exactly is in your day? Take a step back and realize the breathtaking complexity of it all. When the sun sets and the moon rises you’re left with just the clarity that it’s you, me and the spinning cosmos – our jumbles of cells crying out for one another. 

I seem to recall a time when I had a lot more to say. 

Thoughts become things... Vol. 1

I sit at the edge and take in the atmosphere. Today is clear. It’s the first tolerable day in 16 days. The fucking restlessness of my existence chokes me. I don’t sleep as visions consume my thought process and force me to deal with them. Today is starting out decent. From this point, from this mountain I log my voices, I can peer into this bowl of a melting pot. I can see the whole city below me. Sometimes you have to be thankful for fucking blind luck. I’m thankful that my family supports me in all my dealing. I’m thankful that I have positive people in my life that truly want to not just be a part of it, but be involved with it. I’m thankful for the continued effort to crack my walls and show me it’s ok to live again. I’m thankful that I have a job that allows me to follow a true calling, a passion, a desire. I’m thankful to be alive.  *end scene*

Currently perched inside my toaster, as I let the smell of mindful expansion permeate my nose and burn my eyes, I have a front row seat at watching the destruction of a society, strangling itself. Lucky I don't always have to be down in the middle of that mess. You may say, Oh well this is just vulgar hateful ridiculousness. You may say it’s insight brought on by duress. You may just say it’s just worthless nonsense or gibberish. I may not disagree with you. However, in a time such as this, the one who sits back and witnesses the destruction has just as much right to as the ones who fight. And since entertainment values overtook moral values back in the day, then to you I say fuck off, it’s my monolog. I’m not sharing it with you, I’m delivering it alone. This is my stage. If you would be so kind to exit stage right, I would be appreciative.

From way up here, daily human activities look like a bad video game. Or worse, bad realities TV show. This vantage point must be why the CEO’s and executives look at us like we are so small. They live up in these insanely over priced compounds. Up above in the hills. They wake up in the morning naked, looking over the whole valley like a Monopoly game board. Calculating their next move. When I walk by their kind in a grocery store, they look right past me. It’s as if I were a ghost. During the day, I walk among them. I’m in their world. I work there. I breath there. I lunch there. It’s may be the closest I get to being one of them.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve truly ever been only one thing. Perhaps I should say that I’ve ever only been one thing…truly. I am an artist. Maybe not your conventional text book paint and draw artist, but an artist nonetheless. This is the one solid statement I can make about who I am. At a very young age, say five years old, I learned something about myself. I learned that I was different somehow. I was drawn to a world that wasn’t normal. I wasn’t normal. Something inside of me said that I had an ability that was unique. I wasn’t like the rest. Although I couldn’t fully understand what it meant, I trusted it. When I thought about it, even at five years old, I felt pure, confident, clear and proud of my gift.

Here is a little perspective. Through much persistence and resistance, I am 31 years old. I’ve been working on a college degree for 2 years. I’ve been unemployed for months, and I’ve been employed for three times as long. I’ve been in love with the strongest people I’ve ever known, and destroyed by the weakest. I’ve laughed a lot and cried just as much. I’ve put myself in positions of vulnerability as well as set myself so far apart that I’m barely a speck on the horizon. All are great accomplishments I’m proud of. I’ve worked extremely hard to fail and twice as hard succeed in those areas of my life. Through it all I have been an artist for nearly 25 years

Each day you work to achieve the best and highest levels you can reach. Pushing yourself to your limits, serving the great ability you’ve been given. It’s being in the best fraternity ever, where all the smartest, most talented cool kids choose to produce what the rest of the world will like and consume. Its a mutual respect and appreciation of all things creative that’s not exclusive to painting, writing, music, or sculpture. Being an artist is unlike anything else one can be.

Being an artist is the ability to create. To create anything. Having unlimited access to drugs like inspiration and creativity. It’s being a master of the machine called imagination. Being able to dream. Being able to see outside what others can not. Being an artist is freedom. It allows me the opportunity to be a producer rather than just a consumer. I move this world. I will create this world.

Who am I you ask?

I am Paul Beard and I will change this world...