Our Featured Member Spotlight is on Werner Padarin

State your name and the type of art you do:
Great to see this interview starting with an easy question – I’m Werner Padarin and my artistic expression is through photography.

Which form of art do you enjoy the most?
Photography is really my only form of creative art – however, I very much enjoy music as a listener – mainly in the field of baroque and classical music. I also quite like viewing some paintings, but perhaps it’s my right-side brain dominance (I’m an engineer!) that attracts me to good photography much more than to some of the renowned painters.

Why is art & creativity important to you?
I’ve never tried to answer that question before – perhaps because I’ve never asked it of myself. There’s a certain amount of creativity inherent in the sort of work that I did (and still do on a very part-time basis), but even there its scope is pretty confined. It’s nice, after so many hours (well, years now) in an office to get out and do something creative just because you want to do it. I fell into photography and have been able to enjoy it (within budgetary limits) at work, at home and on trips. And as I enjoyed it, it became more and more important – always something new to learn and to try.

Do you consider yourself a photographer or a digital artist?
Most definitely a photographer.

How did you first get interested in photography?
Way back my father supplemented our income by taking in B&W film for developing and printing – and I would often sit with him under the dull greenish (for film) or red (for paper) light as he explained the processes to me and evaluated the quality of the photography before us. Later I was given a rangefinder camera, a Yashica Minister. I was still using that camera in my early working life to show my dear parents some of the places I’d visited and then later pictures of my young family. While I can no longer show photos to my parents, the habit developed into a hobby that has continued to grow.

How does being a photographer affect the way that you look at the world around you?
Simple, I often look at most things through imaginary rectangular (3:2) frames to imagine how they might look as a print. That also means I often don’t see bleedingly obvious things right in front of me as I’m taken up by visualizing some potential masterpiece. For example during our recent trip to Tasmania I was thinking of the best composition for a line of trees – I saw them just as a mass of patterns and colours – when my wife remarked on some lovely blossoms on one of the trees – blossoms? What blossoms? I hadn’t even noticed them!

What is your favorite subject to photograph, and why?
Here I can think of only 2 criteria – firstly, it has to be in front of the camera (and that’s relatively easily managed) and secondly the scene has to attract me in some way. But the subject matter can be almost anything – on a bush walk it might be scenery or a close-up of tree bark, in a city it might be people or reflections in the facade of a modern building or an interior shot in a church – there’s nearly always something , though there was a recent exception on our Tassie trip when I didn’t even bother to take my camera on a walk as all day long we had a light drizzle and swirling breezes – whichever direction I might point the lens, it would be covered with droplets – not a photo day!)

Do you think photos should be left as is or do you think that postprocessing can improve them?
I believe in processing only to the extent of improving exposure (perhaps some dodging and burning), correcting lens and sometimes perspective distortion and for cropping. Sensor spots do need to be cloned out also. Very occasionally fiddling with saturation or reducing an image to black and white or sepia does help to produce a better image. That also goes for HDR which I’ve yet to master – however, I must say I like only a small proportion of all the HDR images I’ve seen – the big test for me is “does it seem natural?”. I’m not at all a fan of texture or composite layering or of any sort of gross manipulation. I’m also quite happy with framing and making diptyches or triptyches from images that have been minimally processed.

What equipment / digital editing programs do you use?
75% of my shots are with a Nikon D300 and Nikon 18-200VR lens. The other 25% is with a Nikon 50mm f/1.4 or a Nikon 12-24mmDX or a Sigma 150-400mm OS lens. I still retain a Nikon D70 as backup and had to use it not so long ago as a flash card connector pin in the D300 got bent. Some time ago I bit the bullet to buy Photoshop and do nearly all my processing in Adobe Raw Converter. I should also mention another vital component of my digital photography equipment – my home server PC which stores the images and which is periodically backed up to further hard disks.

Do you have any tips on postprocessing to share with us?
My idea is to shoot raw and make minor adjustments as I suggested above – if it still doesn’t look good, hit the delete button and try the next image.

What do you get out of being part of The Best of Redbubble… Digital art and photography group?
There are some absolutely first class photographic works on the bubble, so seeing the submissions and features in this group provides a window on the creme de la creme of photography (as also with non-photographic art). It’s those beautiful shots that I see and admire that cause me to consider how I might improve in my own efforts.

Share something cool or exciting that has happened to you since you have been on the bubble.
RB has certainly been very good for the ego – I’ve yet to make even a very small fortune from what I’ve sold, but the value of sales to the ego has been priceless! And add to that the home page features, not to mention features in individual groups … Which brings me to the present, to this interview and the honour of being featured as this month’s Spotlight Member of The Best of Redbubble – my grin is absolutely ear to ear – a huge thank you to Jackie and Kathleen and Peggi. And as it is December may I wish you, Jackie and Kathleen and Peggi and all group members a very merry Christmas.

Jackie’s Picks – I feel like I am on a vacation when I see Werner’s beautiful work. I see such fantastic places and people through Werner’s eyes and it is truly a wonderful view. I think his side work should be travel agent, he would know exactly where to send you! hehe :)

Kathleen’s Picks – I love the words that Jackie used to describe Werner’s photographs. His work takes me around the world to places I will never be able to go. I can almost hear the sounds and smell the scents of these exotic places.

Peggi’s Picks – Both Kathleen and Jackie hit the nail on the head. When you look at Werner’s photos, it’s like taking a magical trip to a far-off place without ever having to go to the airport. He captures the essence of the places he photographs, the people, the architecture, the food, the animals, music, dancing, just about everything. His artist’s eye sees things that most people miss and he captures them beautifully with his camera. I think Werner is a spectacular choice for this month’s Featured Member Spotlight. Just look at these beauties:

Wow, well done Werner – favulous work, congratulations!

This was a great surprise for me a couple of days ago when Jackie asked me to do the interview for the spotlight. It would be an understatement to say that I am extremely flattered, particularly as there are so many beautiful photographic works in this group.

Thankyou Jackie and Kathleen and Peggi for all your work in this group, and particularly for the great honour of this spotlight and for having looking through my submissions to make your picks. Oh, and I’d love to act as your travel advisor if only that meant I could travel along for free ;-)

Thankyou also to all of you who have been kind enough to read through the above interview and view the shots above – thankyou for your comments and please come and visit my portfolio every now and again.

Merry Christmas

Werner

Excellent works! Congratulations!

Congratulations on your spotlight feature and on all of your wonderful works!!!! You have a great eye!!!

Great work, Werner . . . congrats on the well-deserved feature.

Maybe I should start my vacation….. here. What ya think Kathleen & Peggi? hehe

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF YOU TALENTED ARTISTS! :-)

You’re welcome Werner! Thank you for sharing your travels with all of us and giving us places to dream about, especially through the cold Winter!

Jackie…I’m ready to hop on a plane right now, anyplace warm. It’s down to 4 degrees (Fahrenheit) here. I’d be thrilled about visiting the Sahara Desert at this point.

Stunning images! Congratulations!