Happy Darwin Day

Science types around the globe, raise a glass of your favorite beverage today to honor the 209th anniversary of the birth of the famous English naturalist Charles Darwin. Beginning near the end of 1831 after getting his college degree, Darwin set off as a member of the expedition on

the HMS Beagle. He spent much of his time on various landings while the ship surveyed the coast of South America. One of Darwin's most famous points of landfall was the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador.

In celebration of this day, I have included a couple of my photographic art pieces that I created from photos I took on my trip to the Galapagos islands a few years ago. One is a floating Galapagos pelican, mounted on acrylic and the other is a gallery wrapped canvas of a group of marine iguanas lounging in the sun. Both images are also available as matted 8x10 prints.

Design This – Fanciful Wedding Card

Last year a couple of friends, that were responsible for getting together a large group of friends to vacation together in the Galapagos Islands, were to get married shortly after the trip. Unfortunately we would not be able to attend their wedding but wanted to come up with something memorable for them. My husband and I decided that a fanciful custom wedding card to hold a gift card would be fun. I looked forward to putting my photographic art skills to the test.

Luckily while we were on our trip, I asked each of the soon to be marrieds what their favorite critter was on the islands. She answered, “sea lion” and he answered, “Sally Lightfoot crab”. I poured over my 1K plus photos from the trip to find the right ones to put together. I decided a beach wedding, with our friend’s animal favorites as stand-ins, was what I wanted to do. I started with one of my sea lion on a beach photos. The Sally Lightfoot crab that I liked best was looking the wrong way but luckily that is not a big thing to overcome using the digital manipulation I use to create my photographic art. I cut out the crab and added it to my base image. (As with all of the separate components of the image, I altered each one to give them the same look before bringing them together, in order to achieve cohesiveness within the final image.)

Now, what to add in the way of attire that would say “wedding”? I decided a garland of flowers for the bride would be lovely. I cropped two different blossoms out of a picture of one of the native plants that was flowering and created the sea lion’s garland. I was stumped for something to use for the groom from our trip. I finally decided that I needed a top hat, so off to a party store I went. I found a great hat that I photographed at what looked like the proper perspective for the orientation of the crab in the image I was building. Once the pieces were in place in the image it was time to pen and print the sentiment for inside the card and print the beach wedding scene on the front.


If you are a fan of a critter from the Galapagos Islands and if I have a photo of it, I’d be happy to create a piece of photographic art for you. So far, other than the beach wedding scene the only image I have worked up to add to my photographic art offerings is the image that I used for the profile picture for the facebook page I created for our trip. That one sold as a matted 8x10 during the Happy Holidays Gift Store last year. I hope to have more created in time for this year's store.