Dan Marcolina’s “Diffused Realty” part of the 20/20 Photo Festival and Design Philadelphia
09/07 – 10/27
Don’t miss Dan Marcolina’s “Disfused Reality” part of the 20/20 Photo Festival and Design Philadelphia on display from September 7 through October 27 at the Pier.
This series of images subject to many of these enhancements is titled “Complicated Relationships,” which explores the dynamics of various interrelationships between individuals and their environment. By using original photographs that are stylized and juxtaposed through physical and artificial means, Marcolina tries to emphasize the harmonies and imbalances that can occur between them.
Marcolina’s AI photo-synthesis process always starts with an original camera image that is carefully composed and sometimes processed to capture his artistic intent. That image is fed into an AI portal, sometimes with text or additional image prompts. The AI uses that new input to build more renditions. I then curate the best option by considering the balance between composition and concept.
This process can be repeated many times until the original idea of the photo is strengthened or even completely transmuted to unexpected places. It is a curious journey, similar to street photography, searching for the right moments to intersect. The resulting file is then rescaled with AI and color-tuned with more corrections or additions in Photoshop. The result is work that contains the original DNA of the photo combined with a visual metamorphosis conducted by the artist.
About Dan Marcolina
Dan Marcolina is a Philadelphia native, designer, photographer, and author. He has always experimented with alternative photo equipment and darkroom processing. Over the last 45 years, he has shot in many formats, from 5x7 to toy plastic cameras. His photos have appeared in many juried photography shows across the country, and his digital imagery in dozens of books and magazines. He has lectured widely on digital image creation and given many presentations for Apple and Adobe on digital photography and alternative processes. His prints are for sale in the Woodmere Museum of Art. In 2010, he wrote the first book on mobile photo manipulation for Peachpit Press, “iPhone Obsessed,” which was translated into three languages. He has also published many app-store interactive ebooks on photography and organized several landmark iPhoneography events and international competitions. More recently, he has lectured on "making AI personal"—controlling Artificial Intelligence with original camera input and manual post-processing—for National Geographic, AIGA, and the American Photographic Artist APA. His favorite “photo moment” came unexpectedly at a juried opening in NY from well-known art and fashion photographer Richard Avedon, who said, “I admire Dan Marcolina’s work because he makes photos that don’t try to be beautiful.”
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