Who is Bret Maley
Bret Maley is a photoshop composition artist who has had previous occupations as a photographer, professor, and an author on the book “Adobe Master Class”. According to his portfolio, much of his work is featured in magazines like “Photography is Art”, and various “Photoshop” magazines. He also features an online class on Kelbyone where he teaches how to create compositing pieces with family and friend portraits, and the use of wizardry magic like levitation in compositing. Much of his personal work however features outdoor portrait and landscape imagery of some mysterious wonders of nature overtaking everything.
On one of his works featured in his “Adobe Master Class” book called “Post-Apocalyptic”, it features a post-apocalyptic city in ruins. From looking at this photo, we can tell that nature seems to have been retaking this land as not only do overgrown bushes and trees seem to be coming out from some of the windows, but we also see flowers spread out around the subject. There also appears to be a new formation of a mountain presiding into the city itself. Despite the flowers seeming to give a sense of calmness, the atmosphere around the area, including the subject, give a “tired” or “worn-out” feeling as the buildings, and the subject are covered in dirt, or possible blood on the woman. The artist seems to do a great job with the textures of the buildings, and the saturation of the photo to give a sense of sorrow towards the viewer as well. On other works that he has done such as “Valley Catch”, he composites his work through the use of replacing the sky, and changing the atmosphere to the type of warm photo palette that he is aiming for similarly to his Post-Apocalyptic work. Overall, he seems to use many layers of his work in order to get the type of atmosphere and setting that he is trying to create in each piece he creates.
Although it does not reveal the overall description as to what the artist was aiming for, it seems that he was experimenting with different settings at different places whether it would be taking place in the mountain range, or the city that he presides in. It also seems that he tries to introduce a story to his work even if it may or may not be intentional. One way to tell is that he uses the same model with the same clothes and sword for his work on the “Mountain Tower”. This could show a before and after effect. It could be theorized that the woman made her way towards the tower to fight off a possible creature, and later made her way to the post apocalyptic city which shows the possible blood all over her while she still wields the sword. This reveals that she survived the encounter that she may have had at the tower. Bret also does the before and after effect with other photos like the “Hide” and “Seek” photos of his sons exploring the sunny forest.
For my next project, I would like to not only create a composition with nature taking over buildings, but to also add a bit of story to it as well. This could be a transition of nature taking over after several years for each composition piece, or a story about surviving a post apocalyptic world. I have done a project similar to the Architectural blend project, and I would like to expand upon that with more meaning and story towards that concept.
Portfolio to Artist:
Post-Apocalyptic
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