Inspiring content creator dazzles with his amazing edits
I recently discovered @shavnore‘s account on instagram and I am absolutely in love with his work, for a few reasons. One, He is from my home state of Florida, Two, he loves nature and most importantly, he does the most amazing edits with beaches and scenery. I dare not try to explain, you must see his work for yourself. His composites are on a whole other level, and at launchdsigns we are inspired by his work daily.
Please make sure to read this entire article and I gurantee you will take away something that could only help your creative journey.
How long have you been using Adobe Photoshop to edit?
About 5 years
How did you get into digital arts?
I read an awesome book called “The Purple Cow”
The book explains the simple concept of cows in a pasture. When you drive down the road, and you see cows that are of normal color, you don’t think twice and your attention pays nothing to them. Now, on the flipside- if one of those cows happened to be purple, you would stop. Take a photo of it and share it with all your friends.
That book got me thinking: In the world of photography – everyone has a phone. That is millions and millions of photos being uploaded to Instagram, Facebook,
Snapchat and twitter. It so easy to get drowned out in the cow pasture filled up with white cows by posting a sunset photo. A selfie. A photo of a cat. A beach pic.
I had to take it to the next level and stretch the imagination – I needed a purple cow.
That is where digital art came in.
What inspires you to create?
I have always had this burning desire to create and be creative since I was a kid. It kind of is a blessing and a curse at the same time. It never goes away.
Who are some of the creative artists on Instagram that inspires you?
Aaron Nace from PHLERN all day. I am a huge fan of Max Rive @maxrivephotography his work is astonishing. @Iuriebelegurschi is another phenomenal artist/photographer
With Instagram being so saturated with talent right now, how are you able to stay unique and fresh?
Being able to keep creating, and make the next one better than the next one is difficult and it requires a lot of self evaluation lol. Every time you plateau, you set the bar higher and higher. I am constantly improving my Photoshop skills by watching tutorials on Youtube- watching documentaries on legendary artists, such as Van Gogh.
How do you educate yourself and keep learning?
I watch tons of tutorials and read tons of books on not only Photoshop, but building a business, marketing, and being an influencer in this noisy 2018 world. Gary Vaynerchuck has a huge influence when it comes to social media marketing and marketing my work. A lot of artists forget the fact that producing the art is 25% of the game. the other 75% is getting the world to see it and appreciate it.
What is the one thing you wish you knew when you started editing using Photoshop?
I wish I knew how to use that pen tool. I made my selections starting off with a brush and it was brutal. It took forever to cut a sky out. Now using that pen tool has made things much better and the workflow hasdramatically improved.
Do you use Adobe Lightroom? If so for what specific purpose?
Absolutely! Every image goes through Lightroom. My hard edits (structural edits) are made in Photoshop- Then for my global lighting I go to Lightroom – where I add a watermark and export.
Take us through your workflow from beginning a project to posting it on instagram?
It first starts with an image. I look at that image and think what would be cool in it – what would make it pop. I end up taking everything out of that image except the foreground and the relevant icon in the foreground, then build around it based off the lighting and colors. For instance, I took a waterfall out of a jungle, put a house on it, and added a sky to make it look like the waterfall was in the middle of nowhere.
Every photo is different. Sometimes I start with blending 4 or 5 cloud formations together and work down from there. Some times I spend an hour on a photo end end up deleting it because it was garbage. (that happens a lot) Most of my pictures either come from my personal collection that I shot, or Pixabay. Sometimes I buy images from Adobe Stock, if it is getting licenced to sell for print.
What do you hope to achieve from posting on instagram? Are you just posting for the fun of editing or are you hoping to use your instagram gallery as a portfolio for bigger opportunities?
Instagram already has lead to huge opportunities. I’ve designed images for a billion dollar sky scraper project, I’ve designed Jigsaw Puzzles for a board game company, I even had my own snopes.com article written about me. https://www.snopes.com/tag/brent-shavnore/
It’s put me in magazines from Guy Harvey, to eastern surf mag and lead to all kinds of business connections. I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.
I know from experience that photoshop files many layers can take up lots of space on a computers hard drive, How do you back up your original work?
I have three hard drives, one in my computer, one external and one cloud. Every photo gets emailed to me before I post it, and saved in the Google Drive. Then sent as a copy to the external HDD.
How important is getting likes and comments vs just posting as an artistic expression?
At first, it was very important. But now that I am selling prints and it is an actual business outside of Instagram, it doesn’t really bother me.
If there wasn’t an Instagram, where would you showcase your work?
I actually started on National Geographic Your shot, Where national geographic actuallypublished me ( back when I was taking unedited photos ) http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/9671341/
I post my work to LinkedIn, and have just about 30k followers,
I post my work to my Facebook page as well, where it is growing to almost 20k followers.
I’ve tried twitter, but in the land of fake news, people are not really fond of what I do on that platform.
I always am a fan of having a diverse portfolio and spreading your work across multiple platforms, not just one.
Do you think that instagram has helped or hurt digital artists?
I think it is one of the few platforms that gives digital artists a safe space to create art. When I post it to my Facebook page, the images get shared all over the world and instill panic – people call it fake and misleading (even though it is clearly labeled as digital art) The Instagram community is different and artistic.
What State/Country do you live in?
I live in Pensacola Florida
Is there anything else that you would like your followers to know about you?
I absolutely love every one of you that has followed me on this journey and continue to follow me! I will do my best to keep raising the bar and stretching the imagination =]