Early Morning Carp Flats – Adobe Style
I’ve been doing more and more work with photo-based monotones and duotones in (Adobe) Photoshop and Illustrator. When converted to vector paths in Illustrator, an image like the one above can become wall-size with no loss in quality. While I’ve used this type of Photoshop-to-Illustrator workflow for various projects in the past, it has only been recently that I’ve started to put the technology to more regular use. Expect to see some illustrations here at FF&W that come about this way, as well as some other types of FF&W projects (T-shirts anyone?).
The above image was taken during an early morning on a carp flat on Lake Michigan. The photo is a number of years old, and the flat no longer exists (the lake’s water level has since dropped). My father and I spotted some fish on the flat the night before the pic was taken, and we decided to grab a motel room rather than continue on home (we had been trout fishing elsewhere). It turned out to be a smart move!
The morning the shot was taken dawned clear and warm, and carp were pushing heavy wakes all over the place. A Hare’s Ear did the trick, and we were glad that the little trout reels we were carrying had ample backing.
Sadly, a couple of years later the flat was no more. The last time I saw it, it was mostly grass, and the big lake’s edge was perhaps a hundred yards from where we had first found fish. Maybe the water will return some day, and slide back up over the rock slabs and hard-packed sand. And maybe the carp will be back, too, ready for the orange light of dawn and a couple of bleary-eyed anglers tossing fluff and hope their way…
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