Miles McCormack aka “Miles of Color” is a 25 year old photographer and digital artist, living in Los Angeles. Miles grew up in Temecula, California, a place known for wine and casinos. Even though he was too young as a kid to enjoy those pleasures, Miles would play outside with his family’s animals or make believe in the yard of where his house was located in the countryside. In the beginning of his art career, Miles first love was music. At the age of eight, Miles learned how to play the drums. Using his drum skills he took part in multiple bands in middle school and high school. Although after grade school, Miles went to many community colleges. However college never stuck with him so he often dropped out midway through the semester. Although during school he did learn skills that went towards his current passion of photography. Such as has skills from his graphic design classes and creative writing. He said in a recent interview “I learned discipline by having deadlines for projects and having to work harder than I ever have before, pushing myself to create things that I didn’t even know I was capable of.” When Miles moved to Davis, California at the age of 23, he finally fell in love with photography. In a new town, with only a few friends, Miles discovered an old camera that one of his bands used to film rehearsals. During that time, he would take pictures of anything and everything he thought was appealing to the eye. Things such as birds, stray cats, latte art,strangers, and even his own eyes. Eventually he picked up portrait photography and says “I never looked back.” He sets up photo shoots with models all the time and tries to shoot as often as possible. Today he posts all of his work on Instagram and offers free advice and editing videos on Youtube.
Mile’s photography shows off all of his editing skills. This is because of his surrealism style in his work. You’ll often see before and after photos on Mile’s Instagram account of how he’ll add a new sky, or a completely different background. You’ll even see auroras circling a model or a ring of light around a beautiful human. Many of his photoshop editing skills are also just changing up the light on the model or even lighting in the background. When looking at a final product from Mile’s you can see the surrealism that looks so natural and also blends in with the rest of the picture
Miles doesn’t have a elemental passion that’s driving to create his work other than pure curiosity and the fun of it. But when Miles posts he wants people to stop scrolling through Instagram and actually look at his photos. He wants you to feel something. He wishes his photos to connect with Miles and feel the same feelings together. At the moment that’s his only inspiration. When he took photos when he lived in Davis, California those pictures were a way to show is family what he saw and experienced on a daily basis, so when he eventually moved on to portrait photography, he was fully prepared and ready to take on a new challenge. Miles expressed to me he chose Instagram to show off his art because he could connect to the world and maintain that connection. As a follower I discovered him from another art page, which that only purpose is to share artists.
"Unique Swatches"
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"Welcome Home"
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"Strong Flower"
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Miles of Color pushed me to try new things such as editing in photoshop and taking photos I never thought to take. For example, In the first photo I recreated, I used a pattern to put on my model's face. Even though I learned that technique in class, I wasn't sure when was a perfect time to use that technique. In the second recreation I learned to play with colors and highlights, as well as lighting. Although I believe the last photo was my best recreation. I learned how to add rose petals into the image and make it seem normal. In the future, Mile of Color will continue to push me to look out side the box, edit my models using frequency separation and playing with colors. He influences me to try something new and take my editing skills to a new level.
In the first image, the background doesn't really compare to the original photo from Miles of Color. Although I was able to recreate the face pattern as best as I possibly could. I wish the background could of look more similar, but it was the best I had since I went to a local hardware store. Even though they look similar but not perfect, I believe for my first try at recreating Miles, It was a success.
For the second Image I went to a local laundry mat. My model wasn't able to get into the washing machine since there was a weight limit of 40 pounds so we had to improvise and make her sit in the machine and to try to recreate model's pose as best as possible. Since the lighting was completely different in both of the locations (Miles and mine) I had to go into photoshop and play around with the lighting, the add colors. The end result though was the best it could get which to me resulting in a successful recreating.
The last image was the easiest to photograph. The models' poses are similar but not the same. The big outfit piece in the pictures was the bold red coat, my models coat was short and more vibrant, so instead of matching the floating rose petals to the original picture I chose to make the petal match the coat. This it was Miles did in his photo, but since his coat wasn't as vibrant, neither were the rose petals.
For the second Image I went to a local laundry mat. My model wasn't able to get into the washing machine since there was a weight limit of 40 pounds so we had to improvise and make her sit in the machine and to try to recreate model's pose as best as possible. Since the lighting was completely different in both of the locations (Miles and mine) I had to go into photoshop and play around with the lighting, the add colors. The end result though was the best it could get which to me resulting in a successful recreating.
The last image was the easiest to photograph. The models' poses are similar but not the same. The big outfit piece in the pictures was the bold red coat, my models coat was short and more vibrant, so instead of matching the floating rose petals to the original picture I chose to make the petal match the coat. This it was Miles did in his photo, but since his coat wasn't as vibrant, neither were the rose petals.
Throughout each piece I used multiple elements and principles of photography. For the first image I played around with light, value, and emphasis. I used these to make my model stand out, create a lot of color, and to make her story stand out. In the second recreation, I played around with lighting, color, line, and value. I used these to create highlights, focal point, and lighting to try to match the original. Lastly in the third image I used movement, balance, unity, and color to create the image I made. The rose petals help show off the movement and color. While the model represents unity with the petals because of the color and where they are located in the image itself. These photo recreations is what I believe is some of my best work and shows the majority of what I learned in Digital Photography.
Lastly I would like to thank the following people that helped me accomplish everything I've ever done in Digital Photography
- Mrs. Giltner
- Izzy
- Nigel
- Courtney
- Ciel
- Caroline
- Julie McDonnell
- My parents
- Ranger (my dog)