Melisa Phillips
I am a San Francisco Artist, living & creating here for 20+ years. I have always taken a lot of photographs, but until recently, I never thought to display my work. When I started to teach myself to paint, after graduating college, it was with a desire to capture the compositions I saw in photographs. I started using my own photos as subject matter for my paintings, but not to show as artwork, by themselves. Then, as the wave of digital, iPhone photography, and social media started to sweep over our culture; I returned to photography with new set of skills I learned from painting, and a new desire to display my photography to a wider audience.
My years of painting taught me to hone my eye, and to compose my photos like paintings. When I take a shot, I am thinking of color, line and value more than I was before. I am more aware of how to balance the shot, and how to use the photo frame to improve the composition and add the element of drama.
Since I have been composing photos for the social media audience, I realize that I edit photos in order to grab the attention of a person scrolling through a feed of other images. I want to hit the viewer with colors and patterns that pull at their eyes, and draw their attention in a forceful way to create an impact that makes them stop, look again, and maybe notice something new.
