Welcome to My World of

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I am an amateur photographer with a technical and computer background. Way back in the "dark ages" of 1993 I decided to look into digitally processing my images. My first computer was a Gateway 33 MHz, $3000 computer with 8 megabytes of RAM and a 1X CD player. Wow! Although Photoshow 2 was available it was far too expensive for me so I started using Aldus PhotoStyler. Unfortunately Adobe bought out Aldus and axed Photostyler, so I had to "upgrade" to Adobe Photoshop. For power, Photoshop couldn't be beaten but I quickly leraned it was memory hungry and not nearly as user-friendly as Photostyler. To continue processing my images, which I had put onto Kodak Photo-CD's �, I saved up and bought another 16 megabytes of memory at the unheard of low price of $600 (remember this was 1994 now). Finally I was on my way. Presented here are some of my earlier images followed by a few of the newer ones. Some of these images are "straight", others have been improved by adjusting the color balance, or removing background clutter. Some have been heavily manipilated in the computer.

This is an almost straight image. The heavy overcast picked up some of the green and the sky looked un-natural. I adjusted the color balance until the clouds appeared about right. It was raining when I took this picture, but I think it would have lost the feeling in bright sun.

� Richard Witkover 1995

Aruba is a very comforatble island to visit. The people are among the friendliest in the caribbean. This island has a variety of textures which you can experience in a one day drive around its perimeter. We had just rounded the northern tip going counter-clockwise when we came to this lighthouse as the sun was setting. The photograph is as it was taken. The wind bent shape on the right is a Divi-Divi tree. Aruba Lighthouse.February 1993.� Richard Witkover 1993



This is the latest version of one of the first photographs I worked on with the computer. Maryann was a model whom we photographed at the Huntington Camera Club. I was unhappy with the original photograph because someone had put a red filter on the lights which made the coloring un-natural and the model's beauty was lost. Maryann, February 1990.

� Richard Witkover 1990





This image came from two others. The pelicans were photographed at the boardwalk in Clearwater FL. The background was unusable so I cut out these great birds and pasted them on a nice scene of the Everglades (well atleast thats in Florida too). The result was not bad but a little stiff. Then I passed the composite through a solarizing filter, adjusting the levels until I got this result.
Solarized Pelicans, April 1993. � Richard Witkover 1993




The morning was foggy as we neared the harbor in Juneau, Alaska. It began to lift and the sailboat appeared. The original photograph had a lot of clutter and was rather dull in tone. I vignetted the image and increased the contrast to get this result.
Foggy morning in Juneau Harbor, Alaska, July 1990. � Richard Witkover 1990





Back in the '70s, before I knew better, I used that film that gives both negative and slides (WOW!). Unfortunatly the stuff was grainy and the processing poor so both the slides and negs faded. I tried to salvage this one by putting it on a photo CD but even after changing the color balance it never looked right. So I decided to see how it would look with a BIG color shift, at least on the background.
Geese on Blue Meadow. Original photo 1975. Computer enhancement 1995. � Richard Witkover 1995

This is a picture taken through an open bus window as we slowly rolled through a small town in Costa Rica. I wonder what the girl was thinking, looking at the bus of tourists? The picture was taken on film in 1996 and scanned using a Nikon Coolscan IV in 2004 when I decided to see if I could extract good images from flawed negatives.

Girl in the Window, Costa Rica. � Richard Witkover 2004

New Mexico is one of my favorite places. This house for sale was located in Madrid between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Madrid was an old coal mining town which was abandoned after oil fed diesels replaced coal locomotives in the railroads. In the 60's and 70's squatters stated moving in and the town was revived as an artists colony, but there are still some bargains to be had. This was the first trip in which I went all digital.

House for Sale. � Richard Witkover 2004

This was another rescued image thanks to Photoshop. Originally taken in 1998 at Kent Pond, near Killington, Vermont, it was too flat due to the subdued lighting. Photoshop brought it back to life.

Vermont 1998-Kent Pond, � Richard Witkover 2004

Visit my wife Carole's page.
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