{"id":49017,"date":"2017-06-14T04:24:02","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T10:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=49017"},"modified":"2017-06-14T04:24:02","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T10:24:02","slug":"a-use-of-one-of-my-images-that-warms-the-heart-of-this-old-teacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/14\/a-use-of-one-of-my-images-that-warms-the-heart-of-this-old-teacher\/","title":{"rendered":"A Use Of One Of My Images That Warms The Heart Of This Old Teacher"},"content":{"rendered":"

On March 20 of this year I received a request from Kylee Wiseman to use one of my American Kestrel images as a reference for a painting. At that time Kylee was a high school student in Oregon (she has just recently graduated) and enrolled in an Advanced Placement art class.\u00a0She was creating a portfolio that revolves around a common theme and since she’s an avid bird lover her chosen theme was “birds in interesting, unexpected compositions”.<\/p>\n

Though it’s\u00a0my general policy to require a licensing fee for commercial use of my images I\u00a0often donate their use for conservation or educational purposes. And Kylee’s email was so polite, so well written and so… appropriate for the situation (believe me, many such requests are far from polite, or appropriate – here’s an example<\/a>) I allowed her to use my image as requested (even though\u00a0she offered up front to pay for it, which is quite\u00a0unusual). After all, I\u00a0used to teach Advanced Placement and Honors\u00a0classes (biology)\u00a0and I knew it would\u00a0be personally rewarding to\u00a0get “back in the groove again” by helping her out with her project.<\/p>\n

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This is the photo that Kylee asked to use as a reference – an American Kestrel taking off. It has several flaws (no light on the face or in the eye, not quite tack sharp) but the strength of the image is the interesting and somewhat unusual position of the wings and I suspect that’s what grabbed her fancy since it fit her theme so well.<\/p>\n

Two days ago\u00a0I received another thoughtful\u00a0email from Kylee stating that her project was complete,\u00a0she had just graduated from high school and\u00a0she included\u00a0a sincere “thank you” for\u00a0allowing her to use my image as a reference. She included a high quality scan of that painting and a couple of others and I thought they\u00a0were so good I offered to feature them on my blog. She enthusiastically agreed.<\/p>\n

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Copyright Kylee Wiseman, image used by permission<\/em><\/p>\n

This is Kylee’s painting of “my” kestrel (I added the watermark, I’m sure she’d have done it more artistically). She told me ahead of time that her intention was to “remove the branch and redraw the feet as if the kestrel had just taken off from a branch just out of the bottom of the frame”. Her version has much better light on the bird than mine does and I adore it. Here’s how she described the technique she used:<\/p>\n