I love experimenting with portraits, especially of Maria, whose face is so open and expressive. She doesn’t pose, I just have to take my best shots. I’m allowed to do that.

I softened this image in a non-literal, non-digital way, and I think it worked to take a portrait and combine the best elements of digital photography with portrait painting, using AI (artificial intelligence software) to cross the divide.

I love the way the software preserved Maria’s eye, the center of the portrait, and of her smile. The color of her slouch hat and her scarf helped to frame the portrait. I am having fun with the new AI editing software, using when to use it, when to not.

This image brings a sense of light that I could not get with digital photography.

I was terrified of losing my Aperture program, yet it opened me up to a new way of looking at photography, and of course, the world beyond. Okay, not off to Albany and Bishop Maginn High School.