Robert Rigel

My career in art and design started with my first dream. From the very beginning, I have always had intense dreaming experiences. Later on, I learned a lot of people have similar experiences known as “lucid dreams.” Lucid dreams are different from other kinds of dreams because in them, you take control. Sure, you may find yourself flying with bananas, but the real trick is to take control and determine where you’re going! In my dream I learned that even though bananas are pretty dumb, they do fly in pattern formation. You have to be careful with bananas, though, as they are likely to bump you right off course!

When you dream lucidly, your conscious mind takes control of your subconscious mind. When this happens, you can begin taking control of your life.

16″x10″, digital photography and Photoshop

The subject of this image is Gino Nave – a good friend and the Associate Director of Web Design and New Media at the Academy of Art University. He’s also a very talented musician working on his fourth CD release; his group is “Achievements in Sound.” Gino and I share an interest in the Beatles, so for Christmas 2009 I transported him to Penney Lane. The background is created from various images: Penney Lane is from the wall that marks the spot in Liverpool, the various posters and tickets laying around are manufactured from a variety of sources including a poster I created in InDesign for “Kite.”

If you look closely, you can spot the four Beatles, George Martin and a carving from the gates of Strawberry Fields nearby.

15″x9.25″, 35mm photography, digital photography and Photoshop, giclee print on Somerset Professional Digital Art Paper from Legion (acid-free, 100% rag)

One of my responsibilities and joys is teaching Photoshop to first semester New Media majors at the university. Coming up with fun assignments that are both engaging and that help develop Photoshop skills is always challenging. The concept behind this assignment was to combine something very small with something very big. My wife, Lori, held up the statuette against a blue sky one weekend. The next weekend there were some fabulous clouds not so typical of where we live, so I couldn’t resist combining the two images as an example of what I wanted my students to accomplish.

Hopefully the end result is charming, at least to those of us who know and appreciate the “Wallace and Gromit” animations from Great Britain.

12″x8″, digital photography and Photoshop

After having been married for over a year, my wife, Lori Fujimoto, and I finally found a chance to get away from the riggors of the workplace. Yosemite Valley is one of those spiritual places that just can’t be explained, talked about or represented visually. My hope is that when this panorama is finally printed and displayed it may give others at least a glimpse and a feeling of what we witnessed that day as the clouds rolled over the valley alternatively illuminating each feature of the valley.

36″x12″, digital photography, seven images stitched together from different times of day to create one, vast panorama.

While visiting friends in the ancient town of Cori, Italy (just south of Rome), I had time to explore the side streets and courtyards of this hilltop town. In one of those courtyards I discovered these remnants of
a Roman structure.

It was late afternoon and the sun was casting golden light revealing violet shadows over the stones. To capture the mood of the moment, I applied various color corrections, sharpened the details of the stones and corrected for lens distortion. I cropped according to Golden Section.

12″ x 17″, archival pigments printed on Somerset Professional Digital Art Paper from Legion

As I mentioned earlier, you can’t drive in Gandria, so this kind of cart, along with bicycles and scooters, is the only way the villagers can get goods in and out of Gandria.
While this may look real, so much work in Photoshop has been completed, it’s really more a painting in pixels and channels than photograph. I love channels!

7.25″x10″, giclee print on Somerset Professional Digital Art Paper from Legion (acid-free, 100% rag, and special thanks to David Biedney)

The guard at the Bargello Museum in Florence eyed me with suspicion as I took this image of a window above the previous gate along the courtyard stairs to the upper level to find Donatelllo’s David. She threatened to take my camera, but when I explained (with hand gestures and my few words in Italian) that I was interested only in the architectural details of the museum, she relented. It was still weird for her and I noticed she followed me around for a little while, but I got the images I needed.

This window reminds me of the window I drew of Shakespeare’s Portia many years ago. The Divine Proportion was my guide in cropping the image.

7.25″x10″, giclee print on Somerset Professional Digital Art Paper from Legion (acid-free, 100% rag)

The wood of this beautiful doorway glows with history. As you walk around the back of the Duomo, this door will appear somewhere near the Museo Del Opera. A bus crashed into a steel post just before I took this image.

7.25″x10″, giclee print on Somerset Professional Digital Art Paper from Legion (acid-free, 100% rag)

On the way to the cathedral at the top of Siena, I noticed this sunny courtyard and its well.

7.25″x10″, giclee print on Somerset Professional Digital Art Paper from Legion (acid-free, 100% rag)

This lovely pink door is very near an excellent pub In Leicester. I wondered whether it had been flooded or faded by the sun, neither seeming very likely in that location. Just a couple of months later, a terrorist’s bomb exploded very nearby.

7.25″x10″, giclee print on Somerset Professional Digital Art Paper from Legion (acid-free, 100% rag)

After driving on Cornish roads (which by itself is a shock to American senses) and after the wettest of rains came this brilliant sunny afternoon on the Lizard Peninsula. When the sun broke through, I saw this lovely chair on a hillside overlooking the English Channel. Missing a part, it seemed precious, lonely, brave and strong all at once. (And, you guessed it, the Divine Proportion played a role in the cropping.)

7.25″x10″, giclee print on Somerset Professional Digital Art Paper from Legion (acid-free, 100% rag)

In this ancient Cornish village, there is a church and this doorway. History abounds on the Cornish coast. If you go there, try the Three Tuns Pub.

7.25″x10″, giclee print on Somerset Professional Digital Art Paper from Legion (acid-free, 100% rag)