Kokomo

from $1,000.00

‘Kokomo’ is an art piece that combines flowers photographed by me in Jamaica, Aruba, and Cabo San Lucas. The name derives from The Beach Boys’ song about a fanciful place named Kokomo. The song lyrics mention several Caribbean destinations including Aruba and Jamaica. My objective was to assemble a flower montage where the photographs have a location authenticity. In the art piece, the flowers are arranged in the form of a comet on a textured background representing a dark sky filled with stars and whisps of clouds. The comet’s wide plume comprises 9 streams, with each stream largely photographed a single Caribbean location. Counting from the upper right, I photographed the first 4 streams including the comet head in Jamaica, the next 3 streams in Aruba, and the final 2 streams in Cabo San Lucas. The diversity of color and form of the flowers is apparent, with more than 55 different species represented in the art piece.

I took all the photographs using an iPhone 12 Pro Max. Using Affinity Photo for editing, I resized each photograph to promote effective image segmentation, segmented each photograph to isolate the primary flower, exported the resulting photograph on a transparent background, and then combined each of the roughly 60 photographs in the Kokomo document. The time to segment a flower from its surroundings was typically 30 minutes or more, with some particularly difficult flowers taking more than 10 hours.

I have chosen to print the art using a substrate of Dibond, which is an aluminum composite material. The process overlays the Dibond with a silver halide print that supports 610 dpi resolution. A satin laminate covers the print for protection, and the entire assembly is placed in a slim white wooden float frame. I have chosen the satin finish to accentuate the visual impact.

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‘Kokomo’ is an art piece that combines flowers photographed by me in Jamaica, Aruba, and Cabo San Lucas. The name derives from The Beach Boys’ song about a fanciful place named Kokomo. The song lyrics mention several Caribbean destinations including Aruba and Jamaica. My objective was to assemble a flower montage where the photographs have a location authenticity. In the art piece, the flowers are arranged in the form of a comet on a textured background representing a dark sky filled with stars and whisps of clouds. The comet’s wide plume comprises 9 streams, with each stream largely photographed a single Caribbean location. Counting from the upper right, I photographed the first 4 streams including the comet head in Jamaica, the next 3 streams in Aruba, and the final 2 streams in Cabo San Lucas. The diversity of color and form of the flowers is apparent, with more than 55 different species represented in the art piece.

I took all the photographs using an iPhone 12 Pro Max. Using Affinity Photo for editing, I resized each photograph to promote effective image segmentation, segmented each photograph to isolate the primary flower, exported the resulting photograph on a transparent background, and then combined each of the roughly 60 photographs in the Kokomo document. The time to segment a flower from its surroundings was typically 30 minutes or more, with some particularly difficult flowers taking more than 10 hours.

I have chosen to print the art using a substrate of Dibond, which is an aluminum composite material. The process overlays the Dibond with a silver halide print that supports 610 dpi resolution. A satin laminate covers the print for protection, and the entire assembly is placed in a slim white wooden float frame. I have chosen the satin finish to accentuate the visual impact.