Rock Photographs as Graphic Material

Like many people, I have dabbled with photography and graphic art. Much of my learning has been self taught, mostly through my profession. Working at museums without a lot of extra money to hire work out, I learned to do a lot on my own. This saved money, but in truth I got a lot out of the experiences because I love to learn.

One of the things that I discovered along the line was that you often need an interesting background in your graphics. Say I was laying out a magazine ad or flyer, just laying the words on the page by themselves often looked like something was missing. A good image of some sort screened into the back to give some texture to the final result often was the key.

You could achieve a similar effect by printing on more expensive and textured paper. However, this often adds to the production costs. When the piece is printed you can print the background along with everything else in one step, not adding any cost.

One of my favorite places to get interesting backgrounds was from nature. This also fit in well with the graphic theme of most of what I designed since it was for natural history museums. I found that rocks often really worked well. I took many photographs to have on hand of granite, marble, and even travertine tile. The complex patterns of the minerals within the rock and the way light often played over the rock’s surface provided interesting graphic material to work from.

Back inside when I needed just a little something to spice up a layout, I could turn to these digital images. They could be stripped of color and made into a gray scale, cropped as needed, and screened faintly into the background. You do not want the graphic to compete with the content of the layout, of course. When done well, a viewer of the finished product might not even consciously notice what was there, but gets the feeling that it is more than just words on a page. Besides, you can even use all the great rock photographs as desktop wallpaper on your computer.