Royal Enfield C5 catches eye of artist who paints with photos

Royal Enfield C5 artwork started as multiple photographs.

A Royal Enfield C5 motorcycle so impressed an American artist visiting St. Bart's Island in the Caribbean that he chose to immortalize it using a technique that combines photography and painting.

He gives his name only as Dotorsid and he is an artist in Gatlinburg, Tenn.

"The Royal Enfield piece is one of my favorites I have done in a long time," he replied to my inquiry.

"It is processed in HDR from three exposures of it and I printed a 12x18 yesterday and it is quite impressive.

"My works begin in the camera but are worked over for many hours to get them to the place I feel good about, and that no one could just walk up to the same scene and click a shutter and get the same image.

"I did have a walk-in gallery here until the economy tanked out in the fall of 2008, so now most of my works are online and in a local coffee shop here.

"The Royal Enfield was originally three exposures (under, normal and over) of the bike as it sat outside a cafe on St. Barts Island. (The print was made by) taking the best aspects of all three exposures and processing it as HDR (High Dynamic Range) — a technique that works really well with metal subjects.

"The fine art prints are produced on a 24-inch Epson printer onto paper or canvas with an eight-color ink set.

"I only happened to capture that one view of the bike and mainly because I had never heard of Royal Enfield before. It wasn't until I was home several months later, and spent several hours preparing the image that I realized I should have taken a few more angles."

Artwork of other motor vehicles on Doctorsid's website includes Corvette, Ford, Studebaker, Pontiac and a bunch of trucks. He seems to prefer vintage vehicles, either in pristine or in well used condition.

His full profile describes an artist with exceptional photographic and technical experiences — but it doesn't tell you his full name!

It does provide this additional description of his technique:

"While all of my images do begin as 'photographs' they are not photographic prints. Many of the images have been painted over or drawn over and digitally combined with the original photograph to produce an effect that makes the image hard to distinguish between a painting or photograph."

The print of the Royal Enfield is advertised on CraigsList for $25. It is also available on canvas, and in larger sizes. See Doctorsid's website www.blackbearartgallery.com for details or call 865-809-2284.