Above are two images. The first is a famous photograph by Annie Leibovitz of Pete Townshend. The photo appeared in Rolling Stone Issue #320, June 26, 1980. This amazing "bloody fingers" photo was further made infamous through it's "cameo" on Damone's bedroom wall in the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
The second image is an illustration I did today of the same photograph. All I did was redraw the photo using line variation and then added color and halftones in Adobe Illustrator. Big deal, huh. Well the reason I did this was to illustrate the difference between photography and illustration. I didn't change or add too much simply to exemplify the topic I'm discussing here.
So what does the photograph do? It portrays iconic Pete Townshend with a bloody hand...essentially getting across the idea that he played guitar so hard that it made his finger tips bleed. The photo perfectly captures Townshend's expression of tiredness as well as satisfaction. I consider the photo to be a masterpiece of photography and feel that I could look at it for hours.
Continue reading "The Difference Between a Photograph
and an Illustration" »











