COMPUTER
WHIMSEYS
Designed By Jamie BenAziz-Zacharatos
All designs Copywrited
Composites made on the computer
combining photos and surreal or realistic backgrounds I
create--many times with a good story behind it.
Can be reproduced in any size. For gifts, promotional purpose,
invitations, holiday cards, etc. Photographs used are also
shot by Jamie. Most of these examples were created for her
martial arts company, but custom "computer whimseys"
can be created for any personal or business story.
Computer Whimsey custom designs start
at $1500.00.
This includes concept, photo session and styling, scanning
and separating photos, putting in backgrounds, and producing
poster.
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"SIGHTSEEING"
By Jamie BenAziz-Zacharatos
THE STORY: One
of our Karate students (pictured) was going to school in
Russia. When she finished school there, she was planning
to fly to Paris from Russia to get "officially"
engaged to her then "unofficial" fiance. This
was the custom gift I created for the occasion.
I photographed our student doing a jump kick, then combined
photographs of Russia and Paris to blend as if they were
one location, and placed her in the new background, suggesting
that this may be an efficient mode of travel.
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"NIGHT
WARRIORS"
By Jamie BenAziz-Zacharatos
THE
STORY:
One of our boxing students, an attorney (left), and his
instructor, pro-kickboxing champion (and my husband) Master
Zacharatos (right), wanted me to create an imposing picture
that would be the first thing opposing councel would see
upon entering his office.
I photographed the fighters at the attorney's office (that
however disappointing to the attorney, lacks a real boxing
ring). I then placed them in this background that I enhanced
with special effects. The attorney who also refers to himself
as a "street kid from Jersey" was very happy with
the result.
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"NICOLETTE'S
MAGICAL KINGDOM"
By Jamie BenAziz-Zacharatos (Nicolette's mom)
THE
STORY:
Each year I want to create a special invatation for my daughter's
birthday. As soon as I saw this tapestry, I was inspired.
I enlarged the horse of the original tapestry to make it
more promenant, and photographed my daughter on her rocking
horse to be in the correct position, and dressed her in
a cape I made. I then placed her image in the tapestry.
Of course I then had no choice but to live up to the invitation,
and create an actual magical kingdom for our guests with
real horses--don't ask!
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"NICOLETTE'S
MAGICAL GARDEN"
Photo composite created by Jamie BenAziz-Zacharatos
THE STORY:
I get inspired by a photos, or in this case, a greeting
card. I told my daughter to hold her Magic wand with her
arms extended
(so her hands would be in the correct position), and then
to kick her leg back. Because her skin
tone is darker than the bunny in the orgininal card, I
put the white and yellow flowers behind her arms and legs,
and a yellow one for her to step on, for more contrast.
I also made the central image (the Bunny, then Nicolette)
larger, to become more promenant.
When looking for images and inspiration, I know than I
have found what I'm looking for when I can visulize ahead
of time what I'm going to do with the original image (a
photo, card, tapestry, etc) before I even get started.
Then I just get to work with "photoshop" to
make my visualization come to life!
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PIRATE
CAPTIAN NICOLETTE!
By Jamie BenAziz-Zacharatos
THE STORY: Like
most kids being exposed to all the pirate movies and merchandising
around these days, our daughter also got very interested
in Pirates. Yet unlike most girls who want to be pirate
princesses, she wanted to be pirate captian. Luckily, children's
books have also kept up with the times, and I bought her
a book that told the story of the rough tough little girl
priates with their own ship, who "allowed" the
boy to join them on their adventure. Well, that was it,
now she had to have her own ship too! Luckily, her mom (that's
me), can pretty much give her anything she wants thanks
to my trusty Mac computer and photoshop program! It helps
to have such a wonderful model as my daughter, and as she
gets older, it's so much easier to have her pose correctly
knowing how I'll be placing her in the photo. I then had
to find real pirates for her party to do a sword fight and
treasure hunt! That's another story!
In this case I knew I wanted to place her on a ship, and
I went about finding a stock image online, that's the first
time I had ever done that. I knew the right photo when I
saw it, tweeked it a bit to suit my purposes, and dressed
my daughter up in costume, and posed her so she'd be holding
the ropes on the ship in the photo!
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"BOXING
BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT"
(yeah you heard right!) By Jamie BenAziz-Zacharatos
(I
took out the personal information on this announcement about
our daughter's birth for this website)
THE
STORY:
Even the birth announcement for our daughter that I wrote
and designed reflected that we teach Karate, Boxing &
Kickboxing (I was teaching into my 9th month!) The announcement
reads: "in this corner, weighing in at 7lbs and 1oz,
the next" infant weight" champion of the world.
. .
I
bought a ready made card with the flowers to use as the
base for the border, then scanned it in. I added the boxing
gloves and moved and added some of the flowers around to
suit my design. I then put in a boxing ring with our name
on it as well as the text. I continued the design of the
flowers and boxing ring onto the envelope as well.
I liked the contrast of the sweet flowers with an agressive
boxing ring, along with the contrast of the boxing text
that mimics the announcer of a prize fight, yet we're describing
the birth of a sweet innocent baby.
No one we sent it to had ever received a birth announcement
like that, and it was great to wait for the wild reactions
after we mailed them! It adds alot when you can add personal
touches to otherwise standard annoucement cards. It really
stands out from the crowd.
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"QUICKDRAW"
By Jamie BenAziz-Zacharatos
THE STORY: OOne
of our kickboxing students competed in amateur fights. This
talented fighter earned the nick name "quickdraw"
for reasons other than you may think. Aside from the obvious
of being quick on the draw, the outcome of most of his fights
resulted in draws, not wins or losses. I wanted to create
something for him to remember his days as a fighter.
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"DAD'S
80th"
By Jamie BenAziz-Zacharatos
THE
STORY: My dad had an aeronautical
engineering company, and we needed a special card for the
menu for his birthday dinner party. I gave him his own jet--on
this card.
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HOLIDAY CARDS FOR
"ZACHARATOS KARATE & KICKBOXING AND SOCCER
"
By now all of our clients expect me to make a spectacular
holiday each year.
I have fun photographing us and our students, and placing
us all in suprising locations as you can see by the above
and below cards--
The photo composite directly above, is a background photo
in Ireland, the photo above that in our "home gym"
is in Russia--we sure save on travel expenses!
(I need a new photo of me kicking, I think I've used
it for enough years!)
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HOLIDAY
CARD 2006
FOR ZACHARATOS KARATE & KICKBOXING AND SOCCER
As I was last year, I was inspired
again by a photo from a Calendar to use as my background
for our holiday card. In this case, in the card above, I
used for my background, a painting by Salvador Dali, 1954,
titled, "the maximum speed of rafael's madonna"
Most years, I have no idea what I'm going to do for our
card until I see the right photo, and I'll know it when
I see it! So, I wander the calendar section of our local
bookstore, and sift through the many photos until I get
an idea! Then I scan in the photo, and then take photos
of us, and then work my magic in photoshop. Calendars are
inexpensive and can be a great source of photos to inspire
many projects.
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HOLIDAY CARD 2007
"Zacharatos Karate, Kickboxing and Soccer"
This year I knew I wanted a French theme, since our daughter and I are studying French, and it is my husband's first language.
At first I got photos of the Eiffel Tower and placed us all on it, but it looked kind of cheesy. So then I went back to my trusty calenders. At the book store, I saw a black and white calendar of Paris, and as soon as I saw this picture, I knew it was the one.
My first thought was to place each of us on the pedistals replacing the statues that are actually on the pedistals. That didn't work because my husband and I would be too small in the distance, so I only put our daughter on the first one, while extending the size of the pedistal to make room.
I also took alot of the color saturation out of the photos of all three of us, yet not making us completely black and white, because when we were in full color on the black and white background, it was just too distracting.
I think the end result was a classy cool looking card, and more subtle with the Eiffel Tower just peeking out in the background. |
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Holiday
party invitation for "Zacharatos Karate & Kickboxing and Soccer"
By Jamie BenAziz-Zacharatos
Because there were a limited amount of invitations, each one
was printed on the computer and then hand glued to a copper
card stock. All Graphics were created using Photoshop program
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