Detroit, Michigan Fine Art Photographs
I was one of the many artists at the 2022 Ann Arbor The Guild art fair. I wanted to create fine art photography using Detroit and Ann Arbor as subject matter. I was lucky during the two days I was there, the Detroit Tigers baseball team played a day game. I made it to Detroit early enough to get to the stadium in time for the game. Outside the ballpark is a giant statue of a tiger. People were getting ready to go into the stadium and taking selfies in front of the tiger. I chose this image because the couple got their photo taken in front of the statue. Of course, the tiger looks like he is about to pounce on the couple.
Detroit has many beautiful historical buildings. One of the best art deco buildings is the Fisher Building. I was in awe and wanted to create a architecture photographs when I walked into the building. Then I looked up at the ceiling and knew the those were the fine art photographs I wanted to create.
I visited Greektown in Detroit and created an image of the Pegasus.
I wanted to create a couple of images of Detroit’s automobile history. I found historic sales slicks from General Motors with 1960 illustrations. I created a few photographs on Belle Isle and as I was taking photographs, I noticed the Renaissance Center in the frame’s background. The Renaissance Center is the world headquarters of General Motors. I used this photograph and paired it with the illustration of the two 1960s Cadillacs. The other illustration I used was of a 1960s Buick. I paired that illustration with a photograph of the University of Michigan law library building.
I repeatedly heard from people at the Ann Arbor art fair, “Are these paintings or photographs?” They are photographs. I use a high-resolution camera with a lot of visual information buried within the image. I spend time bringing all that visual information out. That allows me to create images that have a painterly photo-realistic look.
You can see photographs Dan has created of other cities. Dan has a page of photographs in Cincinnati, Ohio, Indianapolis, Indiana, Akron, Ohio, Toledo, Ohio and his home town Dayton, Ohio. Dan Cleary has been a professional photographer for over 30 years and owns Cleary Creative Photography. You can see his commercial and portrait photography at ClearyCreativePhoto.com.