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From Photograph to Painting: A Grand Canyon Transformation

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Every so often a photo sits in the archive for years before it tells me what it wants to become. This one did.

I took the original photograph on a 2017 trip to the Grand Canyon — a fairly straightforward shot of the South Rim, a lone pine holding its ground at the edge, the canyon doing what the canyon does in the distance. Good light, decent composition, nothing wrong with it as a photograph. But it sat there, and eventually I came back to it wanting something different: not a document of the place, but an impression of it.

Original photograph of the Grand Canyon South Rim, lone pine tree at cliff edge, layered red rock canyon walls in the background
The original 2017 photograph — straightforward, well-lit, unretouched beyond basic processing.

The transformation happened entirely in traditional digital darkroom software — no AI involved, since this predates that whole conversation by several years. I worked through Lightroom for the initial raw processing, Photoshop for compositing and color work, and Topaz Studio for the painterly stylization that gives the canyon walls that layered, almost oil-on-canvas texture.

Painterly digital rendition of the Grand Canyon, same composition as the original photograph, with stylized brushwork texture and saturated red rock tones
Grand Canyon Rim — Painterly Landscape — © John Corney 2017

What strikes me looking at the two side by side now, years later, is how much the second version relies on the first. Every decision in the painterly rendition — where the color intensifies, where the shadows go darker, how the pine reads against the canyon — is still anchored to what was actually there. It's not invention so much as emphasis: pulling forward what the eye felt standing at the rim, rather than only what the camera recorded.

Available on Redbubble

Grand Canyon Rim — Painterly Landscape is available at my Redbubble shop across the full product range — art prints, canvas, greeting cards, throw pillows, notebooks, tote bags, and more. It makes a striking statement piece for a study, office, or anywhere with wall space that can handle some scale.

Grand Canyon Rim on Redbubble

You can also browse the wider desert southwest collection — canyons, cactus, and painterly landscape work — at my Redbubble shop, KornKob Art. Or search Redbubble for kornkobart (one word).

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Samoan Youth

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This young man was preparing with his friends for his moment of fame on the stage at the Samoan Village at the Polynesian dance festival called Pasifika in Auckland in March this year. Samoan Youth Canon EOS 20D 1/30sec at f/20 ISO 200 Canon 70-300mm lens at 300mm More photographs from the same Pasifika Festival day can be found in my new post, Faces of Pasifika 2007 — A Day at Auckland's Pacific Festival .
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The Active Seniors Collection: Ollie Grandpa and Heart Granny

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Ollie Grandpa — © John Corney The whole spirit of retirement, done right, is this: after a long working life, you finally have time to do the things you always wanted to. Not everyone slows down when they retire. Some people speed up. Some people get on a skateboard for the first time at 68, or ride a motor scooter through the city just because they've earned the right to, or start showing up to family gatherings in outfits that require sunglasses. That's the spirit I wanted to capture in my Active Seniors series — a collection of cheerful illustrations celebrating older people who have decided, quite firmly, that they're not done yet. Meet Ollie Grandpa Ollie Grandpa is the piece above — a spirited older man catching serious air on his skateboard, silver hair flying, a flower-adorned helmet keeping him sensible, a striped scarf trailing behind him because scarves in the wi...
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Cool Granny in Her Austin A35 — © John Corney 2026 This one has a real backstory, and I'd like to tell it properly. An Auckland Sighting On one of my annual visits home to New Zealand, I was walking through central Auckland — at the corner of Queen Street and Karangahape Road (K Road, as everyone calls it) — when a small yellow car went past me and stopped me mid-stride. It was a beautifully kept Austin A35, one of the little British runabouts that were everywhere in New Zealand when I was growing up in the fifties and sixties. Driving it was a woman of a certain age with the confident bearing of someone who had been driving that same car, or one like it, for decades. She looked entirely at home behind the wheel. She belonged to the car and the car belonged to her, and neither of them was in any hurry to change. If you know Auckland, that particular corner will register: Queen Stree...
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