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.
They 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 use.
Below are many of the stories behind the pictures, and the way inspiration for the ideas evolved.
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.

"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.

 

"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.

"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!

"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!
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!

"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.

"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.

"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.


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!)

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.

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.

HOLIDAY CARD 2008
"Zacharatos karate, Kickboxing, and Soccer"

I had no ideas about what to do with this year's card until I got my daughter her Ninja Halloween costume that she selected out of a catalog. So I thought, oh, how cute, I'll have her pose with a sword, then I thought, hey why not have all of us with swords, that would be different. Then this turned out to be one of my favorite cards!

So after posing my husband and daughter and taking their photos, I needed a different pose for me, so I downloaded some sword poses for inspiration, and thought the over the head one would suit me just fine. I took down one of my display swords off my wall, but I didn't realize how super heavy it was. So after standing in that cool over the head pose until my husband finally took a photo I was happy with, I was left with a great photo, as well as a stiff neck, arm, and back, for two days! Didn't someone once say you have to suffer for your art?

I then found an old dragon art calendar, and selected a picture by Ciruelo, titled "the death of the serpent dragon", as my background. I had to take out his dragon slayer to make room for us, and stretch the background to fit us all in, but I was very pleased with the end result.
At least I have another year before I have to search for inspiration once again.

Holiday party invitation for "Zacharatos Karate & Kickboxing and Soccer"

Because there were a limited amount of invitations, each one was printed on the computer and then hand glued to a copper metallic card stock. All Graphics were created using Photoshop

HOLIDAY CARD 2009
Zacharatos Karate Kickboxing and Soccer

 I didn't know how I was going to top last years card, and had no ideas. So, I did what I always do when I'm stuck, I go to the Calendar section of Barnes and Noble Book Store.
I bought several different kinds of calendars, and was hoping something would inspire me in the Masters of Illusion Calendars by Rob Gonsalves, and I thought this one would work. But, it had 2 characters drawn, and I needed 4.
So I took two more images of women sitting from another one of his drawings in the calendar. I then posed my daughter accordingly, to photograph her to fit in all the drawings, (there are 3 of her in this card), and then the design just sort of took off on it's own.
I'm very happy wtih the end result, the Zacharatos Clan playing chess . . . with themselves!!
We're the chess pieces and the chess players. I placed our faces on the characters, and then took full photos of us kicking, and placed them on the chess pieces.
One of my favorite parts of this card, is our daughter in the center, moving the chess piece of her dad! Well, until next year!

HOLIDAY CARD 2010
Zacharatos Karate Kickboxing and Soccer

This year, I was determined to place us in a comic book, just do something totally different. I looked for months, but just couldn't find the right comic book picture (maybe next year). So I went back to Ron Galsalves paintings, and I went on his website, and looked at all the paintings, as soon as I saw this one, I knew I had my idea, and I was done. I don't know what I'm going to do until I see it, then I get inspired, something just clicks.

In order to make room for all of us on the platform, I copied it and widened it, I also placed our heads all above, pulling our own strings--we're in control of our own actions, I thought the message was cool.
I took photos of my husband and daughter, and told them to look up and look down, etc. I took a new karate photo of our daughter when she recently got her junior blackbelt, but used former karate photos of ourselves, they were already separated and ready to go, soon I'll have to take some new ones. I was able to find head photos of me that worked, it's always easier than trying to get my husband to take photos of me! ha ha.

Below is original background painting by Ron Gonsalves, before my many modificatons! It's fun to compare the two paintings and see how the changes were made. For example, I had to stretch the platform to make room for us to stand on it, you can look closely at the structures, and see how seamlessly the changes look even after the many alterations. That takes many hours, and much patience!

HOLDIAY 2011
Zacharatos Karate Kickboxing and Soccer

Once again, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do this year.
So I first go to my Rob Gonsalves calendar pics for inspiration.
When I saw a winter scene called Nocturnal Skatings, I thought we could all go snow boarding down the painting! So then I check out some snow boarding pics, and when I saw a photo with three snowboarders, and snow shooting out around their boards, I knew that was it, and everything just fell into place, and I decided to go with that background instead.

So my first idea actually led me in a slightly different direction, inspiration evloves in funny ways sometimes.
I call it my light bulb moment, when I get that spark of an idea, and I switch from having no idea at all, to knowing exactly what I'm going to do in an instant.
I just can't rush the idea part of the process, to me that's the hardest and most unpredictible part, it happens when it happens. Looking at pictures helps a lot, once the idea comes, it's just a matter of executing the idea.
Sometimes I have an idea first of what I want to do, and then I go about find photos to fit my idea, but usually it's the other way around, the photos give me an idea.

To complete my design, I then made three "Zachratos" snow boards to face horizonally to accomodate our martial arts poses. I decided to give us all swords later even though we posed with escrima sticks because they are much lighter to hold in these positions.
And this year, our 9 year old daughter took the photos of me! and as usual, I take the photos of our daughter and my husband.
Usually my husband takes the photos of me, but he is a bit photo challenged! ha ha, So from now on Nico is hired as my official photographer.

Below is the original background photo that gave me my idea.


This was one of my favorite cards from 2008, when our daughter was a redbelt,
I wanted to update her photo for a poster, so I combined the 2008 card with the 2011 card, that had the perfect updated image of her as a second degree blackbelt!
I didn't change a thing on her photo except to flip it horizontally, it's amazing her foot position works perfectly on the dragon, as if it were made for this picture!