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Friday, February 14, 2014

 
What is it that drives us to create an image? Is it immortalizing a moment in time?  Is it to make life seem more beautiful?  Is it to represent our fears and struggles?  For me, it is all of the above.



What inspired me to create this image was first of all, just a challenge to myself.  As some of you already know I have CRPS (if not you can read about it here and my personal journey here.)  With CRPS, extreme cold and hot can really send the disease into an extreme flare up with lots of extra pain.  As you can see, we had s few inches of snow and it was roughly 15 degrees fahrenheit outside.  I always am trying to beat this disease and show it that I am the boss of my body and it is NOT!  Well I wanted to spend some time outside to try to make progress for being outside in winter weather which I usually avoid. But what is the point of just going outside for 5 minutes and going through extra pain when you have nothing to show for it? To me, there isn't.  Naturally, I call up my best friend and ask her if she would like to go take a photo.  I already have it all planned out and ask if she is okay with doing it and she said yes! (Thank you Erin!!)

Once we are out we find a playground so I can get the overhead angle I need.  I took one shot and it was all I needed (if you don't count the behind the scenes photos I took) before I  went into Photoshop.

here are the steps I took in editing:

1.

This is the original image I took looking down on Erin from the top of the playground.

2.

The first thing I did in Photoshop was to increase the canvas size and clone like crazy!

3.

I found the fox I wanted and took care of most of my shadowing on him.  One of my goals for this year is to get better at compositing so stick with me while I learn this skill.  Although I am proud for this being my first time compositing an image I didn't take into an image of mine.

4.

I changed Erin's hair, added paw prints, changed lots of colors, added some snow overlays, and voila; I had my final image! 


You may see this image and feel nothing but to me it means so much.  It represents someone beautiful, but hurting.  Someone who finds and unexpected friend along their journey.  How wonderful is it to have friends?  I am extremely thankful for all mine and I don't know what I would do without them sometimes! 

I know I am not great, I know I'm not the best but I love what I do and wouldn't trade it for the world.  I hope you can see the passion I have for my art and inspires you to pursue your passion as well.

1 comment

  1. Love it. Keep doing what you do! I have chronic pain too and I know what it's like living around it. It's great to see that you are overcoming obstacles and producing beautiful images! God is good.

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