Variant

Variant

"Outward failure may be a manifested variant of inward success" - Kenneth L. Pike

It has been a crazy busy Winter and Spring. My kids play 3 sports, I volunteer at Cub Scouts, was the Team Mom for baseball and we got a new puppy! So I have been shooting and editing along the way, but finding time to regularly post has fallen to the sidelines. I am hoping to be able to post more frequently now that Summer is here. 

So lets discuss this newest image.

Although I have an entire notebook of ideas and computer folders full of images already shot that need to be edited/composited, I had this idea last week and just went for it. I find I create better when I do that, when I shoot the current idea in my head. I am a planner. I like to have my images sketched out, planned and pretty well thought out. However, if I don't get to editing them right away, I can find myself losing interest and they sit in a folder on my computer. 

This image came to me last week. Now I will be honest and say I cannot exactly remember the details. I know I was laying in bed. But I don't know if it was something I read, saw or heard that spurred this idea. But the vision for it popped into my head. The basic idea was just that I would be laying all over a field in different directions.

Now with almost all my images, even though I plan them out, there are some variations I shoot during the shooting phase, so I have options during editing. So with this image, I took photos of my face up, facing both directions, facedown, and also sitting up. I will admit that I did not take a photo of me walking through and I think that would have been really impactful. I wrote a note to go out and reshoot this in a different outfit but this time have me walk around the laying bodies. I think it would make a nice compliment to this one. I just have to get out to my further away field to shoot that :)

This was a pretty quick edit for me. I used a tripod and didn't reset my focus during shooting. I wanted my bodies to be naturally blurry or in focus based on the normal depth. So merging these 11 photos was pretty simple. I had 18 to choose from. I was pretty lucky to have spaced myself out during the shoot very well.

If you are interested in seeing behind the scenes of me shooting this, I did an Instagram story on it. Its highlighted under Faceup/Chair... Instagram

Do you notice something with the birds in this photo?....go take a look..... Scroll down......I'll wait..... before I reveal it to you......

Ok I am sure you noticed the upside bird. That one is pretty obvious. But I also placed the birds on their own separate layers over the bodies in the photo. Then I made them one group and raised them to the sky. So the birds, their size, and way they are flying exact mimic the laying bodies below.

I hope you enjoy my newest image, its part of a new series I am working on :)