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Friday, May 1, 2020

Reach for the Stars

Reach for the Stars
"The sky is not the limit"

Theme: Celestial

This was the first image in quite some time I did with no deeper meaning and/or wasn't about the quarantine. Was nice to just create. Create for fun. Back to creating for me and without reason.

The theme was Celestial. Which of course conjures up thoughts of the night sky, moon, stars, and whimsy.

For this image I originally wanted to be gathering stars. I started 2.5 weeks ago cutting out stars and then painted them white. The originally idea would be that I was holding a basket of stars that I was collecting. Also including many that would end up being plucked and thrown on the ground.  I actually have many shots that include me holding a basket with stars in them. The image here with my hand back is actually one of the first images I took that day, it was to help set my focus and make sure I was in frame. [Quick side note and tip: When you go to set your focus and set up your self portrait, make the shot worth it. I could have just stood there forward, but I reached and wanted to make it look somewhat like what I was going to do in the final product to make sure everything looked good. Good thing, because I ended up changing my mind and didn't like the basket and used this shot instead!] So anyway, I cut out and painted 15 stars. That is because I wanted the basket full and the groud to have a bunch of stars. I ended up using 1. I literally could have cut out and painted one star and called it good and this image would look the exact same. Sometimes that happens. Although I am thinking I will use those images and/or stars for an upcoming theme or at the very least another image that would compliment this one. I still like the idea of the stars in a basket. And it might just be that I didn't like the basket. So maybe if I find or use a different basket I will try the original idea.

So why did my idea change? And how? Part of my process really. Once I got into editing I wasn't feeling it. I didn't like how it looked when the woman was standing on a stool on grass. I wasn't as inspired by it, and if you work in photoshop at all, you know that if you are not inspired by an image/collage/concept/photo it can sit on your computer unedited for eons just because it didn't sing to you.

Some background information sets the scene: I created an image of my son climbing to the moon. Since that is also a celestial type image, I pulled that PSD file and started from there. Usually I create a brand new PSD file for each fine art image, but this time I realized that many of the elements could be reused. And here is a funny part. I had this extra cloud/sky layer as a hidden layer on that PSD file. That's the clouds you see her climbing out of. Once I made that layer visible, I liked what I saw and felt inspired again. Then once I no longer had a "ground" I didn't need to use the photos of the stars I took at a park. And then I didn't quite like the basket, especially without the rest of the reason for the basket and this entire new image was born.


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