To Grow In Spirit | Behind the Scenes

It was recently requested of me to make a tutorial for "that rose photo"which I posted on the internet a few days ago. While this post will certainly not be a step by step guide on how to make things grow from your face in Photoshop, I hope I can share with you some of the things that I do to my images, and a little look at what I did to this photo particularly through a few behind the scenes photos.
For this post, I have decided to concentrate on two aspects of my process: focusing and believability, with a little YouTube video at the end. If you learn anything at all from my ramblings, I hope you see that my process, when broken down to it's bones, is very simple.

As I said on my Instagram, I did not think it a possibility that this photo was in the realm of my abilities when I first conceived the idea of it back on that September day in the woods, when I and the wind became a lucid thing, ideas swirling with the tarnished leaves just starting to fall, the shifting earth clearing my mind. I pushed it away, buried it under my doubts, to that far off day where I would have the wherewithal to make it a reality, always seeming to be out of reach.

It was left alone in this way for many months, but a few weeks ago I pulled the idea out from my idea book as I felt the tug of it on my hands and sleeves and heart. So I took a trip to hobby lobby and bought one red rose. I got a little smile from the cashier, no doubt used to weird purchases from customers. But I walked out with the first step to my photo completed.

For this image, I had a very clear and simple vision of it in mind: me, a blank wall, and a rose rising out of my shattered face. These ideas are all written down in my little sketch book, detailed in text and horrors of doodling that help give me a visual for the final image. This can be said as my very first step, from imagined impossible entity to written practicalities on paper, so my brain doesn't let it slip away. I usually try to describe everything from pose and color and setting to the message I wish to portray, although at times the reason is somewhat blurred to me; but always the image is clear, or somewhat so. In this case, the concept was particularly clear to me, being of growth, the cultivation of our spiritual lives rooted in Christ, grounded in love, the Holy Spirit blooming for all to see; it is of our witness being evident in who we are and how we act and what we say. 

So, the day after I bought the rose, I set out to make the idea into a reality. The step two in a way. Sitting against my little green wall, I positioned myself in the way I thought best, marking where I needed to squat, focused on myself with my camera remote, and then locked down that focus (flipping the auto focus switch to manual focus on the side of the lens.) This insured that the other photos I took, which would eventually be added to the final image later, would all be in the same focal plain. A focal plain is the area in which you will remain in focus if you stay within it's limits. So, I put myself exactly where I wanted to be for this image, therefore, when I focused on myself and locked it down, I had a specific plain in which I had to stay in so that I would remain in focus. This plain essentially works horizontally; I can move side to side from my marked position and still remain to be in focus, but if I move toward the camera, or vertically from that plain, then I will be out of focus. (If that made any sense, bless you)

In any image that I create, the biggest thing that I strive for is believability. I knew that to make this photo look realistic, I needed to ground the fantasy world with the physics that govern ours. That rose would not look like it was coming from my face if I did not make sure I photographed it at the right angle, and because it was at the correct angle, I knew exactly where to create the hole in my cheek later in Photoshop because of where the rose intersected with my skin. Being conscience of how things will blend together later in Photoshop is one of the most important things to think through and experiment with and fail at and burn to the ground and try again and again and again...

I digress.

The three photos above were the only photos I used to create the final image (plus one other of just the wall so I could expand my frame upwards.) I had my pose, the rose intersecting my face, and the rose by itself all photographed individually and within the same focal plain, and then later in Photoshop I constructed the rose and added some cracks to my cheek from a texture of a crumbling wall which I got here. To finish the photo, I darkened the background and played with color and contrast, my favorite steps when creating these photos. You can see all of these steps in my quick little video below which shows each layer being revealed until the final image is complete.

If you have any questions or wish for more clarification, please feel free to comment below and I would love to help, brainstorm, chat about impossibles, or shed light on an inquiry in any way I can!

Things As They Are

It is something of a hard and fast fact that things just simply, and hilariously, don't always go like I wish them to. Even now I just typed thongs instead of things in the title. Sigh.

Always a flip side to this little life I live. Crooked cakes that just sit in all their awkward prestige, a patch quilt of frosting shrouding the poor creatures; slanted personalities I like to call them, just needs a little love. It's what's on the inside that matters anyway, right? Also known to accompany me on my venturous baking attempts are a many "Oops, that was supposed to be 2 teaspoons, not tablespoons." Or a, "Was I supposed to butter the pan before I put the dough in?" muttered through an array of flour dusted hands or oven mittens.

And, this being the case of most recent days, I have been plagued with photo shoot after photo shoot with nothing more accomplished than a hand full of mistakes that sit over my head, concepts left unfinished. Days that slip over me, just a sun rising and falling; I stare and stare at him, the sun, watching him march by, his light casting shadows upon a day filled with nothing accomplished...

Always a flip side.

I thought, rather circumspectly, to share that other realm of misfits and mistakes that make up so much of any photo adventure I pursue, that place of perfectly imperfect moments; a behind the scenes, if you will, of what surrounds a photo, of what builds a memory that is so treasured in my mind, of what is not seen but still lives in my heart.

My life, as it is, is certainly not perfect. I mean, just take a glance at the photos below. This, as these things go, is not a complaint against these, shall we say, bloopers. Whatever a perfect life on this earth could even be, it is not mine. And I rejoice in that. Life can't be all that we want it to be; it simply can't go exactly like we plan. And that's hard, I know. I am certainly not one to smile at everything that happens in my day. Just ask my family. I don't laugh at every little ill thing that occurs regularly. I don't always find joy in trivial mishaps such as early mornings. Some days it seems that I don't smile at all. But it takes a willing heart to love a life far from one thinks it should be. And, when this sad soul has those rain clouds looming and distracting once again, my greatest comfort comes in the promise that God's sovereignty is above our earthly wishes; and sometimes we just need to dance in the rain.

So, a few photos, to share some of my misfits, some tales of real life.

A before and after of a sort. More of an expectation and reality, I think. A reality is my constant state, really. I take time to have these little precious moments to breath, simply, solitary in the course of the day; to hush my mind. But, even when I sit in the pooling sun with my tea to take a photo, life simply happens.
Ah yes, steam you steamy steam you. Ouch, hot. Darn. Spill. Yes, hello reality. How are you? Take a seat, the kettles on. What was that? That noise? No. No, I hear nothing. Please, just put your feet up. I'll get back to you in a second.

I think, perhaps, an explanation is very much in need concerning this photo. Yes, I am in my bedroom, under a billowing bed sheet, yes, yes, that is indeed my face. I was, well, I was practicing. Trying to see if I could nail a pose and get the sheet to move like I wanted it in one shot, while maintaining the appropriate face. I still think I could do it. But now I have this. In all it's glory.

 As I read by the window, the light slips in every afternoon in just the simplest of ways. I like to sit and breath it is, as if I have never had anything else to sustain me for the entire day until that moment. Deep breaths; and my book. And the light. Ah, the light. I suppose I imagine that the hands of God guide it just so, like a ship upon a golden sea; it comes with hope and peace.
 This video is a testament to how my Instagram stories usually work out. Someone barging in while singing, and the wind not obeying my ideals of peace and happiness and AH WHY CAN'T YOU STAY PUT.

These gems are from a photo shoot I attempted the other day with my cat. Getting her to corporate was so hysterically difficult, but who could blame her really. I mean, I was hoisting her on my head and trying to get her to crawl on my neck, hoping beyond reason that she wouldn't jump away to leave me be the dweeb that I am alone in a picture. And so I now have these photos, sort of moments in between glorious timing and not. Those last two photos are when she jumped off right when the shutter clicked and then ran away to hide behind the chair. Poor Susan.

Yes, the beach can be a picturesque place where one might think it a pleasant enough place to read. *Cough* No. At least not this beach. Could be that I was right in the wind, unwilling to move, rooted in determination to stay and beat the wind at whatever the heck I thought it was playing.

So, a view at the unseen, a look at the hidden; and yet the door is wide open, as open as a new born sun across the sky, just waiting for us to step out and follow it to whatever possibilities it promises every new day. I think, as we tread each our own path, toward sun and moon and horizons of broad unknowns, that to find joy where you think none will be, is one of the most pleasant of surprises one can find, and perhaps, it is something we should look for in more places. 

Remember to dance in the rain.