The idea for this surreal photograph was truly inspired by the idea of having someone crawling out or escaping from a room that is submerged in the ground. That person then escapes through a door that connects that "underworld" with reality. The idea seemed complicated at first, but then with further thought I figured out how to position each photo so that I would be able to pull off this surreal image. For the photo of the frame on the ground I positioned the frame so that when I went into photo shop I could have enough room for the individual to be crawling out while not too much space or lead-room so that the illusion would be the focus of the image. Now moving onto the image of the doorway to the library, I took a direct image of the doorway from straight on, making sure to include the door as well so that I would be able to add some three-dimensional aspects. I wanted to capture the door straight on so that I could edit the doorway and the door into the frame perfectly. Lastly, for the image of the individual climbing out of the door, I staged her in the position that would be most optimum for her to be believably climbing out of the door. To do so, I had to have her lean on a chair to ensure she would look like she was in a genuine climbing position. Now, to edit all of the images together, I first expanded the frame on the ground image to fit the entire canvas, and then cut out the door/doorway from the doorway image. After I successfully cut out the door, I first sized the image up to roughly an equal size of the frame, and then warped the image into the frame's interior. After warping the image into the frame, I ensured that it was beautiful laid in the frame so that it did not look like a random image awkwardly overlaid on another. In addition, I also adjusted the brightness and exposure levels of the door image to match that of the environment around. After beautifully overlaid, I cut out the image of the individual who would be crawling out. Then once she was cut out from the rest of the image, I inserted her into the photoshop document and adapted her exposure and brightness levels to match that of the scene she was emerging in to. Then after adjusted and put into place, I distorted and warped the individuals body, including legs and arms, to make sure she looked as though she was climbing out of the doorway onto the grass. After warping and distorting, I copied the layer of that individual to begin the making of her shadow. To begin the shadow construction process, I lowered the brightness and exposure levels to turn the copied layer of the individual pitch black. Next I lowered the opacity of the layer so that there was not a harsh black shadow, but something of a realistic nature. Once I lowered the opacity, I aligned the shadow to the individuals feet and hands, not precisely, and warped the shadow to look realistic as shadows are more oblong shaped than perfect replicas of a humans figure. After that shadow was completed I wanted to make a shadow for the door so that the door would have a three-dimensional feel. To create a shadow for the door I selected the frames layer, and drew, with the polygonal lasso tool, a believably shaped shadow the door would cast with the lighting of the sun. To make the shadow I drew the shape as said and then adjusted the brightness of that selected area to make it seem like a shadow cast by the door. In addition, I selected the frame layer so that I would be adjusting the settings of the grass, which is where the shadow of the door would realistically appear. The problems I encountered whilst compiling this photograph were, selection issues that made some parts of the shadows darker than others, brightness/lighting inconsistencies, and issues with warping the images into my desired position. Some parts of the shadows were darker than others were because as I was selecting the spots to be shadowed, I did not select every part I wanted to be shadowed so there was inconsistencies and overlapping of the shadows making for an inconsistent shadow overall. The brightness and lighting inconsistencies were problematic because as I tried to brighten up some images they would get grainy because of the settings I had to use in those environments. Overall I would have chosen better lit environments so I would have more leeway with editing the brightnesses to match them with each other. Lastly, I ran into issues with warping as sometimes when I tried to stretch an image into a certain position it would distort other sections of the images leading for a very "unique" looking edit. Ultimately, I believe that for one of my first times dealing with surreal photography and the editing involved, I did a pretty darn awesome job at making the effect feasible. In the future I would alter the light of the different images when taking the picture to make them more crisp and easily edited without making them grainy, and be more precise when selecting areas to edit (shadows). I would also recommend for myself to be more patient when warping/transforming images to increase the believability of the edits, and to be more patient overall to increase the quality of my work.
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