How SCARY!

Thought I would do a bit of a blog on how I got to my entry for Scary!  Thanks if you voted for it and thanks to AJJA for choosing it as the winner

So here goes…. 

Outside the next village over, down one of the quiet lanes there are a couple of tree plantations, they also grow willow there as well plus there is a little wood that isn’t fenced off.

My first thoughts were to see what the plantation might provide; it was a slightly overcast day and I had some time on my hands so I headed out on a scouting trip.

First up I tried an in camera multiple exposure (original and processed), a bit spooky but not really scary!  I also tried some slow shutter speed as it was quite windy – but these got culled fairly early on.

Next the lane was a possibility, here’s a version that I made BW and added some fog courtesy of NIK Colour FX

Getting more scary but still not there. So I started to head home, which takes you past the little un-fenced wood and something caught my eye…….a window!  So here’s the original that the entry was based on and a couple of early edits – again using CFX.

Whilst doing a bit of a sort out I came across Francesca’s Sunday Doll – which I have always found a bit creepy, it’s a china doll that my mum gave her when she was about 4 or 5 and then I was about to throw out some fading red roses and an idea started to hatch.  So hoping that the window was still there I set off again.  

I didn’t think the further back shot worked as well as I wanted and the closer up didn’t work for me either; but here are 3 versions with the doll and the flowers.  In the top left image the doll is trapped behind the glass but I couldn’t make it stand out just enough for it to be easily seen without it being in your face.  But it was a fun half hour session.

If you’re still with me, well done!  We’re nearly at the end.

As I was running an action on one of the versions already created, I noticed the action I had that creates a simple triptych and wondered how that would look.  Below are some early tryouts, starting with the landscape one – which I felt took too much away from the window, the portrait version on the left was a nearly and the one of the lane was a bit of an accident – having run the triptych action, instead of running the flatten action I ran the triptych again which gave me the image on the right – a 5-tych!!! I quite like the effect.  

Nearly there…..

I liked the portrait one above of the window but not the layout, I cropped the image to a vertical 16×9 to make the window more offset and ran the action again and bingo it split the window; finally something I was really happy with and wanted to use an my entry.

So there’s my Scary! journey through January, looking forward to starting a very textured February (actually I have started with an idea I had the other day); really enjoyed seeing everyone’s Scary images, looking forward to seeing your Textures next.  Loving the challenge each month.