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.

The Beginning and the End

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.

Published in Member Blogs
2 Comments
  1. Great blog and really interesting to read through your image process thoughts and the development into the final image. And well done, a well deserved winner 🏆

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