Artist Statement:
In this surrealist and dream inspired Photoshop there are a few integral elements and principles of art. There is an overall Unity to the picture with the lighting and setting all fitting into one cohesive piece. Additionally there is a lot of Texture in the piece mostly noticeable with the trees having their texture accentuated with the filters applied to them. This texture also slightly stands out in the ground in front of the trees having a rough and leafy look and feel to it. Also the photo has a wide range of Shape to it in the background whereas in the foreground there is more Form in the hand opening the blinds. The contrast of these two elements makes a distinct area between the foreground and background. During the in progress critique, the main standout issues were that the hand looked to be from a picture taking place during the day and also the faces in the background while having white holes seemed to lack sense of presence to them. So to knock two birds out with one stone, I used a lens flare render on the mouths of the faces to give them more presence as well as give a source to the light that hitting the hand. This actually ended up making the picture look much more cohesive between the foreground and the background! So the context to this image was that of a dream in which I awoke in a decrepit cabin. And as I became familiar with my surroundings I started walking to one of the windows in the cabin. When peering through the blinds, I saw these faces with large white holes for both eyes and mouths pouring light from them throughout the forest in front of the window. In order to create an image similar to that of what I saw in my dream, I had to a multitude of different pictures and layers in order to create a custom landscape. I took a multitude of pictures of trees which were then isolated then sent through a glowing line filter. Then the trees were given a black and white filter treatment with varying brown tints added. Behind the trees is a enlarged picture of bushes also run through similar filters but instead with a green tint instead of brown tint. The ground in front of the trees was from an inclined hill on my street covered in grass and leaves that was cropped and then run through the glowing edges filter. Then the faces were crafted from a picture of car lights at night and then a lens flare render was added to the mouths. Behind the faces a black blob was crafted to give the faces a body since without that the faces looked very weird and just not right. For the foreground I took a picture of my hand opening the blinds of a window in my room and then I cleared that picture so that only the hand and blinds remained since I wanted it to look like I was actually peering at these faces and trees.