Yes, it began with a tree in a parking lot.  I was scouting for interesting places to take portrait shots for a bar mitzvah, and I saw this tree… I had some fantasies about how I might use the tree as a transformative element.  Thankfully, it worked!  You can see that the group of siblings looks like it is in a clearing of a forest, instead of in a parking lot off Rte. 9 in NJ.  Then, I did similar “magic” on the whole family group… and thought it was perfect, until someone pointed out that one of the sons was missing from the picture!  So, I added him in… it’s mostly believable, right?

Our recent iteration of our “Flower Girl” has drawn some attention and questions.  Even after people realize that it is a composite, they’re still not sure how certain things were accomplished.

So here is how we did it:

1.  We began with a beautiful photographic image.
2. The image of the girl was extracted from the background, and hand-painted in Corel Painter.
3. The background was hand painted from scratch, using a color palette taken from the girl.
4. The floor is a continuation of the background, with a soft pink layer in Photoshop, again, taken from the palette.
5. We made a “reflection” of the girl by copying the layer of the girl and flipping it vertically and lowering the opacity.
6. The shadow under the girl is a layer of black blur, then blended with the floor.

I still LOVE the original photograph.. I’m not advocating to paint every image that comes out of the camera, but I just want to stay open to the possibilities where painting can enhance an image.