GENISIS OF A SURREAL PHOTO

In yesterdays post I shared my entry in Tuesday’s nights BAPC “Honors Night” assignment “Surreal Composite.” Several people has asked me about my thought process for developing this shot so today I thought I would summarize a portion of it.

My thinking on the assignment was that the place to start was with an interesting “base” photo. I didn't have any kind of a vision of the finished shot when I started, only this idea that if I could find any kind of a good starting point I would build from there through the required “Composite” portion of the assignment. My original inspiration photo [on Clinton Drive East of Lockwood in Houston] is below...

I certainly thought this scene, with an illogical haggard building perched high on top of a dilapidated old commercial structure in a run down section of town, with the surprise of a distinctly rural grazing horse in front was a surreal shot from the start. But the assignment was for a "Composite" and I could see lot’s of enhancement opportunities through the composite process.

Below is an intermittent version of the shot before I decided a ‘less would be more” approach to the shot was the way to go and cropped away the lower third. This included cropping out the horse which was one of the strongest elements that originally drew me to the subject, a phenomenon which I’ve encountered before.

At the end of the day I was happy with the decision to keep the more interesting [to me] top portion of the photo. I think the final shot [see yesterday's post] ended up conveying the dark sense of mystery that I had hoped for once the base image was selected. And now you know the rest of the story.