“Make a photo of a pair of subjects today. People or inanimate objects are both fair game!”

It has to do with the shoes you wear, Alice said, before she disappeared into Wonderland.

When I heard today’s Daily Shoot assignment, I was tired and feeling lazy.  I thought of a hundred easy things I could do instead of wrack my brains for a creative solution.  I’m glad I didn’t choose the easy route.  Instead, I concocted a cross between Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz.

I wanted the pair of shoes to be the focus–the shoes (in this story) are what make it possible for Alice to disappear into Wonderland, and it’s the pair part of the pair assignment, after all.  In the photo in my mind, the shoes are the last remaining bit of Alice, and the rest is fading away–half-disappeared.

I found the perfect spot for the picture in an unfortunate place.  The path is just off of a small road, meaning that I earned myself extra gray hairs in the future from worrying I would be hit.

Anyway, once we got the photos (and amateur photo-shoots are fun!), I uploaded them to Photoshop CS5, separated the shoes and then Shannotate’s body.  I messed around with the colors of the shoes, brightening them (originally a softer pink), trying to make them “glow” with an ethereal or unearthly light.  Then, when I went to make the background black & white, I noticed that Shannotate looked even better when darker, more striking.  However, that level of overall saturation also brought the eye toward the bundle of tree branches to the left of the photo, which wasn’t optimal.  So, I copied out her shape, made her a darker level of black & white, and then lessened the contrast on the background layer.

Woo.  Lengthy explanation.  At least I’m improving in my usage of Photoshop.