Madison+Rebholz+Texture+Combine+3

1. Changed contrast of the log photograph with levels to increase the contrast between shadows slightly.

2. Selected/cropped out the bottom portion of the forest floor to create a blank space for the to-be water.

3. Inserted water, enlarged it, stretched a bit to fit the space.

4. Used the draw tool to add shading to underneath the log but on top of the water to create depth.

5. Cropped myself and a tree from the background out of one image and onto the main.

6. De-saturated myself so that the color palette of the image looked more natural.

7. Added the sky to the background (snow image), increased contrast to let the white show up.

8. Used the draw tool to add shading on top of the log for where I was standing.

9. Used levels to change the lighting of the entire image.

10. Added a gradient over the image to create a whimsical feeling, but not make the colors be obnoxious.

The main compositional techniques I used were the rule of thirds and texture. I tried to create unique textures by having both wood-like, water, and star textures in the piece. For the rule of thirds, I kept everything on the horizon but kept the 'focus' not in the middle. This also creates leading lines across the piece. The texture is mainly focused in the wood -- it is in the place that most eyes look first, and I really liked the texture overall. My main concept evolved as I created the piece. I wanted to mimic the feeling of being lost in the woods with just your imagination to guide you and create sort of a fantasy-esque area in a photograph.

I think I was fairly successful. One change I would make is, now that I know what the project is before I went out shooting photos, would be to create poses and images that reflected my concept for the photograph.