Ascension: A Senior Surreal Photo by Stefan Cook (2013)

I created my Surrealism piece using several photos. My main photo was an HDR image I took in my backyard. To create the HDR image, I took 3 photos of the same scene, each with different exposures, and I blended them together into Photoshop. In addition, I collaborated with my buddy Devan to get some awesome photos of him wakeboarding.I juxtaposed a scene of a beautiful sunset, and a picture of the mountains to add to my picture. In Photoshop, I used Layer masking and the brush tool to combine the images. I used the smudge tool to make the elements fade in with the other. into each other, and Increased the saturation to make the colors more vibrant. My surrealism picture is meant to invoke the ideas of ascension. Often within my dreams, I imagine taking off into the air and flying around. I aimed to combine the elements of land, sky, and water into one image to represent the four planes of the earth. In addition, I aimed to invoke the feeling of encountering barriers (the fence) and how they can be overcome. Thank you for viewing my piece.