This is a completely different idea than the first one. I went through a lot more than the required five steps but basically I used the mighty pen tool (Learn the pen tool if you don’t know it. You can’t be boss without arcane pen wisdom) to extract myself from the background in my photo, then I duplicated the layer. I always duplicate important layers so I have the original if I need it. Then I separated my face into different segments, each on its own layer. After that I took some pieces of architecture from some shots I took in Chicago and then used them to make columns. Once I assembled that I merged those layers, made a copy, slightly distorted it and put in the back. I then put a slight Guassian blur on it to create an artificial sense of depth of field. Back to the top face layer I added details, shadows, controlled the lighting by tweaking levels and curves, etc. Then I desaturated the layers, tinted the sky, and used color and lighting to unify the composition.
The idea behind this was that our ideas can come from separate places but our own vision pulls them together into one cohesive image. I think that’s an important part of both creative direction and art direction, to use disparate elements and unify them into a single vision.
On a personal level I would say that I am interested in learning about many different things in design, culture, human activity, technology, etc and those things provide the structure, the architectural reference of the image, for my own creativity and ambition. I hope you like it, thanks for reading.
Eric Chamberlain 