Gleeb

Blunder

Digitalis

Wanderer Above the Sea

Largely inspired by Casper Friedrich's Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog.

I took this one out at the Burgh Island. Myself and the rest of the English family headed out there for a Boxing Day excursion. It was quite lovely in all its wintery wonder; the waves crashing and the icy wind blowing.

Burgh Island is a tiny little rock standing not too far from the shore east of Plymouth. I climbe to the top in 15 minutes, just to give you an idea how big we're talking. There's a little hotel and pub at the base and the rest is caves, cliffs and grass. Perhaps the coolest attribute would be that during the day its not really much of an island... I just walked on over there from the shore on the exposed beach. But during high tide the water rises a few feet deep and you have to take an elevated tractor across.

The Christmas Weeple

I used to collect these as a kid!

Worn

Bleach

Smudge

You

Mirror Image

Empty Glass

Planets

Thoughts

Ah, really like how this one turned out.

Gazing

Disfocused

Coco Pops!

Ah, I used to adore this cereal as a kid. I recall moving to America and amongst making the adjustments were the lack of Coco Pops. I remember asking Meme for Coco pops when she went out to the grocery store because I think I had a serious case of homesickness. Well, she brought back Cocoa Puffs... no words can express my disappointment at the time. I later learned that Coco Pops and Coco Krispies were, in fact, the same thing. But it wasn't the same. Needless to say, I've been whoofing down Coco Pops for breakfast for about a month now. Ah, the good ole days.

Morning Coffee

Empty

Say it!

Well, I'm a big fan of Two-Face, who is, in my opinion, the best Batman villain. Yes, even better than Joker. I loved his appearance in The Dark Knight and thought that he was incredibly well done. Joker was great, even had a more important role, but I was there to see Two-Face kick some ass. I love the character because, basically, he's so tragic; he's the good guy gone bad by misfortune. They've tried making other characters tragic in the name of replicating the success of Two-face, but have really failed. Save maybe Mr. Freeze (of Animated "Heart of Ice" fame). They've even tried making the Joker a tragic character, which ultimately failed as well. The tragic antagonists are always the best because you can sympathize with them. You see their point, even if you don't agree with them.

That's how I felt about ole Harvey here, he signified what could have been and how it all went wrong, rolled up into one. In fact, in his tragedy, he was more the villain than the Joker was. Sure, Joker killed a bunch of people, but they were nobodies, Two-Face was the man with Gordon's family at gunpoint in the end, the man who shot Batman, the man who took down the mob, basically by killing them off. There's a reason the climax didn't end wth the capture of Joker but rather with Two-Face... because ultimately, he was the true villain of the story.

So anyway, after scavenging for ideas for a photo, I decided on this. Mainly because I've been doing a lot of photoshop work and this seemed like a good challenge. I had to go black and white because matching the position of the head and facial structures, general lighting.... color was just going to be too much work that I didn't have time for. I also had to keep the grain because, well, there's apparently no high res photos of Two-Face. So i took what I could get and made do with that.

Then I took a second photo, well 30 second photos, until i found the best one and then I layered it over the head. Using the skew and the transformations tools, I fit my face over Aaron Eckhart's. You might might notice, or maybe not, some of my features had to be traded for his (such as the hair, obviously) in the name of making it look like a cohesive photo. The basic tools I used after the fitting were brush, dodge and burn, blur and smudge. I added a few scarring lines as well, using mainly the paint brush.

Anyway, I think the photo worked out, though I'm sure a second attempt would be better. I learned quite a bit form this little experience, hopefully I'll use it again. Maybe in a color photo, hmm?

Struck

I was posing for a photo, of which you will see more of later when its done, and this one just jumped out at me and struck me as a keeper. So hence picture of the day for Dec. 10th.