Untitled: A Senior Surreal Photo by Taylor Houston (2014)

I created this by first taking a picture of my sister, and a picture of a peeling wall at Freestyle in HDR, otherwise known as high dynamic range. This was achieved by taking a picture that was underexposed, and then tweaking the shutter speed two spaces, to having it be perfectly exposed, and then taking a third picture that was two spaces over exposed. Photoshop then combined the photos to create one photo that has a the high dynamic range that shows lighter lights and darker darks. I then also created a fire in a firepit and took a picture of that. Then using a Photoshop tutorial, I applied the fire as a texture on the face in the photo. I then cut out the face from the picture it was originally in, and placed this face in front of the picture of the peeling wall and edited the wall to enhance the peeling slightly. I also edited the face slightly to look slightly less real and more mural or painting like.

The story behind this picture is complicated. The fire on the face represents both destruction and rebirth. It's burning her but it's so bright its healing her as well. The setting of the peeled wall also represents destruction but in a darker way with no rebirth. I put her against this background to juxtapose the two-it's like a battle of the forces. She's also glowing against the dark background to further contrast the two. Also, I edited the face in such a way that it looks less realistic than an actual portrait, but she looks distanced from the wall in such a way that it makes her look more like a human than a mural on the wall.