Picnic: A Senior Surreal Photo by Kyle Knochenhauer (2015)

I used Adobe Photoshop to make this piece. This composition shows a teenager walking on a table, that is floating in the sky. One section of the table is in color, to create a nice focal point for the viewer to see. I used HDR (high dynamic-range) photography for all of these shots, and used an infrared filter on the clouds to give it a very surreal look to it. This piece has opened a new door of photoshop that I hadn't opened before, and I am really happy that I got to create this composition.

My composition had a very dreamlike quality to it. I wanted to give a feeling of a journey that someone makes throughout life. The table is supposed to represent a kind of barren landscape, and the person is wandering around trying to find their way out. We all have struggles in our life that we can overcome, and we all get a little lost. I guess my piece is about that. I chose a primarily yellow and green color scheme, which was just the natural color of the table, because I really liked the way it looked, especially in HDR. I chose to do the clouds to make it have a more dreamlike appearance to the piece.