The prompt for this photo was “Film Noir”. I really wanted to use this style to create a dramatic and suspenseful scene. I thought for a bit on some suspenseful things I could photograph, and decided that my cat about to pounce on a toy was a neat idea. I was a little worried it would be hard to get her to do what I wanted for the photograph, but it ended up not being too tricky. After taking the photo, I did a lot of editing in Photoshop to create the desired effect. The first thing I did was apply a black and white filter. Then, I used contrast and brightness filters to make the image feel more dramatic. After making these changes, I felt like something was missing. The photograph no longer felt suspenseful and it was getting a bit hard to make out my cat’s form. I looked at the unedited photo and realized that being able to see her eyes added a lot to the scene. In the process of making the image high contrast, her eyes had gotten lost in her very dark fur. I used masks to exclude her eyes from some of the effects, and masked some brightening effects to her face only. I think these changes help tremendously, and I really like how her eyes are now the focal point of the photograph.