For this project, I was challenged to take this woman and convincingly place her into a new scene. I originally thought I might go for a futuristic feel, and have her reflection on the inside of a window, but I couldn’t find an image with the right permissions (so it’s something I might do in the future). So I went with this background of a place in Italy. I think it turned out quite nicely.

Contrast: I really wanted a striking background that had a lot of color variation and conveyed a sense of story, both of which I thought the original lacked by it’s excessive use of blurring. This image fit nicely into what I wanted and I believe the subject contrasts against the background beautifully.

Repetition: I kept the original photos idea of blurring the background, with the focus on the subject in the foreground. So the blurring is repetitious. I didn’t completely blur out the background though. I wanted a sense of adventure to peek through.

Alignment: I originally wanted to put the subjects eyes at the top of the rule of thirds, but she doesn’t have enough body to work with in that regard. So I opted instead to crop the photo from Italy to a 4×5 ratio, and then place the subject between the archway. The bottom rule of thirds line lines up right above her lips, but I think how she’s placed against the arch is more important to the structure of the photo. The other thing I considered was where the light was coming from in both images, which is why I opted to flip the image of the subject on the vertical to make it feel more in place with the suns rays in the background.

Proximity: I wanted to convey the sense that the viewer was close to the subject, and further away from the background to create a natural sense of depth. I wanted it to feel very interpersonal, almost as if the viewer had gone on a romantic vacation with this woman, taken out their phone, and snapped the photo in portrait mode. For this reason, I have left the image untouched by additional text that would distract the eye.

Color: I wanted the background to be especially vibrant, which is one of the reasons I selected the image from Italy to begin with. I also did some alterations with the woman. I found her hair color to be striking, and wanted to preserve that with the final image. I used levels and curves to tweak the colors of her to better match the colors that are present in the background image, and it leaves the woman colored in a more natural feeling way.