I called this one "Settling In" because the inverse, blue and white landscape feels like it's settling in for a landing. This impression being helped along by the spaceshippiness of the central figure. I took the original photo during a walk around the train station in Madrid while I waited for a connection to Portugal. There was a lot of construction going on at the time.
I've always liked the photo and the starkness of it, so naturally I wanted to mess around with it and make it significantly less stark. Below is my second attempt at adding mist and fog to the image along with an aggressive bump to the lighting. The first attempt formed the basis of "Settling In," but I foolishly saved over it and lost it. The second try worked out pretty well, though.
It still amazes me sometimes what can be produced by simple manipulations of layers and layer modes. I'm taking it a step further now by applying editing and composition skills across different layers/modes, taking pieces from, say, Difference and Multiply layers and pasting them into a central composition.
Of course, I can't help but mandalize an image eventually. The above is an effort to do that while preserving as much of the "original" image as possible.
One last iteration for now. The name, "Finally Settling In," suggests I am done with this image for now? Pretty fertile ground,
Finally, a piece of fan art I made for Knowledge Fight, a fantastic podcast dedicated to holding the puffy feet of Alex Jones to the proverbial fire. I've been listening for a couple of years now and can't recommend them enough. Funny, intelligent, researched, and with great chemistry - all the things that Alex Jones is not. This is an invaluable resource for anyone who is curious about the nefarious nature of the man and about stochastic terrorism in general. The quote is something that either Dan or Jordan (I think it was Dan) said in an older episode. I heard it during a recent trawl through their back catalog (complete, btw, currently at 490 episodes, each of which is at least an hour and often breaks two hours). Check them out.