Frozen together in a web of time and...by
_DaveA_Comment by _DaveA_: OK, just for Sheryll who'll probably never forgive me if I don't get to writing something on this (and soon) so...
Firstly, sincere thanks to all of the great comments and encouraging remarks. You guys (and gals) are all great and your comments really help and mean a lot to me. Especially zohar-halfon's ('cuz I was kinda hopin' it just might take a DPC ribbon and the consolatory message he sent made my night) and, of course, for posthumous' Blue Ribbon. That was really cool.
For the details, basically one word: Fractalius. It's one of a couple of pretty rad filters from Redfield plugins. There was a bit of layer masking and brushing after the fact, but a fair amount of credit goes to the filter and a lot of swishing around with a Wacom tablet. Also, just prior to the Fractalius run, I passed it through just a wee bit o' Lucis--just enough to add some edge (which Fractalius likes).
It was captured at night a few days after it had snowed so there was lots left on the ground in front of the bench, on the bench, on the dog and the man, which is where his "sash" came from. Also, using the self-timer I painted all around him with an LED flashlight when the shot was taken. I took six shots in the park of the statues that night (it was around 10 degrees) plus a few of the gallery across the street which came out better, I think. One of those is now in my DPC portfolio. But with the cold, there wasn't a lot of time spent on shooting.
There was some tweaking with the usual suspects (Layers, H/S, Levels, Shadow/Highlights, etc.) to get the contrast up and the image "ready" for Fractalius which needs a little prep to make it work reasonably tastefully, but that's about it. The Wacom helps with the painting considerably which helped to finesse the layer masks around the fractal swirls to make both statues look like they were emerging from that web.
To address those who didn't "get" it as far as my submission as it relates to the Challenge "Time Lapse", I simply took it literally. Like a lapse of time. A statue, to me, symbolizes the passage of time pretty much forever. Or at least until the statue is torn down, or rusts away, or whatever. And with any statue that I've ever seen (notable exception being Sadam's) that would represent a pretty good lapse of time. Anyway, that was my take on it.
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