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Only In My Dreams Project Week 52

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ISO 200 | 50mm | f 8.0 | 1/250 sec

The world of dreams is a magical place, a realm of wonder, a land of adventure.  Limitless in its potentials, the dream world offers a boundless landscape through which the mind can explore.  Immune to the constraints of the physical universe, this world provides endless hours of inspiration for the creative soul, transforming the unlikely into a tangible certainty, and causing the impossible to become reality.

But like all good things, this world of dreams must also come to an end.  We’ve tread upon its soil for far too long, covered miles of winding stone pathways, scaled rugged mountainous terrain, traipsed across lush grassy meadows, and wandered through the depths of the darkest woods.  Though the thrills of adventure beckon us onward, yet the duties of another life force us down from our position in the clouds.  Life – real life, deserves our time and our energies.  We were not meant to spend our time waltzing endlessly through an alternate reality.

And so it is with a mixture of sadness and indescribable joy that I must bid adieu to this wondrous world of dreams, this landscape of undiscovered potential, this universe of unbounded possibilities.  Pain and grief must naturally accompany any parting, but I know that as I lay my head down for the last time, that the moment of passing must inevitably come.  What a glorious thing; for though I close my eyes and let go of my hold on this world, yet I look forward with anticipation to the world beyond what my eyes can see or what my mind can comprehend.  This world of dreams is only temporary, a taste of another world far greater and much more wondrous.

So as I depart this world of alternate realities, I’m overcome with anticipation as I gaze ahead into the bright unknown.  A whole ‘nother world of possibility lies ahead of me, I’m eager to discover what comes next.

_______
That wraps it up for this 52 week project!  I’ve now reached the end of an exciting journey that has been chock full of learning, experimentation, discovery, and inspiration.  Little did I realize when I started this project what I was getting myself into, but I’ve grown so much through this process and absolutely blown my mind at least half-a-dozen times during this incredible adventure.  I look forward to what is ahead, and am thankful for the wonderful experience this last year has been for me.
Just some brief notes on this shot.  I took this in the hot, stuffy loft of our barn.  The scene was simple, but I loved the character provided by the contours of the aged wood and the somewhat dilapidated feel of the setting itself.  I felt like it was the perfect location for what I wanted to accomplish.
I used three strobes to light all the scenes in this composite.  I had a strobe and beauty dish acting as key light to camera-left, a strobe and regular dish reflector to camera-right behind the subject to cast some side/rim light, and a strobe with a honeycomb grid on a boom above the subject to create the top light.
I shot myself laying on the floor for the initial image, then brought my stool and took some shots jumping up towards the boom light to get the second shot of myself ascending.  Last of all, I took some shots while tossing shovel-fulls of dirt into the air (yes, some of the dust in this shot is real).  I managed to get really dirty during this process (and I got some dirt in my eyes and in my teeth), but it was totally worth it.
Here’s a wide-angle shot that captures my setup:
In post I combined all the layers together, lowered the opacity of my ascending shot, added some motion blur, painted in some light rays coming from above, added the dust layers and painted in some of my own dust to increase the feeling of atmosphere.  Did some dodging and burning, and finished with some color correcting, sharpening, and the addition of some digital noise.
It’s hard to visualize the actual editing process, so I’ve included a short breakdown that you can view below:

 

Hope you enjoyed this final addition to this project.  It’s been a true joy to go through this process of adding to this project every week, and I look forward to what lies ahead.  Stay tuned as we continue along this incredibly amazing journey…

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