Empty Nest

Let's go back about 5 or 6 weeks to when I was full of creative energy. I sat down while Izzy was quietly playing and pulled out the sketchbook I have specifically for picture ideas. I had seen on my weather app that there was supposed to be fog the next morning which was exciting to me. I've ALWAYS wanted to shoot in fog and needed to come up with a super special idea for the occasion. I sketched a few ideas out, liked a few, but was really invested in the idea behind this one.

It spoke to me because the meaning behind it evolved into something that hits close to home. For those who don't know, I'm kind of hard to make friends with. I put up walls to protect myself and that ultimately keeps people out in the process. But those walls also prevent me from seeing those who are trying to be my friend. I tend to have blind spots when it comes to people who care for me (outside of immediate family). So I stare at my empty nest and wallow in self created loneliness, meanwhile I have quite a few people out there who truly care for me. I just don't see them because I'm so focused on my barricaded loneliness.

And thus the idea was born: a woman staring longingly into her empty nest, wishing she had a companion; but because she's so focused on the nest she doesn't see the birds flying around her trying to get in.

As unflattering as it may be, this picture embodies who I am right now.

It took me until now to shoot the picture because my weather app lied to me. I set my alarm for 7:15 am that day and spent two hours tossing and turning in bed because I was so excited! But I woke up only to find...no fog. Of course! By the time I was crawling back into bed, Izzy woke up. So I had a restless night for nothing.

Rewind to February 7th. Northern California has been getting hit with storm after storm after storm this winter. We had two more storm systems coming through bringing lots of rain and wind. On Tuesday while I was making lunch, I looked out the window and to my delight I saw FOG! It wasn't very thick and came out of nowhere. I quickly finished making lunch and decided, why not try?

So I kept my Star Wars pajama bottoms on, put on tennis shoes, threw on the dress, double checked to make sure I had everything, and ventured out to an abandoned field beside our apartment complex. Thankfully there was a break in the rain and it wasn't too cold so I wasn't suffering while shooting this.

I was, however, greeted with a flooded field! You think I would have expected that since it's been raining for a week and a half but I didn't. Thankfully I was thinking ahead and decided to wear my tennis shoes instead of my flats because I was stepping in deep puddles and thick mud. I briefly thought about giving up and just turning back and try again another day. But I didn't. It was just a little mud and water; nothing I haven't worked with before.

I found a semi-solid part of the field, still thick with mud, and set up my tripod. I then spotted a little rock nearby to put my props on. I brought my phone (in case of emergency), the nest, my remote, the sketchbook with my idea written down in it, and one of my daughter's bottles with water in it. I actually never used the bottle. I brought it because I wanted to add a tear or two rolling down my cheek but while I was shooting the wind blew my hair up over my face and I liked how that looked instead. I wound up not using those images, but I'll get into that a little bit later.

At the time there was just enough fog for me to take a picture but it cleared up fast. While shooting I was looking through some pictures I took to see if any of them were usable and when I looked up from the camera, the fog was gone! I felt like this was yet another reason to just give up and try again. But I didn't. The only thing I was missing out on by being in that field was the promise of a warm lunch, and I'm the mother to a 4 month old...I'm used to cold meals.

After I had taken about 3 pictures standing in this flooded, foggy field a woman from the apartment complex and her dog showed up. The dog was running around, having a great time, but they were only feet away from me. It was awkward as she watched me try take emotional self portraits, cradling an empty nest, while her dog ran around me. Thankfully, a few minutes later she decided to go to another part of the field and let me be.

That has been one of my biggest fears of shooting outside. Looking like a complete idiot in front of total strangers. I know that I shouldn't care. They're strangers and I'll probably never see them again, so what do I care what they think of me? And if they really are curious they can ask me what I'm doing and I can explain it to them. However, most people really don't care. And usually when they see the camera they realize it's some art project or weird photographer thing. But I still have these fears while shooting because, most of the time, what I am doing is pretty insane. However, I still plan on shooting more in that field and in other nearby parks since some of my best work is done outside.

As I mentioned before, I didn't utilize the tear drop idea because the wind had blown my hair over my face and I liked how that looked. Well the fog had lifted so quickly, by the time I shot the hair flips it was gone. So the background for the hair flips was drastically different than the foggy background I needed. I spent HOURS desperately trying to get it to work in photoshop by cutting out the hair. I watched a few tutorials on youtube, one of which was pretty advanced and taught me a lot. But I still couldn't get it to work. I had to give up.

And I considered just waiting to reshoot another day when fog rolled in again but instead I went back and looked at the images I took before the fog cleared. There weren't too many of them since the wind came after only a hand full of pictures but I found one I liked enough to give it a shot. Somehow, while awkwardly having someone watch me shoot, I managed to pull off a look I was happy with.

But even as I was editing the image, I wasn't too sure that I was going to finish it and share it. I went into this shoot with a lot of uncertainty, which is rare for me. It's one of the biggest reasons I didn't make a speed edit video for the image. I wanted a space to take my time and play with different editing techniques without worrying about how long it was taking or how tediously boring it must be to watch. Thankfully by the time it all came together I was really, really happy with the results!

I had a few issues going into the edit, mainly making the fog thicker and adding the birds. I went to google images and looked up different fog images to try and get an idea of what it looks like for people and birds to be in dense fog. I wanted to make it thicker because, as you can see from the SOOC (straight out of camera) image, there wasn't a lot of it.

First I utilized my new found knowledge about cutting out hair in photoshop, which was much easier on this image because it was already on the foggy background. I selected part of the background image with the fog and stretched it out over the background. I then used the gradient tool on a layer mask in black and white to make the fog gradually get thicker. That way it could look natural. It worked out beautifully!

Thankfully the process was made easier because of the practice I had in the first image. It gave me a chance to play around with how to make the fog look naturally thicker. So even though I essentially wasted a few hours editing the first image, it did teach me a lot and made the second edit much easier.

Adding the birds took awhile too. I knew I wanted black birds and I knew I didn't want to use brushes. I try very hard not to use brushes whenever possible because they look really fake. I'd rather use real images or stock images. Unfortunately there are far more bird brushes than there are stock images, especially of black birds.

But I found one* and they fit pretty well. Unfortunately there wasn't a lot of detail to the birds so they started to look like I had used brushes anyway. I eventually blurred them out and faded them quite a bit to make it look like they were far back in the fog flying around. Thankfully it came together because I really struggled with them for awhile.

*The bird stock images I used are from this deviantart page.

I also struggled with the nest. I knew when I was shooting it that I would need to make it bigger. I even made a mental note to take a picture of the nest by itself to make enlarging it easier. But the thing about me is I usually forget to shoot some aspect of the picture. I try to write down the different images I need to take in order to make the composite work, but when I'm shooting I tend to forget to look at the sketchbook. This almost always leads to me overlooking something important. In this case, I forgot to shoot the nest on it's own. So I had to take parts of different images to enlarge both sides.

And I'll be honest, before I began to post process this image I was at a loss. I didn't particularly like how the image was looking and didn't know how to edit it in such a way that I liked. At this point the birds were only semi blurred and looked fake. I had also added some fog to myself because in many of the images I found on google, people standing in thick fog were hazy. But in this image it wasn't working and made it overall very dull.

But once I blurred the birds and faded them, it really began to come together. A lot of what I did to fix the color and contrast was just playing around with curves and textures. It didn't take too long before the image started to come together and I got excited about it again. That was a relief because I had spent so long on this image. And I felt obligated to create something good since we had unexpected fog that I had been waiting so long to shoot in.

I am proud of this one. It means a lot to me for so many reasons. Not only does it have a very personal message behind it but I learned a lot while shooting and editing this. I learned not to be so afraid of shooting in public. I learned not to give up and to keep trying. I learned useful tips in photoshop. And I learned that I can create beautiful art that I am truly happy with even when going into it with a weak game plan.