Lament - Then and Now

This is my entry for the Kick Your Own @ss contest.

To be entered into Category #2: Photomanipulation

Original Version: [link]
New Version: [link]

Stocks from: `Elandria, ~night-fate-stock, ~InKi-Stock, ~Dandelion-lion-stock, ~ImStuck, =resurgere

Links to original stock photos provided at each deviation.

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Looking back at a lot of my earlier works, I cringe. Judging from the original "Lament" deviation, back in 2005 I had absolutely no concept of perspective, blending, or creating something that I thought was worth putting up. And ewww, those yellow flowers. Those were PSP tubes.

I decided to get rid of the "surreal" concept (the rip in the sky) because it was cliche and pointless. I thought of keeping the background as a cracked desert, but at the last minute chose the grass instead, just because I thought it looked better. The crow is not as dark now, the grave blends in better with the ground, the model's hair has highlights (which I thought was an improvement over the dark solid color of the original), and the background now tapers off in the distance and has depth, unlike the the background in the original.

4 years later, I'm still learning how to manipulate pictures, and I'm still having fun experimenting. I'm not yet at the skill level I would like to be, but I'm getting there...slowly.