Lately I’ve been exploring a new area of photography. With everything that has been happening in my life – I needed an outlet to try and express some of my thoughts and feelings and ideas. With that need for creative expression – the Your Story Project was born. I’m still working on that series of images – waiting for the right situations to be able to capture the images I need. But I also started working on another series… which I haven’t come up with a title for yet.

This particular series is going to be a self portrait series dealing with emotions or traits like hope, strength, faith, growth, etc… I was inspired one day after watching one of my favorite fine art photographers, Brooke Shaden, to explore this world of fine art composite photography. And my first piece was created – Hope. Obviously you all know the journey Ryan and I are on with trying to have kids. Hope plays a huge part in our lives… hope that something good is yet to come. Sometimes that hope is near and present, and sometimes it feels far off and elusive. But we’re always chasing that hope. The visual idea for this piece just kind of came to me, and I felt really compelled to just start working on it.

So I set up my camera on a tripod in my living room with a backdrop behind me and my lights set up how I wanted them. And I took a few different shots of poses I liked. I used the same tripod method to get stills of a sheet being unfurled in a variety of directions. And finished with a couple shots of hair flips.

For this particular image – I decided to go through some of my old Gratitude Project landscapes and I found this perfect, rosy, foggy scene to composite myself into. I also found the bird from a Gratitude Project image and began working to mesh everything together. I spent maybe two or three hours on this image and I’m so happy with how it turned out! I really love this new way of creating and I’m looking forward to working on the other 20 ideas I have for this series.

Here’s a little peek at my process:

Well I hope you found this fun! I’m looking forward to working on more pieces in this series and seeing what unfolds as I go! Have an awesome weekend everyone!