This picture evolved over a series of steps, but still turned out having a similar feel to what I originally had in mind.
I originally wanted multiple clouds and a larger "scene," but I ran short of time and only wasn't able to reshoot at another location. Originally, I wanted to have other clouds in the background tied down, preferably bringing rain to areas of the ground that needed it, e.g. green grass on the left of the picture being watered and parched yellow grass on the right needing my assistance for rain.
I also meant for a different feel for this image, wanting more of a cartoon effect and I even shot artificial clouds to use in place of the real one. As it turned out, I couldn't get the look I wanted and ended up using real clouds.
Technically, the foreground is a panorama stitch of a local field and the background clouds are a single image. The foreground cloud I am pulling was from the same day in a different part of the sky. The "chain" is a piece of my wife's jewelry brought in as a smart object and multiplied and warped several times to get a realistic looking effect. The rain is entirely generated, mainly using render clouds, pixellate and motion blur as well as multiple color fill layers and feathered, blurred masks with rain drops painted on using a custom brush that I created. I cloned a fence out of the field and added a soft blue color shift to the trees to heighten the appearance of them being far away. As usual, various layer effects and shadows were added to the clouds, ground and chain to enhance realism.
I still see a few flaws, but none of these have been pointed out so far in comments. Mainly: there is a slight blurriness at the treeline in the right side of the picture, it appears to be lens flare, but it's just that I never went back and cleaned up the mask in this area; there is a slight white halo around some tree branches caused by dropping out the whites of the foreground (the sky) to let the clouds show up, I wasn't able to get rid of this to my satisfaction in time; the background clouds' highlights are blown out, when I lowered these in ACR it changed the structure of the rest of the background so I left it.
If I end up submitting my originals to the SC, they will see my 9 month old daughter playing nearby in the grass. I wonder what the picture would have looked like with her still in it? :)
So far, I appreciate all the comments and the votes!
[May. 22nd, 2012 06:49:48 PM]
The comment from cclamphe is not something that didn't cross my mind. I originally intended (as stated above) to have a "reason" for bringing the rain, and in an early concept of the picture I had half the grass as yellowed and needing rain:
Still, I decided I liked the surreal aspect of just "bringing rain" and that's why I left it - to add a bit of mystery. He could be going to a party or to the grocery store, or perhaps to a farm as some have stated. As to why this is happening is up to the viewer to decide.
Also, an alternate title was "Cloud Control." Both are slight puns and both are fairly vague.
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Place: 3 out of 51 Avg (all users): 7.1727 Avg (commenters): 8.5882 Avg (participants): 6.6389 Avg (non-participants): 7.3592 Views since voting: 5576 Views during voting: 395 Votes: 139 Comments: 32 Favorites: 8 (view)
Great entry and artwork... but another example of DNMC getting a ribbon because of quality. The theme says the subject should be IN THE RAIN... your subject is clearly out of the rain and bringing it in. Excellent concept and well presented, but clearly DNMC.
glad to see this ribbon, it was my only 10. even though the cloud itself looked a tad fake, the creativity and execution behind this shot outweighed that minor flaw.
Great concept, and very nice execution: congratulations on your well deserved ribbon. The concept is very clever and interesting. If I may also add a small criticism, the shadow of the main cloud looks a bit odd to me, like if it was purely 2D and cast on a flat picture: that's the main thing I would rework in your picture. But I'm nitpicking, good job!
Seems like an interesting idea, however I don't understand why he is pulling the rain cloud. The main thing that bothers me about this picture is the way the rope around the cloud looks. I feel like it should be so defined. It really pulls your attension away from the rest of the picture. It would have been better with it just being one loop instead of five. The rain looks nice, everythign else I like.
Bring the Rain
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