Flowers and lemons and bees- oh my! I tried to be different.
This shot has been in the works for literally months. My neighbor's Yorkshire Terrier, Darwin, sparked the idea back in May/June. A local photographer moved away in August, and I saved his very heavy brick facing backdrop specifically for this shot. All I had to do was wait for an appropriate challenge. Ah... Yellow!
My wife found the ruby slippers and picked up a couple strips of artificial turf (whatta' gal). I painted the bricks yellow, and my neighbor agreed to bring over Darwin.
The dog was extremely nervous (wouldn't stop shaking), and could only stay for 20 minutes. Crunch time! I quickly set up two strobe lights as low as possible to get shadows on the bricks and took a guess at the camera settings. My neighbor held Darwin from behind while another helper waved turkey in front of him. Meanwhile, I had my daughter holding on to a step ladder in order to keep one foot in the air. It was total chaos, but I got about 15 shots off. With all the people around, my cropping options were limited, and I had to shoot from above because I didn't have enough bricks & turf to show more background. It's a miracle I got anything usable at all.
Processing: USM, levels, +9 Shadow/Highlight adjustment to the green channel to bring out the turf, then played with HSL on yellow, red and green to get richer colors.
I'm pretty happy with it, but you would think with all the time I waited for this shot that I could have researched a little better. In the movie, Toto was darker and Dorothy had pale blue socks with no frills. Oops! ;-)
Statistics
Place: 9 out of 393 Avg (all users): 6.3860 Avg (commenters): 8.0909 Avg (participants): 6.3272 Avg (non-participants): 6.4634 Views since voting: 22452 Views during voting: 403 Votes: 285 Comments: 33 Favorites: 5 (view)
Don't worry about the blue socks. That was only in the movie. I think the REAL dorothy's socks were just like this. Oh, and for the record, the REAL toto was an Afghan Bloodhound, but this just didn't work for the movie director.
Shannon, Congrats on Your top ten with this amazing image. Thought this would score higher. Guess the Great and Powerful OZ has spoken or maybe some confused Munchkins. Great entry!
Cairn Terriers are a difficult prop to build when you don't have one handy. As noted, the socks should have been blue, too. Oh, well. I did what I could with the materials available to me, so I can't complain. ;-)
Shannon: this is a very nice entry and one that I have wanted to do for so long. Thank you for this nice rendition. Congratulations on your top 10 finish. Stunning.
I couldn't stop smiling when I saw this, I can't believe you're the only one to think of this, great job!!! And where in the world did you find those shoes??? 10
I'm sometimes frightened by the amount of effort people put into their shots. ;-) But it was certainly worth it because this shot came out really well, with excellent colors and a great set of subjects. Very nice job!
returning for comments:
So very cute and attractive. The only distraction is the variation of skin tones on the legs. Outside of this minor snag, your image is very well composed and bears the magic of the movie. The bricks look stunning. Bumping way up
This is excellent. The shoes, socks, Toto, road, and "grass." Reflecting light from the back of the models might have helped with the shadows on the road. A 10.
Very cute! Your dog would qualify to play Toto in a production of the Wizard of Oz, and the shot is nicely composed and very sharp. Where is this road? It can't be purely a photoshop creation with basic editing rules. Or if it can, I'd sure like to learn how to do it.
What I like about this shot is the pose of Toto. She appears to be intently watching the road, and that adds much interest to this shot. There's a little bit of haloing around the heels of the ruby shoes but not quite enough to be distracting. I think your color balance is excellent too. Overall a great shot. 8
Holy &^%^%& !! You win. Just added this to my favorites and desktop. Brilliant concept if a might predictable. Lighting, colour, composition, concept, nails the challenge. I haven't given out a 10 yet but I'm struggling with this one.
Hope you are happy and proud.
I can't see any room for improvement. You've got a 9 from me, and I'll probably come back later and bump it up. The good news is that I like it, the bad news is that I rarely pick a winner. :( Hope I haven't jinxed you by liking it so much.
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