Queencheck At Hedgewood

Our assignment for Ted Orland's digital photo class was to randomly choose one of our classmates' images and then incorporate that into a new creation of our own. The horse head(s) you see were my draw luck (Calliope horse head shot by Dwight Smith). I wanted to use some of the imagery I'd shot recently in Calistoga with a rented Mamiya RZII, specifically that forest shot. After playing with the horse head in photoshop and trying to figure out what to do with it, I decided to duplicate it. At that point I thought, two horseheads... mmm... Chess!. At that point it was a necessity to acquire a Queen! So I bought Madame Alexander #13600 and photographed the doll. I added a scan of an open, lighted doorway at night to add to the mood, and then sat down to really get to work at the computer, with intent to create some sort of oppressive, dreamlike scene. It's my first fairly well-realized digital manipulation, and I'm kind of proud of it.