You always hear people say, “Location, location, location.”

But does it always matter? Sometimes, with a little imagination and some sweet editing skills in Photoshop, you can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. Hence the title of this post.

When I got the idea for this shoot, it wouldn’t leave me alone. Surreal photography has been my dream to do, and while I’m still learning and quite new at it, I feel like I did a pretty good job! I had seen these photo manipulations by Kevin Corrado where he uses layers and masking in Photoshop, and I had to do some on my own. And I present to you my shoot I have titled Escapsim.

The trick to getting photographs that look like this is by taking two shots: one of just the background and then another with your subject. Then you do the rest in post! I had found an old picture frame at a thrift store, and I used that as the main prop for my whole shoot. Even though the shot is pretty extraordinary (I think), the location was quite boring.

But within this location, I got several incredible shots.

I made sure to keep the shutter speed at around 1/200 of a second, with an aperture of f/8. That way, the snow wasn’t insanely blown out, and if I wanted it to look blown out, I could do that in post.

After this set of images I took, I went to bed that night and just knew I had to take more. So I forced my lovely roommate and go-to model, Zoie, to go out with me again this morning to take some more. But I wanted the feeling of this shoot to be a bit different. The first part of Escapsim was about searching and reaching for freedom. But this second half is more accepting of fate.

I had way too much fun with this project, and I’ve only whet my appetite for more surreal photography. I can’t wait to get my hands on it again!

As a bonus, here’s another photo of the location that we stayed in, as well as a couple behind-the-scenes shots:

#theteam