Project 2

During the blizzard back in January, my friend Brandon took a picture of me and my friend Michael as we walked down an empty street going to Brandon's house. I loved the picture, and made it my cover photo on Facebook, in part because it struck me as similar to the cover for Eminem's Recovery, one of my favorite albums of all time. So when this project came up, those two photos immediately sprang to mind.
Initially, I considered editing out Michael from the picture, but then I realized that his presence actually helped the concept of the photo, as he symbolized family and friendship that I value dearly. I already had the Eminem photo, which symbolized my love of music (And he is my favorite music artist). I then looked for a picture of Shaquille O'Neal to symbolize my love of sports, but alas, there were no good full body shots of him from behind, so I instead went with Barry Bonds, my favorite baseball player of all time. I finished it out with a picture of Conan O'Brien, who symbolizes my love of comedy (I haven't missed a show of his since early-2008, for some perspective). It also helped that the picture takes place during a massive snowstorm, something I genuinely love the same now at 23 that I did when I was 13. I faded the three additions out a bit to show that their presence resides within me on a spiritual/mental basis, whereas Michael is fully filled because he symbolizes who and what I value physically.
Notes:
I struggled to shortcut and add snow to the layers, so I decided to simply add the snow manually through the brush tool. That was more tedious than anything.
I really struggled to add shadows. I sort of got one for Bonds, and I got a teensy bit for Eminem, but the copy tool was not cooperating with me.
O'Brien's source picture cut off most of his feet, so I compromised by placing him near where the snow banks on the road had built up.
In the original picture, I was carrying Brandon's cooler. I figured it would be too distracting (And I don't drink anyway), so I edited it out.

Overall, I'm actually pleasantly surprised with how this turned out, since I have no experience/am awful with Photoshop, but I felt that this worked conceptually the way I envisioned it. And if nothing else, I can be proud of the amount of hours of work I put into this.