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September 01, 2004

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I started out with a simple image of a hummingbird diving towards the feeder and I got a little carried away. I was really impressed with the angle of the bird. The original image almost looked as if the bird was just about to impale itself into the feeder.

How I did it:
The original image actually had part of the hummingbird feeder and a roof on the left side of the image. I masked around the bird and copied the whole right side of the image, behind the bird, and paste it back over the left side of the image. This was necessary because of the fact that the sky background was not consistent in color and brightness. Flipping the copied area horizontally made an even blend up the center of the image. I brushed out a few leftover blemishes.

Then, with only the bird in the center, I wanted to see what it would look like if I was to create some sense of motion in the image. I thought of just a motion blur around the edges of the bird but then came up with the idea of copying numerous images of the bird. I masked around the bird and copied the object. I paste it six times and positioned them all in the row I wanted. Then I decided to fade each one proportionately to give the illusion of some kind of exposure saturation.