Visual Creativity: My First Photosurrealistic Picture

When I started using a digital darkroom in 2003, I learned that things that I could not have dreamed of doing in a wet darkroom were possible and sometimes even easy to do on the computer and in Photoshop Elements. I began this process of discovery when I was looking at some old slides.

I remember looking at a picture I took in 1977 of Toronto’s New City Hall with a sundial in the foreground (the picture on the left). I always liked that picture. I decided to scan the slide and bring the image into the digital age. As I looked at it though, I also remembered a Hubble picture that I had seen of the galaxy M51 (the picture on the right).

I began to wonder what it would be like to have the galaxy in the sky. Perhaps it was the globe of the sundial. Perhaps it was the building rising to the sky. In any case, the bright center of the galaxy seemed to me to be a potential “sun” in the sky.

In the end, I decided to place the galaxy in the sky with the results you see here.



I hope you enjoy the picture and the thought processes and I’ll be interested in your comments.