52Frames Dappled Light

The subject this week for the 52Frames photo challenge was “dappled light.” I really didn’t have any specific idea in mind. On our morning walk in the neighborhood park it was a brilliant sunny day. I kept my eyes open for some options. It wasn’t until our return trip back to the car that something caught my attention. We must have been at the perfect angle as the shadows cast from the overhead leaves were magnificent against the light colored bark. It almost looked artificial. The photo itself was quite nice. But I still had to create a composite image to turn it in to a project and add a personal touch. So the trunk of the tree design was isolated and added to all of the other smaller trees in the background so it looked like they all had the same look. I had to paint a bit of leaves and copy and paste some branches in front of the new trunks so they blended in and then added some shade. Of course another bit of whimsy was to add a squirrel to the woodland scene. It started with an albino squirrel sitting on the ground - I tried one on either side. But I knew I had a photo of an albino squirrel from the National mall that was lying flat on the trunk of the tree in front of the National Museum of Art. I did finally find it and isolated him from that photo and added him to the dabbled light image. I removed the shade that was added to blend him in to let him stand out more. Having the squirrel on the tree allowed me to crop in the lower section of the photo and highlight the design on the trunk - which was the purpose of the subject this week. The end result ended up like it may have even happened that way. Hopefully I will fool a lot of people!