This is one of those images that haunted me for quite a long time. I’d taken the initial, original, beach-scene photograph on a rather hot day in summer. I’d taken my dead computer in for resurrection. As I was sans-computer, I needed something to do to take my mind off of all of the writing now relegated to a spiral-bound notebook. Low tech writing isn’t something that I avoid, or shy away from, but I’ve become spoiled. I like to see words on digital paper: typed…though in this modern era, I suppose the term “keyboarded” might be more apt, since typewriters have now become art objects rather than tools, though typewriters are still used in a few situations. So anyway, the beach component of this image is one of those: digital images that remained on my camera for a few weeks longer than expected. I liked that it was a beach shot, a people shot, a strange composition. The sky was empty on that day. I don’t mind empty skies, but I didn’t like the strange space (not dead, just ungainly) dominating the top of this photograph. The photograph, with the ungainly sky, wasn’t bad enough to abandon, but not good enough to keep, in its native state. And so, last week, I worked on it. I did something to that sky. I combined photographs, fiddled with blending tools, blending modes, with Turkish music blasting in my headphones. This is a collage in a sense, though it’s composed of only two elements. It’s a photo-blend: a beach and the remnants of food preparation in a still-hot skillet. (This image, and it’s companion piece: the one I’ll post later) also happens to serve as something of an inspiration for the first of two tales I’d posted yesterday. The “character” in this image not the character in the story, nor is this beach intended to represent the beach that figures in one of the two stories from yesterday’s post…and yet. In terms of the story this image inspired, the character depicted here is just some guy with no bearing on the character written. And yet… …If one were to ask what inspired Two Stories, I’d have to say that memories of a particular day did so. It was windy. Beach sand blew in gusts of wind, effectively sandblasting everything in the area, and that was what inspired the two stores composing the uneven halves of Two Stories. This image (and its companion) aren’t intended to accompany the two stories making up Two Stories, though a tweaked blend of those (these?) images serves as the “cover art.” This is the near-original: 1 of 2, posted here because I like what happened to that blank blue sky, and I find it somewhat revealing that no human figure in this image seems taken by that sky (why would they be, the sky "photographed" here isn't the sky that they saw!) In the logic of this photo, I guess, life in a lava lamp is normal for these people, this person…and maybe there’s a story somewhere in that thought as well. Or not. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week. Oh, and just so you’ll know, it might be good to zoom on this shot, as that sky has some details in it that get swamped in its more diminutive size.