Cloning & Overlaying

The subject of these images is a sunset over Chauncey Creek and a montage of a picture of my sister and of a white fluffy cloud in the blue sky. To create these images I used my Canon Rebel Sl1 camera and Adobe Photoshop Elements 15. I chose to create these images because I loved the sunset picture, but wanted to get rid of the power lines because I wanted it to look more natural and I created the second image of my sister and the sky because I have wanted to know how artists montage images for awhile and it was great learning experience. For the first image I used the cloning tool to get rid of the power lines and and a rock next to the heron, I simply cloned the sky around the powerlines and around the rock to cover them up. The montage of images took a lot more work because I had to get it just right using many different tools and layers. One layer was the light grey background, the next was the sky and the third layer was my sister. I erased her face and erased all of the sky that wasn't under her hair/shoulders so the grey was visible. The compositions/techniques I used were formal balance for the heron in the creek and the portrait of my sister, I also used silhouette lighting because of the trees and heron against the sky. These images relate to my life because one is of my sister and the other one is from a fun night with my family, I also chose to take these pictures which makes them my own and they are unique. For the montage image one thing that bothers me is how the face outline isn't perfect and some of the facial features aren't the right proportion, I would retrace and delete her face which would mean I would have to restart that layer.