Happy Independence Day!

Happy 237th Birthday America!  Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota (composite image)

www.dennismook.com

Today is Independence Day in the United States.  We celebrate this day because in the year 1776, the founding fathers of our country declared their independence from their mother country--England.

By any analysis, England should have won that war easily, but they didn't.

A good lesson to governments everywhere, even today.  Represent the people and their best interests over the interests of the few or risk civil disobedience, civil war and even dissolution.

The image above was a composite of two images.  The image of Mt. Rushmore was taken in October 2012 on a bright sunny day at about noon.  The image of the fireworks was taken on Kodachrome 64 about 20 years ago.  I manipulated and composited both for this effect. 

Obviously, I darkened the mountains but I also had to remove their color, which is a light yellow.  But I didn't want to remove all the color.  So converting to grayscale was not an option.  At night, the shadows are normally not full of detail, so I darkened the shadows by increasing the contrast on the image.

I selected a fireworks photo from my files and selected one that would look good above these sculptures and mountain.  The fireworks photo was made by setting the camera shutter on "B" and holding a card over the end of the lens.  When I heard the launch of a firework, I would move the card, record the burst, then cover the lens again.  I did this for several burst before closing the shutter and advancing the film.  Of course, in the film days, you don't know if you did or did not get a good shot as there was no LCD to view!  As I recall, the aperture was F/5.6 on ASA 64 film.  And, of course, the camera was solidly on a tripod.

  I then layered the two together in Photoshop, blending the edges carefully.  Not very difficult to do, but not really, really perfectly professional.  I suspect that a Photoshop professional or graphic artist would have done a better job. 

But I enjoy doing things like this to see if I can.  That gives me an opportunity to try new things, increase my skills and stretch the bounds of my competence in Photoshop.

Thanks for looking.

Enjoy!  
Dennis Mook