Working Hard

A few weekend's ago, nature pissed on the Princeton area. For over 36 hours, a snowstorm dumped its load. By the time the wind and snow had stopped, we had over 30 inches of snow piled in front of our doorway and front door. I could hardly see my car. Bhavna and I dreaded going out to remove the heavy powder, so we waited until the next day, Sunday.

We opened the garage door and worked for over 1-hour shovelling snow from around the car. Once we had removed enough snow, I parked the car on the street while the kids and I removed the rest of the snow from the driveway. This was backbreaking work. The snow was the heavy packing kind. Great for making snowballs and snowmen but a PITA for parents who need to get to work the next day.

After digging out and surveying the work we had done, I suddenly remembered an image I had seen a few years earlier. The photographer had taken images of himself in various poses in his driveway. I tried to create something similar. My photograph is exposed facing into the driveway. The photographer had composed his scene facing out from his garage. He had an image of himself sitting in a lawn chair, drinking hot chocolate while observing himself working in the snow. Our lawn chairs were in the shed in the back. The shed was inaccessible due to the aforementioned 30 inches of snow in the backyard, so I improvised. I used an image of me sipping some scotch while leaning against a shovel.

I learned how to use Photoshop layer masks last summer. This is perhaps not the best work I've done with masks, but it was the most fun. Five images were used to create this composite.