Beauty From Melancholy

Swan Light by standoutloud

My first piece is up for 2011. It has a bit of a strange story behind it.

The christmas and new year period are a bit depressing for me for a few reasons. I guess some of it has to do with being single. Some of it relates to my family being so far away. Some of it was due to the fact that I had to work both my jobs through christmas with only two days off, meaning that I couldn't catch up with everyone like I wanted.

Therefore I was in a strange mood when I finally turned my attention to creating a new piece. At the time I was listening to the Smashing Pumpkins aptly named Melancholy And The Infinite Sadness album. One line from the song Thirty Three got stuck in my head and started rattling around. "graceful swans of never topple to the earth"

My original thought was to use pictures of local black swans. My original rough layout sketch had two swans flying downwards, breaking apart as they went. The idea kept progressing into something else entirely. Somewhere along the line it changed from a moody piece to a cheerful piece.

I decided that white swans would be better and went scouring the stock photo sites. Easier said than done. If you look at the four I used you will notice three different species of swan. They are from three different parts of the globe by three different photographers all with different cameras. Getting them to work together, look right and get the lighting how I wanted it was a real pain in the butt.

The end result, in my opinion, was worth it. I get to kick off the new year with a positive, uplifting piece.

The other thing I would like to mention is that it was created entirely in gimp. Take that photoshop snobs. Gimp is a great piece of software, even if it does have an unfortunate name.