About the Image(s)

I recently attended an interpretive dance show with the goal of practicing dance photography. Unfortunately, most of my images suffered from significant banding, making them unsuitable for traditional editing. Rather than discarding them, I decided to take a more creative approach and transform one of the photos into an artistic piece.

To achieve this, I duplicated the original image and set one layer to "add" and the other to "multiply," which helped create depth and contrast. For the first layer, I also applied a blur effect and added smoke to give the image a more mysterious and ethereal feel. I then used dodging and burning techniques to emphasize key areas, adding dimension and focus.

To enhance the mood further, I incorporated one of my moon photos into the background, resizing and dodging it to serve as a light source. Finally, I overlaid a blue hue across the entire image and added subtle smoke effects throughout to amplify the dreamlike and atmospheric quality of the scene.