About the Image(s)

I’ve had an image of these stone hands holding a broken pocket watch in my head for a while (not sure why), so I decided to see where that idea led me. I figured a cracked sidewalk would be a good way to make the watch appear broken, so I’ve been shooting a bunch when I’m out and about. I settled on one and used it as a layer over the watch with Color Burn blend mode at 100% opacity. I then merged the two layers, duplicated them twice, used each copy to create the two pieces of the watch, and separated them a bit at the top. Once I had the hands positioned on a background I thought was interesting, I replaced the sky in that image with a blue/cloudy one. I painted the white horizon line to blend the two images. It took me a few tries to decide what would work as a counterbalance to the hands and watch. I took a photo of our front door and the sun was shining through it at the time, so I added the sun in the sky behind the door so it made sense. I used the warp tool to tweak the shape of the door and amp up the surrealism. The couple was added heading toward the door and then I added shadows.

Once I had the composition the way I wanted it, I used PS Filter Gallery > Poster Edges and Oil Paint to blend all the photos into one look. Next, I used On1 to give it a Yellowed Paper texture. Finally, I used Distressed Efex to give it the antiqued look.