Losing My Religion

The image started with a picture of the beautifully melancholic ruins of the ancient abbey at Villers la Ville south of Waterloo, Belgium. I took 3 bracketed shots which I used to create an HDR image (with Photomatix) of the main section.

As I used a wide angle lens to include the vaulted ceiling, I also needed to correct the sloping verticals using the Transform tool in Photoshop CS3.

The water on the floor is from a shot I took on film some years ago at Gibraltar in southern Spain.

The sky through the windows in the back of the abbey was taken from a shot from Flagler Beach in Florida (never know when you’re gonna need a dynamic sky… always like to keep a couple in my library).

The original picture had 6 round windows in the back… I replaced them with a segment of single, larger window from another section of the abbey, just cause it looked cooler.

The birds are from another take of the sky over Flagler Beach. No idea what they are, but as I didn’t have one single shot of vampire bats (which actually surprised me…), I settled for these.

The roots growing up the columns in the foreground were actually growing up the outer wall of the abbey, so I planted them inside digitally and couldn’t believe how quickly they spread.

Finally, the 7th element. Reeled off 60 shots of myself in lots of poses and a couple of different shirts. Did it on the patio with the self timer and totally frustrated the next door neighbor as he could see the set up but I kept myself out of view. If it were me, I would have had the kid kick a football over the hedge and told him to have a good look while he fetched it!

All seven elements used in this collage are my own… All but the water were shot with a Canon 5D MkI and EF 16-35L lens.