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PHOTOSHOP WORK
2018 - 2020
These are graphics that were created as personal projects, using Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. The works were created using multiple images.
BACKYARD SQUIRREL
I love taking photos of nature. Sometimes I would see a squirrel in my mom's backyard and run out to take some photos, regardless of the freezing temperatures. Whether it was my phone or a digital camera, I would grab what I could and zoom out the door. That's exactly how this project started.
After a short session of stalking this poor animal, I was taking a look at the original photo of the squirrel, and realized how bad the background looked. It was late in the fall (or perhaps early in the winter) when I took the photo, so of course all the green that's usually in our backyard was... well, gone. I decided to dig through some old photos and proceed with image compositing on Photoshop.
When I started working on this personal project, I was apprehensive about how it would turn out. Frankly, I didn't think I had the skills to turn the photo of the squirrel in the dead winter background, into a beautiful and vibrant image in a seamless way. I did one thing after another, playing with color adjustments and other effects until I finally managed to create a colorful scene. Finally, I took the edit into Lightroom and further touched it up to get this final product.
MASJID
I'm a firm believer in the concept that staying in touch with our faith and our Creator will ultimately lead us to Paradise in all its beauty. I had the idea to create this image depicting a mosque above the clouds, with the moon above it. Then I went through some older photos that I could use to execute this concept.
Pictured is Sura Mosque, or Sura Masjid, in Ghoraghat, Dinajpur in Bangladesh. My family and I were passing through some towns during my trip in Bangladesh, when this beautiful mosque suddenly caught my eye. I quickly asked to have our driver stop so that I could capture some photos. The intricate details on the outside were so beautiful. I wish I could have explored the inside, but unfortunately the entrance was locked at the time. I didn't need a historian or a local to tell me that this was a very historic structure. As a matter of fact, I learned that it was built in the 16th century.
There was no particular reason for me to use this mosque's image to create the graphic; simply that it was the only mosque I had photos of at the time.
The overall idea was to depict the holiness of a mosque, and to depict the reward and beauty of the Afterlife. I don't expect everyone to have the same beliefs as I do, but I hope that everyone respects them.
DOVES
There were a group of doves that frequently visited my mother's backyard that I decided were friends or perhaps even family. Months before creating this image, I made a joke that I would create a "mixtape" cover, or some kind of album art using the original photo I took of the birds sitting on our roof.
So one day, I sat down and looked through some old photos for the background as well as the foreground and voila, I created this image featuring four majestic birds overlooking the city from my mother's roof.
This is absolutely one of my favorite edits/image compositing projects. I am especially happy with the way I managed to get rid of so many of the disrupting elements in the background and foreground, such as the cables and the leaves from our cherry tree. Another thing that bothered me about the original photo was the fact that one of the doves (in the far right) was significantly distant from the rest of the birds. I was determined to bring it closer to the rest of the group, and portray the four doves sitting together.
The final product is an image of four doves spread out evenly across the center. The warm tones in the sky complement the doves. The image is darkened at the bottom, and the bricks are covered by foliage to remove distractions.
TORONTO
A few years ago, a creator on Instagram announced a Photoshop challenge. The challenge was to use their given folder of images to create one final image composite, similar to the example they had provided in their Instagram story.
There were a total of four images, a landscape of a night sky, a skyline of Toronto, a photo of the moon, and a photo of Saturn.
I created the final product with a combination of Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.
ESCAPE
When I created this image I was imagining a beautiful land where I'd want to escape, and in this case, it was Nilgiri, Bandarban in Chittagong, Bangladesh.
The first photo I used to create this image was taken on a cool morning on the Wayne State University campus. I thought I had a wonderful opportunity when I noticed this student running towards Second Ave, where there was thick and heavy fog. Right then and there, in that moment, I imagined creating an image that depicted some sort of dark, mysterious theme, especially with the thick fog. However, eventually, I thought to create something to reflect an inner thought. If I could, I would live in a place where I'd be surrounded by nature, green, foliage and all. Since it was out of my hands at the time, I decided to do a visual depiction instead.
I chose to composite the photo with a photo I'd taken in Bangladesh, because Nilgiri just so happened to be my absolute favorite of all the places I'd visited when I last went to Bangladesh (in 2016). Frankly, it was one of the most beautiful places I'd ever had the chance to see and explore.
Without hesitation, I combined the photo of the beautiful mountains with the photo of the student running on campus, and created one magical image.
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