Fynbosland

“Fynbos is the natural shrub land or heathland vegetation occurring in a small belt of the Western Cape of South Africa, mainly in winter rainfall coastal and mountainous areas with a Mediterranean climate.” - Wikipedia

This image is dedicated to my brother:

Mauro Introna 1971.04.24 – 2013.08.29.

Despite our difficult relationship, my brother and I shared many traits. One being a great love for the outdoors and being at our happiest when surrounded by nature; whether the sea, mountains or open fields. Fynbosland has special meaning for my family and this was the inspiration for this image.

I took this image back in June 2014, but only started working on it a few days ago. Sometimes images just have to breath for a while before the emotions and memories are ready to be set free... Thanks to a trusted friend, I was encouraged to pull this one out and set it free.

This has to have been one of the messiest edit I have ever done for an image. Usually my editing process flows relatively simply. I know before I start the edit what the sequence will be that I need to complete my vision. Somehow for this image I just kept having to backtrack and rework bits of the image – in the end I worked through a jumble of layers on top of layers!

Part of why this edit was so messy was because I did not properly capture all the pieces I needed. I thought I had everything I needed while shooting, but when it came to editing I realised I had made some mistakes. It probably would have been a lot easier for me to just reshoot the image, but there was something in the mood of the images I had captured that I did not want to loose – so I decided I would make it work with some crafty and very patient Photoshop work.

My messy edit is the reason I have not prepared a YouTube video of my editing process. I usually share the process for most of my images and I have loved preparing the videos for that. This time I figured it would be best not to share my process as you all would all think I was totally crazy! Instead here is the before and after images.

This is the second image I have dedicated to his memory – the first was “For Mauro”...