Thumbs Up

Another image from "On the Bottom." I realize why I love these photographs--for the most part there is no background, it's all white haze*. After I finished this one, I told myself that if I had to do it again, it would be better to try and compose the elements in a separate drawing first, or as an underdrawing. So much is left to the imagination, in the murkiness of the old photo, it makes it a little too easy to just improvise your way through it. But with complex scenes like this, one doesn't have the visual imagination and visual memory to pull it off with technical finesse. Better to think like you're recreating the scene anew, rebuilding it from the foundation, than trying to slip one past.

*This makes me think that for any image with a complicated background I encounter from now on, I should plan to separate the background and foreground into separate drawings. I have the technical skill to composite them together afterwards, so why not take advantage of this to make my tasks manageable. Working in layers is always a good idea.