Well here we find ourselves in front of Jeff's Garage right?  Well not exactly, the picture of my brother Jeff was taken in South Dakota at a family picnic.  The sign was somewhere out in Oregon and the B.S. Bench in Blue Ridge, GA and the back wall resided in New Orleans.  There is no Jeff's Garage like one depicted in this image, it was four elements composited together to create that illusion.

I don't normally post pictures of myself (or for that matter write this much) but this one has a special meaning to me - no not that I am in it but that I am in it. Let me explain.

For as long as I can remember I have been a fan of Sherlock Holmes, the books, movies and TV series - especially the ones played by Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. So when I was in London in 1992 this first picture of me sitting in Sherlock's chair and wearing his hat was a special treat - I was in it - his living room at 221b Baker Street.

Well as my one or two readers will attest, I have been scanning all of my 1992 slides from the United Kingdom which is very time consuming but gratifying. That effort has paid off because I found a picture I took of the same scene without me in the chair. It was taken handheld in natural light, so no flash in the mirror.

With the wonders of Photoshop and years of practice, I have netted a new view of me sitting in Sherlock's chair - wait for it, wait for it - without the flash in the mirror. By layering and other techniques I was able to sandwich a portion of the second picture onto the first and as the French would say Voilà!  In fact, if you look closely you'll see my reflection in the mirror taking a picture of myself sitting in the chair, a wonder of modern science for sure.

Dare I say Dr. Watson would be proud - I wonder, how do it get it into the Strand.

Here is an example of making something a little larger than normal in relation to the background - not that Vickie was a small doberman to begin with. I turned her loose on the unsuspecting multitudes on the square in Ellijay by layering her over the background of the street.  I guess we could call this surrealism art purposely designed to evoke emotion - a large, fierece dog on the loose.  

For the record, Vickie was a wonderful dog although she did have a way in greating you that scared the (select your favorite adjective here) out of you. She would take your whole forearm in her mouth and ever so lightly chomp down on it a couple of times. The first time she did this I thought she was going to take my arm, but it was her gentle way of saying she could but instead was showing me she liked me.