Magic in the Ordinary

This little dress form graced an armchair in a local bed and breakfast inn. Headless, yet resplendent in sumptuous fabric, the scene gives a sense of unease. Where is the head? I hate yet love the incompleteness. The disassociation seems a bit unworldly, so that is how I decided to treat the image.

First, I aggressively processed the image as an HDR ( seven originals, widely bracketed and then composited) in Photoshop and Photomatix. Then I duplicated the layer, ran a Topaz Adjust filter (one of the sketch filters) on the new layer. I then lowered opacity and added a few touches of color with a layer mask.