41 But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life.

 42 And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst.

 43 Then, my brethren, ye shall reap the rewards of your faith, and your diligence, and patience, and long-suffering, waiting for the tree to bring forth fruit unto you.

Alma 32: 41-43

Now, because I love to see behind the scenes photos and before and afters, here is the before:


Originally I did a HUGE expansion and had all these big trees interspersed throughout the image. However, Belle ended up getting lost in the image because she was so small compared to the trees. So I took the trees from the expansion, widened them a bit, and moved them in closer to her before applying a more intimate crop.

Then I lightened her up, because #highlightingthesubject.


And tried messing with color balance.


I then realized the background was far too light and therefore distracting, so I darkened the greenery behind her. At this point, I became stuck. I knew this photo needed something, I just couldn't figure out what that was exactly. So I sat on it like this for a few weeks. I would try something, not like it, walk away, come back a few days later and try something else, with similar success.

Then one day I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and noticed a new post from Robert Cornelius, whom I've been following for the last year or so on social media. Per usual, his latest piece was A-MAZ-ING. So I commented on the post and sort of jokingly, but also seriously..... however that works... that if he ever hosted a workshop, I was SO there.
To which he responded that he didn't have any workshops planned, but he did offer 1-on-1 skype sessions...

Um.

Yes.

So much yes.



So I took him up on his offer and for an hour we talked through what I was hoping to get out of the image and how we could go about doing that. He recommended that I darken the background even further, and adjust the color balance to give it a bit more whimsy.



Then he really worked his magic, by... working some magic. In the form of sparkle trails!
I'm so excited about this!
I had tried adding a few sparkles here and there earlier on in the process, and always ended up deleting them over and over again. What I had been able to muster up looked completely fake, which was more than frustrating, because I think I had known all along that that's what I really wanted in this image. But Robert totally made the coolest sparkle trails EVER and helped bring the focal point of the image not just to Belle, but more specifically to the plant in her hand, which was awesome!

And the best part of all is he showed me how to do it!



So even though this photo took me several months to finish (which, hey, go easy on me. There was a cross country move within that time frame) and I felt on numerous occasions that I would just have to scrap the whole thing, this ended up being one of my favorite pieces to date!

So thank you Belle, thank you Lisa, and thank you Robert! I seriously could NOT have done it without you guys!