A few months back I attended a photo workshop. We had some classroom training, and then were sent out into the forest with tasks to complete. The first assignment was “Mud”. After a few “safe shots” just to have something to show for my efforts, I started working on what I had visualized in my mind: A dirty, gritty photo of a boot walking in the mud.
The first couple of tries didn’t go to well:
![Another early attempt](http://blog.hwfoto.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/5M30865-1024x682.jpg)
![An early attempt](http://blog.hwfoto.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/5M30867-1024x682.jpg)
I was not happy with the look nor the composition of these two (and all the others), so I decided to try something else.
![Yet another try](http://blog.hwfoto.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/5M30883-2-682x1024.jpg)
Here, I was more happy with the composition, and decided to work on something else until we started post-production.
After some more photography in the nearby stream we went back and started working with the post production. My first action was to convert it to black and white:
![Converted to black and white](http://blog.hwfoto.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/5M30883-3-682x1024.jpg)
I still wasn’t really happy with it, so I left it alone for a while and worked on some other photos. As I was working on my unexpected cricket, I came across this multi-exposure I had taken down by the river:
![6 images of a stone in the river merged into one in camera.](http://blog.hwfoto.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/5M31161-1024x682.jpg)
And this is where I have difficulty explaining my thought process. From somewhere deep in the back of my mind, I recognized that if I converted this to black and white and rotated it, it could make a nice enhancement to my mud-photo above.
![Converted to black and white and given a blue tint](http://blog.hwfoto.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/5M31161-Edit-682x1024.jpg)
I opened them in Photoshop and merged them, and voila!! Just the gritty, rough photo I had in mind when I started…
![Walking in mud](http://blog.hwfoto.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/5M30883-768x1024.jpg)
The process took quite a few unexpected turns along the way, and had I not kept an open mind, I doubt that I would have found the final result… Especially since this was not a preplanned process, but more of a experimentation.
And in case you were wondering what my “safe shot” was, I took some photos of a “valley” in the mud, knowing that if I converted to black and white and gave it some depth of field, it would look somewhat similar to a fjord with a beach…
![A miniatyre fjord](http://blog.hwfoto.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/5M30944-2-1024x682.jpg)