The Creation of Woody 200

Woody 200

 I have been making woodies for many years now but digitally only 2 or 3 years now. It is a bit of a celebration to have created 200 woodies in that time. I recently went through them all and still love every one of them. They are so much fun to make and it is really fun to hear what others think they are. 

Woody 200 started out as a photograph of a tree root with a rock embedded into it that I saw while walking along the Truckee River at Fisherman's Park in Reno, NV.

This image I didn't see the woody right away and it sat on my hard drive for a while. Finally I just started experimenting mirroring it different ways and came up with this which I though looked really cool and a little different than "normal" (whatever that is)

I loved the look of arms like it is being held up at gunpoint or really happy and celebrating. See how you can see different things in the same image? Once I had this the next thing is eyes. I have a collection of eye images that I am constantly expanding and decided on these eyes for this one.

Once the eyes are placed where I want them it becomes a post processing challenge which can take several hours where I remove some of the mirrored look, adjust the color and sometimes even adding an HDR effect in some parts of the image. After doing all that in Photoshop I process a little more in Lightroom until I'm happy with the image and then upload it to my website. 

 Here is the final version which is available as a Fine Art Print here.

Woody 200

 The Rorschach inkblot test uses pareidolia in an attempt to gain insight into a person's mental state. Since the cards have been designed without any specific image in mind, this is an example of "directed pareidolia." My images are similar to the Rorschach test but are a little more refined. I find it fascinating to see all the different things people visualize in my Woodies.