"Need any help?" Oh no sorry I'm just window Photoshopping

 A photograph in itself is an art piece. A moment in life you want to keep to remind yourself that there are beautiful things in life, be it the little things like the ray of sunshine that finds it way through your blinds in the morning or the big things like a group of friends doing something stupid as a birthday party for a birthday that had ended one hour ago at midnight. They show you what was expressed through that moment and what can be felt by the viewer. This ladies and gentlemen is art, to me anyways. These art pieces are good but can be improved in color, resolution and impact. By improving the image you my even find things you didn't see before in the moment you just experienced. On a nice summer day after a early day of summer school a friend of mine invited me to High Park. I have never been to High Park let alone heard of it. The park is notorious for its gorgeous cherry blossom trees. Being a fan of anime and some Japanese cinema I've always wanted to see them up close, to see what the hub bub was about. Entering the park i was a little underwhelmed at the shortage of cherry blossom trees. Disappointed that this may have been a waste of time i decided to take a walk around the park which is where I stopped a whole slew of cherry blossom trees, some with saturated pink colors and other with a vibrant colors and each of the cherry blossoms petals gently flying of the trees all on this hill, but unfortunately is was a beautiful day. I use the word unfortunate because of the fact that with every cherry blossom trees comes a couple  of couples posing for their pictures with the dramatic look off to the distance, or the I'm lost face or my personal favorite, the stereotypical smile with the piece sign beside their face.Pondering on whether to option one photo bomb these people and discouraging them from continuing to take their photos or option two to just be civil and just leave them be. Seeing that i didn't want to take a picture of the cherry blossom that badly and the fact that im not a mean person I took option two. Continuing on this path i was seeing less and less amount of trees, and then i saw it. A cherry blossom tree that was standing on its own, huge and with no one beside it. My friend pulled out his camera and started to take pictures. After taking numerous amount of pictures my friend though he had enough of them to last a life time but for me I was looking for a new profile picture, luckily my friend had wanted to try a dynamic shot that he had seen in other photos. Asking me to stand still and look up. The picture was born. The original picture had color, unity, texture, contrast, balance and oddly some dominance as well. This picture was able to hold its own but I believed I can get other principles of design and art. The sweater i was wearing in the picture already brought en emphasis in the setting but I was about to put a greater emphasis by making it more vibrant. The buttons on the sweater brought a certain movement to the middle of the photo where the main focus point is. The vibrant color in the sweater gave the picture a blue dominance but the tree branches and petals were able to dominate the other half of the photo thus creating some balance between the bottom and top. By putting a tile filter onto the picture i was able to increase the amount of texture as well as add line, shape and color. The tiles bring a nice outline to all the petals, gives them a defined shape and brings out the colors of which you would not have been able to see.Those colors give a pattern/rhythm to the top area of the photo and keeps your eye concentrated for a while. The deep blue bring a contrast to the sky with light and dark elements. The contrast also accents the white sky's and therefore brings out the negative  space in between the branches. These elements were all here in the moment this picture was taken, it just took a little Photoshop CS here and there to make them more obvious.

     
Figure 1. The Original picture

      
Figure 2,3,4. The process of alterations and all three major contributions to the final product.

Figure 5. The Final product.

Shane Inch