Morphing Mom
For Mother's Day 2000 I gave my mom a unique gift: a framed picture of her that spans three decades. To do this I took a photograph from about 1973 and a more recent picture and blurred them together to create a time travel-like effect, a "then and now" portrait.
Process
First, I cleaned up the images using Photoshop. Next I used a software package called Morph to map the images together, creating the "in-between" images. My original concept was to have a colored background, but once I did a animated "test run" of the morph, I realized that the colors were distracting and decided to go with a black and white background instead.
When looking at the "younger" in-between images of my mother, people close to me have noted that she resembles my younger sister today, even though most people say that my sister takes after my dad, not my mom: an interesting comment on both genetics and morphing.
After I was satisfied with the morph, I sucked some of the in-between images back into Photoshop and created the blurs. Finally, I added a time travel-inspired footer, and the project was completed. I sized the finished product so that it would fit in a nice silver panoramic frame.
Final Thoughts
Note that in 1973 I am holding my favorite toy and in 2000 my son is holding his. Also note that my mom is holding the kids in almost exactly the same position in both pictures. These two similarities are remarkable because neither my son nor my mother knew anything about the project at the time I took their picture: an interesting comment on history repeating itself.
