nature is symbolic of our origin. It is my belief that when we die, our energy goes into the earth and lives within nature. And when we are born, we borrow energy from the earth to power our bodies through this mortal life. The cycle repeats itself. This is just one of my theories of life and death, but I truly believe that human beings are connected to nature on an extremely deep physical and spiritual level.

I watched various tutorials on Lynda, and learned how to use adjustment layers, which I had never worked with before. My goal in this edit was translate the original image into black and white while still retaining the original's same rich tonal and textural quality. I duplicated the image and ran each copy through a different preset black and white channel mixer adjustment. I adjusted the result of each preset adjustment with the Curves tool. I then layered the two images, the darker edit on the bottom. I selected the Lighten blending mode on the top layer to transfer the leaf texture onto the bottom image. I then erased a portion of the top image around the figure's hairline, so as to create the illusion that she is dissolving, or becoming one, with her natural surroundings. Finally, I used the Unsharp Mask filter to make the edges of the image more crisp and defined. 

original:

edited:

Thank you to Becca Agatstein for modeling for this image.

— Cristi López