I had done some playing around to create photo composites a few years ago, more as a way to improve my Photoshop skills than anything else. These tended to be blends of images I had captured in my travels and I was able to pull enough pieces together to come up with something a bit whimsical with a tiny bit of a dark edge. These were meant to look strange and not realistic, which was a lot easier than creating images that looked more real.
Fast forward a few years and I have become quite comfortable in the studio and can take a background that I captured and merge into something that looks more realistic. This week I decided to try pulling together a shot of the entrance tunnel to the Diefenbunker (a cold war relic meant to protect key government officials in case of a nuclear attack on Ottawa) and a test shot I did in the studio of my daughter with one of her gas masks. The light in the tunnel and the side lighting I used in the shot matched quite nicely, so I was able to create a convincing, dystopian image that says a lot about the current lock-down we are living through because of the COVID-19 virus.