I started the research on the subject with the idea to help women regain confidence and self-esteem. I feel like mental well-being does not depend on someone else telling us we are beautiful, all we need is just a little more confidence. We know who we are, and we accept ourselves a little more. We learn to control our emotions; we realize that we do not know everything and become more flexible with life and people.
The woman depicted here is confident, she values herself. Her gaze speaks.
I used warm but not too bright colors, which accentuate the sensitivity and personality, with many shades of brown that recall the sensuality of life, emotionality, balance and the need to satisfy earthly desires. Brown is generally enjoyed by those who are comfortable with themselves and satisfied with the person they are.
In my career as a photographer, I have learned to use many techniques of retouching and digital painting which have helped me to create different works. The retouching of people's faces and the study of expressions has always fascinated me even if it did not fall into the category of food photography that I mainly deal with. In most cases, I create digital portraits starting from photographs that I take of various models. In this case, I did not use a real model that would have a model release attached, but I decided to work with an AI to create the base character and pose I wanted. The resulting image from the algorithm has a low resolution for this, as a next step I made a high-resolution model which I then started retouching and working in Adobe Photoshop applying a series of techniques and textures intended to help me get the final result, an antique painting look. The total work in Photoshop was approx. 3 hours.
The prompt used for the character creation is thoughtfully constructed, starting with physical appearance, expression and clothing. This is not a real model that could pose for other artists as well. This gives uniqueness and unrepeatability to the work, an equal character cannot be created even by another artificial intelligence if not copied.
The image is in .png format and has a resolution of 6144 x 6144 px.
Edition of 10.