In the Eyes of the Beholder

They 'Eyes' have it!

This is a cap that I made for JaySeaver over at the Haven.  I've caped Jay enough to know some basic tenets... story above a specific fantasy.  Nothing hardcore... G to soft R.  No humiliation or degradation.  Start as Jay or Jason, and don't change the name.  Overall, not exactly my sweet spot of capping, but as we've traded four times in the recent past, I have to assume that Jay likes what I make her as much as I like what she makes me.

The biggest problem I have in capping Jay is getting an image that inspires a story that will follow along with her preferences.  I've spent hours searching and still ended up not finding one.  So now when I know that Jay's name is coming toward the top of my list, I keep an eye out.  I actually spotted this image a couple days ago, and it was just so damned expressive that I knew it would be for Jay.  Here is the original:

 And the first quick crop and desaturation I did:

Not only was it beautiful, it had the space for text built into the photo.  Yesterday before I began "My Roll In Their Threesome", I opened this image up and played around with it.  I couldn't keep my eyes off of hers though, and realized I'd really like to emphasize her eyes more.  I considered going black and white while leaving her eyes color, but her eyes don't have that much color to begin with.  And at this point I didn't know I was going to go for a more sorrowful feel, and didn't want to nudge myself there (I find black and white to be a little more emotional anyway).  So instead, I figured I'd just blur everything else out.  That would force any viewer to focus in on her eyes as well.  

Without any motion on the story side though, I saved it and moved on.  While I was working on "My Roll In Their Threesome" I did get an idea, but a really vague one.  I'd thought about making a story focusing in on what people see.  Today when I picked up the modified image I knew more how I wanted the story to go.  I figured four paragraphs could do it... they'd each start thusly:

• What they saw....
• What they should have seen...
• What they see...
• What they should see...

The first two and the last two paragraphs are more or less what I had in mind.  But when I finished off and re-read it, I realized it was leaving just too much in the open.  How did she change?  Did she do it herself?  Was she regretting her own actions, or did someone do this to her?  

So before putting the text into the layout, I added the two middle paragraphs.  I think it still leaves a lot to the imagination (is this God's reward?  Is it a genie that overheard his cry?  Was it someone who took pity on him?), but demonstrates that she would at first enjoy the change, only to realize that she was still perceived as something she's not.  

A lot of the feelings I conveyed here are fairly personal.  I'm shy at times and want to be noticed more... but other times I'm a 'known' quantity and never get to be just the observer.  I'm thrown into the spotlight and center of attention as if I'm there to amuse and entertain.  There never seems to be a middle ground where I am perceived as I'd like to be.  And that really holds true to just about everybody... we all look at how others are treated and wish we could be them.  Whether they are Hollywood stars, or the cool guy down the street.  Whether they are male or female, we think that our life could be better when in reality they might be looking at us and thinking the exact same thing.

Once I had the story down I went to put the text into the layout.  With the blank wall space it was easy enough to place it there without any text box.  But the text I had was just a bit to much, so I had to extend the canvas.  And as long as I was doing that, I went ahead and cropped 'her' down a little more, both to further emphasize her eyes, and to remove that bit of chair (I assume it's a chair behind her right shoulder) out of the image.

With the text in place, I still thought it was missing something.  The text side of the cap was just rather plain.  In a quick idea, I thought it might be nice to add a little more 'eye' candy to the cap.  So I found a nice drawn image of an eye, copied it and placed them as a set of eyes in the background.  Here is the graphic I worked from (found on google images):

So... hopefully Jay enjoys the journey that I've written here.  Just as I hope all of you reading this will enjoy it as well.