For the avid readers of this blog -- ha ha, we can stop laughing now -- Luna is a mainstay. She has been my muse for quite some time. She's not my dog, she's Chris Nguyen's girl, and every time I get to photograph her, I know there is a composite in my future. I have learned to composite from images I've taken of her because not only is she striking but she is so expressive. Those eyes. Dreamy, blue eyes. Who could resist wanting to tell her story?

I keep learning more about compositing. That's where you take at least two images and put them together as if they belonged together. It's painstaking work, if done right. You can get away with little cheats but ummm, not really. Your lighting needs to be the same, your color balance needs to be the same, your perspective needs to be the same. I could go on and on.

For this image, I actually photographed everything but the replacement tires I used for the Vespa. Usually I find an inexpensive stock image to license for a background but in this case, on my way back from Arizona, I stopped and took a photo of a decrepit motel sign, then diverted onto Joshua Tree National Park close to sunset where I photographed the road.

The Vespa is a diecast model car I bought... thought I was in Italy, no? And the rest of it is just trying to get everything to look like it sort of came from the same place.

I think this might be the most images I've ever used in a composite but Luna at Sea may be a close second if not first place. For this image, I used separate images of Luna's face, paws, legs and tail. The scooter tires weren't quite right and it would have taken me a ton of time to clone the rear tire so I found a replacement and just put on two new tires on the Vespa.

In teaching myself, I learned to add shadows. That's tough, people. That's where I earn the big bucks. I thought I did a pretty good job on the motorcycle shadow but to be honest it looked better before I added the motion blur. So yes, there's some motion blur, I added the motel sign, which was really cute if you saw it without the blur because it has a donkey on it. I added light to the headlight and a little kiss of light coming in from the right to mimic the warmth of the waning sun.

In the end, I changed the tone of everything so it all looked cohesive. And oh yeah, this took about a week.

It looks a little rough but I was going for a quasi-vintage feel. So I present you... Luna in the Desert. I agree, the name is a little lame. If you think of a better one, let me know.

And if you want one of these for your own pet, let me know! You should see the one I'm coming up with for Kiwi. Well, you will, soon enough. Give me a call, 818-481.5214. It's a storytelling session and Miss Luna is definitely telling a story.