Laura was taking pictures of our clients when I noticed their delightful little boy wandering towards us through the trees in the misty dawn light. It triggered a memory, although I couldn’t recall what, so I took a few shots with my Fujifilm X100F, a camera some dismiss as semi-professional, but which the illuminati recognize as one of the most sophisticated devices on the market.

Days later I was in Photoshop doing the post processing on my wife’s work when I decided to look at the images I had captured and the sense of déjà vu came back. I still couldn’t put my finger on the source but something guided me. Here is the first edit:

It was cute but something was missing. There needed to be a stronger sense of mystery. The white light of the early sun should glow in a fiery way. I hooked in Alien Skin, added the glow and tweaked a lot. I won’t get technical, but the curves and look up tables were involved. I then got to the final image:

It was only then that I realized what I had been thinking about all along. Of all things, it was Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind!

I won’t say that this is exactly a homage to the director - in fact, casting vanity aside, I think my image is rather better than the film sequence. However, it does show how an exposure to popular culture can help the photographer.