Here's a slight deviation from my usual subjects. Every year on Valentine's Day, my dad would get my mom either a stuffed animal, or an unusual doll, or something along those lines. The doll in this photo is one of those Valentine gifts, although I've new clue how many years ago it was. I found this a couple of weeks ago tucked into a corner in a bookcase and thought it would make a nice rainy day subject. Well, it's raining today, so I gave it a try. I don't normally pose still subjects for photos, but this one deserved a shot. Now if I could only find all of the other stuffed animals and toys that went into those gifts, that would make an amazing shot! They were married 55 years, so you can imagine the size of that collection.
Post processing started with a detail light filter in Topaz Adjust. I then lowered the saturation a bit and applied a black and white gradient in soft light blend mode. A slight levels adjustment gave me the deep background I wanted, and the top layer was a sepia photo filter.
