Do you see it? Yes, there’s a woman asleep on the statue on the bench, that’s what I thought I was taking the picture of, but there’s something else, someone else, look carefully… Sometimes you think you are taking a picture of one thing when later you realize you were really taking a picture of something else. Did you find it? If you haven’t seen it take another careful look the next sentence reveals the secret. Under the tree on the right of the frame a woman is watching the sleeping woman, watching me? When I took the image I did not see her. I didn’t see her until I got the image into my computer and then I jumped. There is something a little disturbing about this shadowy presence at the edge of the frame. Once I saw her I wanted to increase the shock and surprise when the viewer suddenly does see her so I darkened the area where she is standing under the tree and the green bush behind the sleeping woman. Then I lightened the sleeping woman and the flowers at both foreground corners. My hope is that the viewer’s eye will enter the image at one of the corners, be drawn in to the sleeping woman and only see the woman under the tree later. If you don’t see it right away the surprise is bigger.

-Russell Berg