Calvin isn't married .. yet! But you just never know! And neither does he!
Well, this could be for anyone, and I left it so that anyone could picture themselves in that position, but I just loved the idea, and the zinger at the end. It's something that Calvin / Caitlyn worries about often when she's making captions. She's so thoughtful, and really labors hard to make every last detail in her work as perfect as it can be. Something we can aspire to.
And I'm sure that all of us captioners have been there before. You see a great photo, and a great idea to go with it, but there's something that just doesn't work .. and takes you out of the plot. It could be an easy fix, like 'shop'ping out a cigarette in her hand, or cropping out another person or pet, but many times, it's not something as easily fixed, like watermarks over body parts, the wrong expressions on their faces for the mood you are going for, or rugs, wallpaper, ugly couches, or worst for me .. horrible choices of footwear! Really now. These porn stars have plenty of costumes and lingerie, but only 3 pairs of heels? You are DOING IT WRONG!
Sorry! Got side-tracked. But anyway, things can throw you a bit off. I have actually 'shop'ped electricity wall outlets out of the frame because it's a British model's picture, and my story is implicitly USA or vice versa.
So, one that note, I thought it would be interesting to turn a caption story on its ear a bit by having the "twist" be that she's not really shocked or questioning what is happening (and I am not sure of the backstory at all, just that she caught him there) but that it "just doesn't look right" from the artist's perspective. And that she doesn't seem to mind him dressed up looking like that. My job is to subvert people's expectations now and again, and this is a wink and a nod to doing that, without going completely meta with it. The caption itself is enjoyable without it, and I do hope that everyone takes the playfulness and acceptance implied, but does get a chuckle from the side story I added into it.
Design elements here to discuss. Text shadows don't work well in this caption because the backgrounds I could use are mostly white. It's why I left the photo tint the way I did, instead of color correcting the image. (Actually I just fixed it with a few other techniques that didn't wash out the lines as badly as I thought they would.) I wanted the dialog to be as readable as possible, so it's just the font with nothing added, other than being bolded to stand out. I also blended some of the tile so that the text wouldn't clash with the lines, and I am pretty sure I removed something else. Lastly, I hope that the way the dialog is set up looks pleasant enough with how I wrapped it around the image composition. In a way that it looks like it should be there.
Still have some days left to get in on the writing exercises as mentioned in the last few posts. So far, I only have one submitted and one person that said they'd give it a shot. People have asked me to start up the DIY Challenges again, and this is a dry run of that, so let's get hopping!
And I made it all the way to the end of the post without making a Lebowski line. This aggression will not stand, man! Honestly though, the rug certainly did NOT tie the caption together!