Portal to Hope

Portals have interested me for a while. They represent change, transitions and unknown. Like opening a door and not knowing for sure where it will lead. We can plan and hope for what we want to be on the other side. But none of us know for sure what will happen.

I wanted to see what Midjourney would do with the concept of a ‘portal to hope’. But first I had to decide what represents hope.

Wikipedia helped me with researching hope symbolism. Eventually I landed on butterflies after dragonflies, stars and rainbows to mention a few ideas.

These are a couple of my favorite results straight out of Midjourney. (No image editing.)

I like the images but they don't capture what I'm trying to express. The butterfly portals are lacking. Interesting but lifeless. Some would even say soulless.

They are a starting point. A seed for me to explore how I want to express a ‘portal to hope’.

I've experimented in Photoshop with both images. I've been compositing these images with my own photographs of butterflies. But I'm not there yet. Meaning I haven't found what I'm looking for.

I'm not frustrated by this process. I'm actually enjoying the process and thinking about what happens if I ...

This is definitely a work-in-progress!

I’m sharing my process for two reasons:

First, I want you to know that creating your vision with AI software is not as easy as simply entering a ‘prompt’.

Be patient. Keep experimenting with different prompts.

The truly amazing images you see are rarely created quickly. What you don’t see are the hours someone spent entering ‘prompts’. Creating thousands of images to create the one that expresses their vision.

Secondly, most of the images will need some editing to clean up digital artifacts, adjust color, and remove items.

While you’re in the editing process, try compositing. It’s fun!