This is the first surreal sphere I made, and it's very apparent, at least to me. I was still sticking mostly to the tutorial at this point, not really thinking about how a sphere of light like this would actually look in this environment. Because of that, the shadow is way less diffused than the other shadows in the space. However, I think the lines in the room lead into the central focus of the sphere pretty well. In addition, this attempt started to build the techniques I used to make my spheres unique. Mainly, I found a way to duplicate and modify the base image that builds the sphere so that I can make it look like the sphere is actually refracting what is behind it. Because of this, I was able to make off-center spheres in my next two images.
"Focus" Jenna Lock-Arnold, iPhone 7, 2022
Out of the three, this image is my absolute favorite. My goal here was to make this look as real as I possibly could, and I think it really went well. Luckily, the shadows already present were pretty close to the blending mode the tutorial used, so there wasn't much modification I had to do. However, the shadows here are at an extreme angle, so figuring out where the shadow fell was a bit tricky. The place where my effort really shines, however, is the center of focused light inside the shadow. I really think it drives home the idea that there's a really a glass sphere in the image. If I could have done this again, I would have spent some time figuring out how light actually interacts with glass spheres, as I think some reflection or flare on the side facing the sun would have looked really nice.
"Look-Behind" Jenna Lock-Arnold, iPhone 7, 2022
If I'm being honest, this image didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. Like the previous image, I wanted to make this ball special. Since this image would have it so low to the ground, I wanted to put a crack in the ball. Try as I might with brushes and blending options, however, I couldn't really get an effect I liked. However, I think I matched the shadow pretty well, especially with the circle of focused light in the center, and the usage of the interior shadow to build upon the sphere's shadow.