I began this assignment by brainstorming different ways that I could alter the original photo in an interesting way. At first I considered trying to do some kind of painting or alterations in the sky in the background, but I couldn't get the paint to look natural. I really liked the edited photo another student did of the painting of the night sky by Van Gogh and I wanted to focus on the background as well. I spent time searching for a picture of the milky way that would fit well with the background. I transformed the photo, adjusting the curves and exposure to make the lighthouse look as if it was at night rather than in the day. After that I put it into photoshop and used the lasso tool to take the lighthouse and trees and layer them over the sky background. Then I spent time erasing the lighter parts around the foreground image and making it blend in more smoothly. Finally I increased the exposure slightly to make the lighthouse more visible.