Capital Business - Washington Post cover

I worked on this image with Meredith at the Washington Post last week. A very pleasant experience. It ran yesterday (Labor Day 2010) on the cover of the Capital Business section. To tie in with the holiday, they we're wanting to do a piece on what it would take for employers to actually start hiring again. One side says it would take essentially another stimulus to get people spending money again and the other says it won't happen until things like the new health care, the tax cuts that are set to expire in 2011, etc. are settled. Meredith was looking for an image that generally spoke of the laborforce and workforce and the sense of it being trying in such uncertain times. They were initially drawn to the sketch with the emaciated figure set within the silhouette of the labor man . . . however they felt that this idea might be a bit jarring in the end. We decided to go with the card balance image. You'll notice on the actual and final collage, the only part that was digitally set in were the card faces. I try to keep everything on my final images organic and as natural as possible as I'm not a big digital fan when it comes to faking drop shadows and making something look like it was done by hand when it actually was not. I realize there are moments when this is not always possible. Here is a bit of that process and the end result.