The Shadow in the Sky

I was on my way home after the evening walk. Suddenly I chanced upon a beautiful imagery in the sky. I was carrying my cell phone. So I thought I should capture it. Not sure how it will look on the cellphone, nevertheless I gave it a shot.

It wasn’t as beautiful as what I could see with my naked eyes, but it turned out not that bad. Nature’s designs are unusual and happen at the unusual places and unusual moments.

This is what I captured.

But, what struck me was, I felt that the sky was mimicking the tree. The tree seemed very far on the photo but it was closer to my eyes and I could see the cloud explosion clearly.

I went home and later had a look at the picture once again and something hit me. Were the clouds conveying a message? So there was a moment of epiphany and I thought of tweaking the picture.

Here is the process. First I had to clean up the mess. There was a construction site behind the tree which was uncool.
So I removed it.

There was a long cable hanging in the middle. I had to remove it as well.

After the removal:

I then retouched the image to fill up the clouds on the erased areas. I had to maintain the cloud flow and it was tricky.

The picture of the tree was unclear and it looked more of a bush than a tree. SoI needed to replace it with another tree.

So I searched for a lifeless tree and then replaced the older one with the new on the foreground and slowly the image started to change.

I did some further tweaking and color correction. The image was finally done.

I made the image brighter intentionally. Now what does the image convey?

It is the projection of the shadow of the tree on the sky but here the subject is dark and the shadow is bright.

To me, the tree is the subject that symbolizes death, hopelessness and depression.

The clouds behind is mimicking the tree though, but they symbolize hope, beauty, happiness, positivity and a bright future.

So it is the nature trying to help the tree by brightening it up and saying – “You may be down now but this is what you can become later if you believe in yourself.”

Another interpretation can be that the tree is what we think of ourselves but the universe (clouds) knows our real potential.

It was an effort which happened by accident. What do you have to say on this? Please comment below and also give inputs as to how this image can be further enhanced.

Please suggest a nice title. I find it too lame.

Thank you. Have a great day!