inspiration

First of all, yes i know, this is not a photo of a car.
I did look around for one, and found one, but thought this was a much better shot.
This shot gives me the opportunity to talk about inspiration and why we take some of the photos we take.
Sometimes its little things that spark an idea for an image. Today it was this scarf. I have seen the scarf before though, many times in fact, so why was it today that i wanted to photograph it. My guess is how it showed on the black outfit. It was the only source of color, other than the necklace. That was the "what" of the photograph. The "how" of the shot was the lighting and the photoshop high contrast look. All of this was included in the initial spark of inspiration. I saw it as a final image and in the end that is exactly how it came out. I am not saying that i have this great eye or anything as i am sure that many of you that read this post previsualize images in the same way. Sometimes we dont see it all of course and have to play for awhile to finish off the image. Another good thing to do it to "live with it" for awhile. Keep it on your computer screen or stick up a print and each time you walk by just take a quick look. You will start to get some ideas and also will probably notice some problems with the photo that you didn't notice to begin with.
So to end the inspiration speech my advice is to listen to it when it hits you and act on it. I have way too many photos in my head that should have been but i walked by them.
I lit the image with two strobes behind her and placed to the right and left for rim. I used one light for the main and placed it high and directly in front of her. All lights were direct and shot through a 30 degree honeycomb grid spot.
In camera raw i took the recovery, contrast, clarity, vibrance, and fill light to 100 and took the saturation way down. I upped the blacks and exposure to increase contrast even more. I then just retouched the image a bit and hit the scarf with the sponge tool set to saturation.
To finish the image off i extended the canvas size on the width so i could crop to a square. I sharpened pretty heavy also.