Strange New Worlds

So, I have been playing around with some different techniques for distorting images and turning them into new images.  Some of these techniques I've played with in the past, some of them are new.  Mostly it's been fun to try some new techniques.

This is the starting point.  I shot this the other night while wandering the Uintas with my youngest daughter.  The campgrounds in this area were closed for the season, so we spent the night in this parking lot at the Crystal Lake trailhead.  Since the night was clear, I figured it was a good excuse to shoot some stars for time lapse and for star trails.  This was a couple of days before the full moon, so there was plenty of light on the surrounding landscape.

This is the result of stacking 300 images that look like the one above.
This is the image I used to create the rest of the images in this post.

These next two images used a technique I've used before, creating tiny planets, though this is the first time I've used an image with star trails.

The next two images were created using the same technique as the two above, except I left out one tiny step.
Funny how what seems to be an insignificant step can drastically change the final outcome.

This is a new technique I've been playing around with.  Basically, you transform a scene from its natural state, into a a nice, square world.  The effect is easier to see in the second image, but it is there in the first as well.  The curved lines of the star trails really distort the view as well. 

Last but not least, these two images use a completely different technique that uses a combination of filters, blending modes, and rotations.  The combinations are endless.

As a reminder, all of these images were created using the second image in this post.  Crazy.