SUSAN TIPPETT BRAITHWAITE

Shopping is supposed to be fun. Hell, some people swear it’s like therapy. But that random stranger who caught your eye outside the shoe shop keeps turning up. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.

You spot them again, and rather than chalk it up to your growing paranoia, you watch him confer with two others. They go their separate ways as you keep an eye on them in the reflection of the bookstore’s window.

Paranoid or not, their eyes are firmly on you. What started out as a bit of retail therapy has transformed into your mission: evading surveillance! Welcome to this week’s Spies, Lies & Digital Skies art challenge: Evading Surveillance in a Crowded Market

What is SLDS?: SLDS is a weekly prompt challenge that encourages artists of all levels, including non-artists, to create an image with a spy and romance theme. You can use various tools such as Photoshop, ArtRage, Procreate, DALL-E, MidJourney, Microsoft Edge’s CoPilot, or any other software that you prefer to create your artwork.

Celebrating Last Week’s Entries: A Spy’s Hidden Safe House

Before we lose that surveillance team on our tail, let’s check out some of last week’s superb entries. Huge thanks go to Claire, Jez, and Marie for their imaginative takes on the “Ambush in a Shadowy Forest” prompt. Your ambushes are enough to deter me from heading into the forest for a wee while!??

Check out my favourites from last week…

Claire’s Role-Reversal Ambushes

Check out Claire’s post for more role-reversal ambushes!

Jez’s Time-Fusion Ambushes

Check out Jez’s post for more time-fusion ambushes.

Marie’s Cinematic Ambush

Check out Marie’s post for more cinematic creations.

This Week’s Challenge: Evading Surveillance in a Crowded Market

This time, we body-swerve the dangers of the forest and go on a shopping trip to a bustling market. I’m not a fan of shopping, but tactically, it’s a great way to figure out if you’re being followed. Just duck into a stall and check out the reflections in the sunglasses carousel. See someone who makes you feel the need to run?

Well, getting away isn’t easy, but it’s doable. You can weave your way through the stalls, bump products to the ground to slow your tail down, grab some garments and change your appearance on the fly. The possibilities are endless… Let’s dive into this week’s challenge!

Create With Me: Evading Surveillance

From the get-go, I had a scene in mind—not something I’d written but from a previous SLDS post. The image was done more for fun, but the location got my mind racing.

My Inspiration

The location looks like a souk (not to be confused with the Scots word sook?). A souk is a busy market or bazaar found in countries in North Africa, the Middle East, and Spain.

Evading Surveillance with Fancy Sunglasses

The scene in my head is pretty simple—a man catching sight of pursuers in the lenses of mirrored sunglasses on a carousel.

PROMPT: Please create a wide-format image of the following: A busy souk with local wares for sale. There’s a man looking at a carousel of sunglasses. But he’s not looking to buy, he’s using the reflections to catch sight of his pursuers in the lenses of the mirrored sunglasses.

The prompt needs a bit of tweaking to achieve what I’m looking for, but I’ll give it a shot.

PROMPT: Can you add the surveillance people who are pursuing him into the reflection of the sunglasses, please?

Okay, I get the feeling that DALL-E is going for comedy today. I like the overall feel of the image, but I don’t think I’m able to get what I want without a lot of hairpulling. Let’s move on to another theme.

Evading Surveillance with Fruit

PROMPT: Please create a wide-format image of the following: A busy souk with local wares for sale. A man moves swiftly through the market and deliberately knocks over a basket of fruit in an effort to slow down his pursuer.

The images look good, but the prompt was tweaked a lot to get these ones. I changed word order, the words used to describe the same scene, and even the camera angle (see the comedy carousel at the end for those ?), but nothing worked to get what I wanted.

One last go, eh?

Evading Surveillance with Fabric

Okay, let’s go with simple—a bit less information for the AI. But I want to add a bit of movement to the scene. I’m going to name the main character of the scene to make it easier for the AI to understand which ‘man’ I’m referring to.

PROMPT: Please create a wide-format image of the following: A busy souk with local wares for sale. A man, let’s call him Cal, is being followed by another man. Cal grabs a garment from a stall and tosses it on, blending into the crowd as his pursuer looks around anxiously.

Oh, that’s pretty cool. Though it doesn’t have the motion I was looking for. Let’s get DALL-E to add a wee bittie for us. I’m going to be vague enough that the AI uses its ‘imagination’ to fill in the blanks of what I want. Who knows, it might work ?

PROMPT: Can you show him pulling the colourful garment around him?

Yes! Yes! Yes! This is so cool. We might not be able to see his pursuers, but we get the sense that Cal is running from something, and the fabric is part of his plan to evade. This one is my choice for the prompt!

Evading Surveillance with Comedy

I promised you outtakes, and here they are!

Over to You

Are you ready to join in the fun? Go on, you know you want to! Let your creativity loose. Share your interpretation of Evading Surveillance in a Crowded Market in the comments, or better yet, bring your vision to life and share it with us! (See the beginning of the post for “How to join in”).

Hit the follow button and join us next week to see where our creative journey takes us.

Till next time, stay awesome,

Susan x