Sharing a Process

I have been in Kim Klassen's Beyond Layers class since last January, and I have to admit, I haven't been very good about doing the assignments lately.  Tonight I actually had the time and the ambition, so I tackled today's challenge.  Kim gave us this photo that she took recently:

She said she would like us to think about the process we go through when adding a quote to a photo, and then process this image with a quote of our choosing.

I don't usually choose a quote first and then try to find an image to fit it.  Instead, I try to see what overall feeling I get from a specific photograph, and then search for a quote.  Although I have several files of favorite quotes, I usually end up on Google, trying to find something that fits.  This image made me think about standing alone, but that didn't yield any good quotes.  So I just went with the word "alone", and found the quote I used below.  I also wanted to subtly blur much of the image, while leaving the woman in focus.  I did this by applying a Gaussian blur to the entire image, and then applying a gradient layer mask.  The fun thing was, when I then typed the quote, the gradient affected it as well, in a subtle way.  I also wanted to add a shadow to the text, to match the shadow of the woman.

I don't know if this made sense to you or not, but I hope you like what I did with the photo, as well as the quote I found!