Why do I feel like the parent!?

Here we go. 14 day count down begins now.

in 14 days I’ll be a senior.

14 days until my best friends graduate.

Final project, photography class

Find Yourself

When I first started my final project I had an idea of what I wanted to create. I wanted to make my project revolve around people, places, and things that reminded me of my childhood. Originally, the swing was to hold a picture of me from when I was a child, swaying merrily back and forth. The roots would be scanned pictures from my childhood and hanging from the branches, like the leaves of new growth, would be recent pictures, reflecting what I had grown into. Separate, but equal in what they bring to the whole “organism”. Originally there was only going to be one tree with a purple backdrop. Simple, but effective.  

I found great enjoyment out of the experience of creating this project. Considering it’s what I normally would do with my free time, thats not all too surprising. I do not want to say I found the project easy; it is much more sophisticated than my normal work, but rather I found the challenges it presented welcome, and engaging; they kept me interested. The greatest challenge I faced was creating the words on one of the trees. I wanted them to follow the path of the branches. With the help of Mr. Gagnon I learned the answer to the question that has been haunting me ever since I began using photoshop, “what on earth is illustrator for, anyway?” Well, it’s for illustrating, and it also allows you to make a path for words to follow, instead of having them follow one uniform line. Then, it was proved I was doing it, as I always do, the hard way. Mrs. Forbes discovered how to create a path using photoshop.

I was inspired while taking pictures at the house I lived in when I was a child. I stood on the sump of a tree that used to tower over me; where my swing would bring me closer to the sky. I thought about the changes that had taken place over the past year. As I worked on my project I decided I wished my work to reflect things that had changed me. I realized that the pictures should not be separate, but intertwining. Like my memories, they don’t have a distinct beginning or end, they meld together in harmony to create one distinct, recognizable form. I chose the background of the piece simply because it is where I find myself the happiest. Standing under the light of a perfect moon, basking in the brilliance of summer fireworks, letting the ocean roar clear my mind. Not necessarily all of these things at the same time, but each one brings me a separate kind of peace. The tree filled with words is the part that means the most to me. They’re all lyrics, phrases or words that held me together while I felt broken-hearted at times throughout my life. They let me understand I wasn’t alone, and gave me something to hold onto when the waves of uncertainty crashed over me. 

The words in the center of the collage, “explore” and  “find yourself,” are what pulled the piece together. The project had gone from something simple and turned into a complete picture. More then just reflecting change, or my childhood, it had become a mirror for who I am. As I worked on the piece I grew to understand more about myself and how it was reflected in the art. The things displayed in the collage are more then just pictures and words, they are parts of me and thus it tells a story in puzzle pieces. It tells my story and because of this, it is in fact a picture of me.