Off-Camera Flash

I plan to use both natural and artificial light to create complex shadows inside and outside of nature to convey something along the lines of passage of time. I plan to finalize my conceptual intentions during the upcoming weeks, but as of right now, I am drawn to shadows with unexpected light and attention to detail.

Map of My Mind - Reflection and Final Project

Conceptual Intentions

Although I initially struggled to create a piece that communicated my voice as an artist and as a person, I believe that I was eventually able to do so through incorporating photos of places that are important to me along with drawings that I have made and textures that I find interesting and communicative. I found this whole process to be very meaningful, as it allowed me to explore my inner consciousness in a physical project and forced me to find a way to effectively communicate my intentions using photoshop. I hadn't previously spent much time imagining what a physical representation of my mind would look like and it took lots of thinking to create a piece that told my audience the story that I wanted them to see. After hearing the comments that my classmates made regarding my final piece, I realized that I had communicated more about myself than I had even intended simply through the methods I used and the placements of certain objects, which made the critique both interesting and valuable for me.

Stretch and Explore 

Originally, I had placed several photos of nature bordering the entire piece but I struggled with creating a background that felt appropriate and I felt limited by my border. To solve this problem, I eventually removed the photos from the shorter sides of the image and incorporated a background that was very simple. In order to make this background meaningful and evocative of my mind, I made it symmetrical by mirroring the sky over the center line of the photo and place a circle of sky in the very center. The circle ended up being indicative of a camera lens, which was very appropriate for my mind and my imagination. Adding several drawings that I made around the border of the image also allowed me to evoke some final elements of myself and my mind. Despite changing my approach and adding and eliminating several images and drawings, I feel that I successfully represented my mind using photoshop and art that I had previously created. After having spent a few weeks getting to know Photoshop, I have come to appreciate some of its capabilities and the creative license that it allows. If I had been this comfortable with photoshop before starting this project, ideally I would have spent less time experimenting and more time effectively communicating my mind and the ways in which I think.