Kelsey Best
Digital
Creativity
Project 1: Photoshop
Postcard
The place I have chosen to feature
in my photoshopping project is my car. This in itself is interesting because
not many people would consider a car to be a “place”, but more of a means of
getting from place to place. For me, I
consider my car to be a place as well as a means of transition, simply because it is
often the only place I can go to be alone. In a world full of busy streets,
roommates and crowded classrooms, my car acts as a shelter. The comfort I
experience when I’m in this space is the aspect I want to examine in my work. I
have been fortunate enough to avoid any sort of accident in my car thus far,
and have attempted to create a life-threatening scenario that would eradicate all sense of comfort and safety.
My first postcard depicts my
passenger side door and window. On the inside of the car, all is calm.
Likewise, the side view mirror shows a clear sky and empty street. However, a
raging fire from a neighboring car is shown through the window with emergency
lights seeping in through the ceiling and walls. The feeling I worked to
portray is panic. I want the viewer to experience that sinking feeling of dread
when they allow themselves to become absorbed by the visual experience. The use
of the side mirror is but one option in choosing surrealist techniques to alter
reality. It could be reflecting the recent past, before becoming engaged in an
accident, or perhaps a manifestation of where the driver should be in an
alternate reality.
The second postcard is made with a
photo of the ceiling of my car, accompanied by a cropped image of the rear view
mirror hanging from the windshield. The sky and treetops showing through the
windshield have been altered in a chilling away. Again, alarm is the primary
emotion that has been instilled into this photo. An inverted color scheme and
transparent layer of tree trunks work to build the illusion that the car has
crashed. A ghostly black and white reflection in the rear view mirror is
reminiscent of skeletal structures or perhaps the bars of a cage. The white
tree branches that stretch across the background are meant to remind the viewer
of veins or perhaps the nervous system, hinting at our own fragility and
mortality.
My last postcard involves my hand as
well as the steering wheel. This immediately references the relationship
between my body and the car itself. The idea that a person can be in control of
something so powerful is somewhat wishful. Cars will do what we ask most of the
time, however, people will often describe a car accident as “losing control of
the vehicle”. I worked to represent this notion with repetition and layering to
create movement. A frantic jerking of the wheel is a typical reaction in such
situations, and this type of frenzied motion often makes the situation worse.
By inverting certain sections, I have suggested a lapse of time or perhaps a
flashing between the present and future.
The idea of taking a false sense of
security and flipping it on itself is explored in these works. Together and
separate, they suggest a chilling narrative. I feel that this is a relevant
topic in today’s world simply because of our attitudes toward our cars as a
society. Useful, necessary and often taken for granted. Creating and viewing
work like mine reminds us that a car is a dangerous place to be, no matter how
safe you feel.
