Photocollage, 2017 // 36”x24” // Featured in ATLAS Spring 2019 Art Installation

Project Description

I made this project in one of my first classes in the Technology, Arts & Media (TAM) program at the University of Colorado Boulder. Created with Adobe Photoshop, it incorporates found images and some of my own photography. The overall aesthetic of the piece is inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince. I wanted to create a surrealist landscape that conveyed the experience of looking into the night sky and the feeling of smallness that many people have while gazing up at the universe.

Technically, the most challenging parts of this project were manipulating the mountain and sea images to have an exaggerated curvature, and implementing everything together to look as natural as possible. I had fun experimenting with different effects and doing an outdoors photoshoot to get the lighting right on the model (Leilani Osmundson). As with all projects, there were some unforeseen obstacles to overcome, but I was able to work around them and get the desired results in the end. For instance, I had intended to take pictures of Leilani in the water at Boulder Reservoir to make it easier to photoshop her feet into the ocean, but we realized that the Reservoir itself was closed upon arrival and ended up doing a photoshoot in the parking lot. On the plus side, the late afternoon sun was perfect for lighting up the scene!

Overall, this is one of the first projects I created as a TAM student, and while it was challenging to put everything together, I am happy with the final product. Beautiful Void was selected to be displayed in the ATLAS Spring 2019 Art Installation showcase, so I also got a little bit of experience in polishing a digital project to be production-ready.

The Process

I started out by creating some concept drawings to figure out what my vision would be for the project. After getting feedback from a mentor on my design, I was ready to start planning out the process — finding images from the internet that would mesh well together and planning the real-life photography. Finally, I put everything into Adobe Photoshop and manipulated, masked, and layered everything together to produce the final result.