Journey

Journey is a photographic series that represents the ups and downs of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. This final project for my photography class consists of individual images that add up to a series that mimics the rollercoaster of life — aspects of childhood (playgrounds and trees) evolve into more mature material (roads and cars) to convey what it is like to grow up in a place that I’ve lived in all of my life and how it feels to revisit it, even though I never physically left. Journey, in a literal sense, is the path around my neighborhood, which I walked on often during quarantine in 2020. The abstract backgrounds, inspired by the work of Maya Freelon and Penelope Umbrico, were created by photographing a combination of oil and water in a glass container over an iPad with colorful patterns on the screen. Then, I juxtaposed two complimentary black and white images of my neighborhood with the dynamic patterns to project tones and emotion onto the photographs. Lastly, I added pieces of text from a poetic quote by Erich Fromm that, when put together, read “Close your eyes, let your spirit start to soar, and you’ll live as you’ve never lived before.” This project doubles as a gallery walkthrough exhibition and Instagram carousel post for people of all ages to experience the Journey.