#text mask

Over this summer, I spent four weeks in Kenya with my family. Prior to that, I was never much of an animal person. I thought the safari would interest me about as much as the zoo, and I was excited, but not nearly as much as I should have been. After witnessing some unbelievable moments amongst animals and getting the opportunity to immerse myself in Maasai culture, I am absolutely obsessed. For this reason, I created an African theme to my slideshow.

Visually, the slideshow has an African ambience. However, many of my pieces also circle the idea of motivation, success, and happiness. As a student who, like many, has ample concerns regarding my future, I thought that this slideshow would be a good opportunity to express some positive concepts to be kept in mind through my life.

In this course, I learned many new Photoshop techniques as well as techniques for visual presentation. Kress’s article about “The Futures of Literacy” had a significant impact on my work. I really began thinking about the idea that words, counter intuitively, can be empty of meaning. He described how images, in contrast, could be loaded with meaning. Keeping this concept in mind, I strived to incorporate words that would not be redundant with the images, but rather propose a new perspective on the images. For example, in my piece with the ridiculous-looking ostrich burying his head in the sand after being startled, I used the word “fear” to propose the idea that perhaps many of the inhibitions that hold people back could be just as ridiculous.

Even though this project was made for a specific class, I actually got into it quite a bit! I had a lot of fun working with the images, and I hope you enjoy the final product as well.