Have you ever stood still for a moment and reflected on how fast life seems to pass by? Time is speeding past you without your control and if you forget to look at where you are, you may reach another galaxy, ignoring where you came from and how you got there. In this surrealism project, I wanted to capture this dilemma that I often face, forgetting to embrace where I currently am because I am too focused much on where I am headed.
In this photo surrealism project I transformed one of the hallways of Earl Haig into a spaceship. Originally my idea was to have the floor collapsing in the hallway, where you would see space underneath. However, I decided that I needed to focus the idea to fit the quote more thematically and changed the idea to a speeding spaceship. I love science fiction, so spaceships from movies like Star Wars, Alien, and 2001: A Space Odyssey were great inspiration for creating this school-spaceship hybrid.
The meaning of the spaceship is showing an example of how we can ignore how fast time flies by. I often find myself just thinking of the future and that causes me to ignore the present. The galaxy in the distance that the spaceship is flying towards is like the goal in life that I am constantly looking forward at. Where the stars that are blurring past, seen through the glass floor and window, is like all the things that are ignored, heading as fast as possible for the future. Each star is like a day or moment in life that is just a blur when focusing on the final goal of that elusive distant galaxy. The school setting is also symbolic, as if no matter where you are, if you don’t pay attention, then time and life is going to slip past.
While working on this project, I found that one of my biggest tendencies on any project really took control of me. I often spend too much time fixating on small details. When originally starting the project, it took much longer just to change the color of the walls and ceiling. I notice small things like the reflection on the ground looking orange rather than white, thinking edges look too sharp, worrying about lighting and shadows looking unrealistic. The far window was one of the most time consuming aspects, because it just didn’t look natural. With considerable time addressing all this issues, and many more, I was quite satisfied by the product. That although I did tweak all these little things, I believe that almost all of the changes added together to a thorough and realistic photoshop image. So from this project I learned how, especially in photoshop, time management is extremely important.
A few of the coolest aspects of this project is just how subtle it is in a way. It is surreal, but it is like real-surreal, because its not so over the top crazy that it couldn’t ever possibly exist. This could almost exist, a weird and cool school-spaceship hybrid that is just hurdling through space. Like if someone really wanted to, they could build it! Another cool detail that I was pleased with is the glass floor window. Instead of just putting the image flat on the floor, I believe that adding the three side panels to the floor adding an amount of realistic depth. It looks like a real glass floor, and taught me how perspective and shadows can create a depth in a flat image and has very interesting potential to be used in future photoshops. Similarly, the reflection of the window of space adding more realism to this surreal photo, capturing my concept of real-surrealism.