Cat and Mouse: A Senior Surreal Photo by Parker Jue (2017)

With this image I wanted to display the effects that pollution has on the environment. The cat-car represents a predator since the oil industry is the number one cause of pollution. The mice represent the prey, or the environment in this case. The relationship between pollution and the environment is similar to that of a cat and mouse. There is a victim and a predator in both. The space around the two creatures is essentially empty because the cat leaves destruction in its wake.

I created this surreal photograph in Adobe Photoshop. I had to take different images to create the car-cat and the mice. I took pictures of cat eyes, a car, and plants. I took the image of the mice from a source online. Before merging the images I had to edit them individually. The first thing that I did was change the color of the car to a darker color. I changed the cat eyes by making them brighter and adding a filter over them for texture. Additionally, I made changes to the appearance of the mice in order to make some look more flattened. I wanted it to look like the car had run over them. One thing that didn’t turn out the way I had hoped was the background, I wanted to add more to it but did not end up having enough time to do so. One of the only things I would change is taking more pictures of green plants in order to have more variety with the tails of the mice.