Freestyle Academy proudly presents

Fail and Then Succeed: A Senior Explorations Amplified Piece by Christopher Lanman (2014)

The prompt for my piece was based on a quote of Kurt Vonnegut: ''I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.'' To capture this idea of standing close to the edge I created a swarm of bees approaching flowers found in the reflection of a pair of sunglasses. The sunglasses are a symbol for someone who takes life easy, but the flowers in the reflection of the sunglasses show that the person wearing the sunglasses likes to skirt danger because he is so close to the flowers that the bees are approaching. In that sense the person in the sunglasses lives life more fully than someone who just takes life easy and stands close to the edge, close to the bees, but also gets to smell the flowers and see them up close.

For the background of this piece I used acrylic paint on canvas paper. Then, I scanned the background into Adobe Photoshop in order to add some cool effects. First off, I took some up photos of bees with a macro lens and then placed them throughout the piece. I made some of the bees face different directions in order to symbolize that they are unpredictable and hazards may face us from all sides. I also gave the piece some depth by making the bees different sizes as they got closer to the sunglasses. To make the sunglasses more unique I put the reflection of flowers in them. This was a fun challenge because it was the first time I had done something like this! To really amplify the piece I added an HDR filter I had never used before to make the bees look more defined. Not to mention, I used a new font that looks like fireworks to top it all off. The quote at the top of the piece is from a commencement speech I did for English that is based on the Vonnegut quote you read in the last paragraph: ''If you live life afraid and you do not maximize the moments, you'll always look back on your life and be unfulfilled or unhappy.'' Overall, this amplified piece describes my experience at Freestyle over the last two years and the many things that I have learned! :)
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