Happiness Through Following My Instincts: A Junior Design Student Conceptual Project by Kai Jarmon (2015)

My photograph is taken at the Covington Elementary School playground. I decided to use a playground as my subject because a playground can be interpreted as a nostalgic place with many happy memories. Therefore the subject of my photo represents the first part of my Concept Statement, ''I am exploring the feeling of happiness''. The photo is taken through a swing to give the viewer the perspective of a child. The swing also acts as a natural frame for the photo which makes the focal point easy to identify. The eye naturally focuses on the red double slide first then after further examination the viewer should notice the red spiral slide. The red double slide and the red spiral slide symbolize two different decisions someone would have to make. These two decisions represent the second of part of my Concept Statement, ''experience of following my instincts''.

Throughout the Photoshop process I learned that making a perfect selection versus an ok selection with the pen tool has the ability to completely change the quality of a photo. This led me to use the pen tool to reselect the desired filtered area with a more precise selection. I also learned that cropping takes lots of patience and many trials and errors. I believe what I learned in Photoshop helped to enhance my photo because I was able to account for some photography errors using cropping. My image exemplifies the concept statement ''I am exploring the feeling of happiness through the experience of following my instincts.'' through the many aspects of the photograph. The playground itself represents ''the feeling of happiness'' because many people have happy memories on the playground as a child. My photo uses these elements to represent my concept statement.