Petals on Ice: A Junior Design Student Conceptual Project by Siyuan Che (2015)

The objects I utilized in my photograph are ice, a flower bracelet, and a flashlight. With the flashlight directly shining on my other objects to convey that one's searching for friendship. I used a flower bracelet I received from my friend to represent friendship in my photo, and I set the bracelet on top of ice to gain a feeling of coldness and helplessness. I chose ice to represent coldness. The photo is tilted to further strengthen the feeling of insecurity, because the out of balance feeling makes us feel uneasy. Furthermore, I wanted the light to come from one side to cast a shadow on the opposite side to hint loneliness.

Through this project, I learned about the importance of the pen tool and filters. In the process of editing my photo, I tried to make a selection of the flower with several different tools. Other than the pen tool, I've tried the lasso tool and the quick selection tool, but none of them worked better than the pen tool. Additionally, I learned that by adding filters I can emphasize my messages more. In this case, I put a filter on the flower to provide it with a texture similar to the ice cubes to make the flower seem icy and cold. I also added a vignette to focus the audiences on my objects in the photo.