Forgetting Wonderland: A Senior Surreal Photo by Soline Gauthier (2017)

I decided to create my own little wonderland world. I wanted to represent the transition from being a child to becoming an adult. I included my barbie dolls in the photo and added a filter of decay because I wanted to convey the message of memories. I also wanted to show memories start to fade as you grow up. The blood dripping down my dolls represents how objects that mean dear to you as a child start to become less important as time passes. I also wanted the viewer to understand the difficulty of letting go of your youthfulness and accepting that it is time to grow. As the dolls deteriorate, the balloon still flies, which shows that your inner child will never completely disappear. In one of my dolls, I have a keyhole embedded in her body. That is the gate way we must all take once we have accepted the responsibilities of being an adult. Lastly, I had my cat staring down at my toys; I wanted that harsh gaze to represent the pressure we face of growing up too fast.

This project was extremely difficult for me because we were asked to come up with a photo and then a story. I also did not know how to make a photo absurd, but not too much to handle. Originally, my idea was to take a close up photo of someone’s nose and have a village growing on it. It related to me because I have had many remarks about the size of my nose. Unfortunately, it was not possible to make this idea into a reality. I also had a lot of difficulty of meshing my cat into the clouds, as well as attaching my balloon on my doll’s hand. Overall, I am really proud with what I had come up with and the message I conveyed in my photo.