Nous: A Senior Surreal Photo by Spencer Viaggi (2017)

For my surrealist piece, I wanted to explore the whole “Underwater” side of the world. Mostly because I hate surrealism and most every form it takes, and I don’t see the point in making myself uncomfortable for really any reason. In this unit, we were encouraged to make large, empty-looking dreamscapes. I decided that this was a bad idea, and elected to crowd my canvas with rocks and backgrounds. We were taught to make things look ethereal and dreamy, so I decided to ignore that and just make it look like something that I’d like to look at.

Eventually, when it got down to its core, this project turned less into “Does anyone else think that surrealist art is the coolest form you guys?” and took the shape of something more similar to “Mess about in Photoshop.” Realising this took away a lot of anxiety, and it let me create something that I can actually look at and not be too displeased with. I gave it lots of colours and made it pretty, and messed around with different settings and the like until I found something I could be satisfied with looking at. Then, Mrs. P said that she was being too harsh with the criteria of the project’s grading, and that I could remove whatever might seem out of place, and that allowed me to make something that I liked looking at. In conclusion, surrealist photography is dumb and I learned nothing. This project gave me several weeks of anxiety and at one point made me cry, but all I have to show for it is something I could slap together in a few hours. Thank you for reading, I’ll be here all week.