The Journey to the Light: A Junior Design Student Conceptual Project by Jacqueline Owen (2017)

I am exploring the feeling of hopefulness through meditation.

My photo consisted of a ladder, rocks and a spotlight, these objects were used to create a tranquil and metaphorical representation of my concept statement. The rocks are a bumpy background and can therefore represent a person’s bumpy road in life that may have led them to meditation. This is to help them cope with the harder times and give them hope to work their way back to a better time in their life. The ladder represents the journey towards tranquility, closure and the state of having a clear mind. The light is the main focus on the ladder, it is placed at the top to represent a heavenly feel, or a sense of enlightenment. The placement of the ladder is so you couldn’t see the beginning or the end of it, this was supposed to make it appear never ending. The bottom of the ladder is not in focus and it’s much darker than the rest of the image to portray coming out of darkness and into the light. I made the color of the ladder a minty color using hints of green, yellow and blue. I did this so I could get a color that would give a calming feeling that relates to meditation.

While editing this image, I learned quite a lot about photoshop. I started off with simple corrections on the image, for example I color corrected some strange spots on the rocks and ladder. As well as changed other settings such as brightness and contrast to make the ladder pop, but not completely outcast the background. The most challenging aspect of the editing for me was making a very detailed selection of the ladder, it was very frustrating and time consuming. In doing this, it allowed me to add multiple photo filters to create a minty color that replaced the original color of the ladder. In my final step, I added extra light to the main focus at the top of the ladder. To produce my image, I used the conceptual statement of, “Exploring the feeling of hopefulness through meditation.” The ladder represents the journey towards tranquility and the state of having a clear mind. The light is the main focus on the ladder, as it is placed at the top to represent a heavenly feel, or a sense of enlightenment. The varying amounts of light on the ladder portray coming out of darkness and into the light.